Donation page setup

A donation page is a standalone, full-page donation form hosted by GiveForms. It's the highest-converting surface in the product and the default choice for most campaigns. This article covers when to use one, what you'll need before you start, and how the editor is organized.

Donation page or donation popup?

Donation pages convert about 60% higher than donation popups. That's the single biggest reason to default to a donation page — the conversion lift compounds across every campaign.

Donation pages are also easier to share. The page has its own URL you can drop into email, social posts, paid ads, or QR codes. Popups have to be embedded on a website you control, which requires installing a JavaScript snippet — added technical complexity that donation pages avoid entirely.

Use a donation popup when you can't have the visitor leave your website — for example, when fundraising messaging is woven into the flow of your homepage or a campaign landing page, and breaking that flow would hurt the experience. In every other case, use a donation page.

Before you begin

Three things to have in place:

• Connecting Stripe — required to accept donations.
• Connecting PayPal — optional but recommended, since roughly 10% of donations come through PayPal.
• Your donor portal must be published. Recurring donors need it to manage their plans.

The donation page editor

The editor opens with a preview of your form taking the full width of the workspace. The preview reflects your live design but isn't interactive — you can't actually submit a donation from it. To submit, use preview mode (covered in Test transactions).

You configure the form in two ways:

• Tabs on the left sidebar for the four surfaces of the donation experience: Donation Form, Exit Popup, Receipt Page, and Form Features. A Form Settings tab covers page-level configuration like the URL slug, social preview, and SEO.
• Click directly on the form preview to open the editing panel for that section. The header, donation settings, personal info, and payment settings all open this way. Dedications and designations open this way too — but only if they've been enabled under Form Features, since they don't appear on the form otherwise.

Clicking either way opens an editing panel on the right side of the editor. The panel can be closed when you're not actively editing — useful for seeing the right edge of the form preview, which the panel can otherwise cover.

The breakpoint switcher at the top of the editor lets you preview the form at five widths: Wide Desktop, Desktop, Tablet, Mobile Landscape, and Mobile Portrait. Most edits apply across all breakpoints. Image cropping is the exception — photos can be cropped and repositioned per breakpoint so the focal point stays right on every screen size.

The top bar also shows the current Status of the page (Draft, Live, or Live with unpublished changes) and houses the Save Draft and Publish buttons.

What you'll configure

A donation page has a lot of surface area. Each section below has its own focused guide:

• Header — logo, headline, subheadline
• Photo — the cover photo, per-breakpoint cropping
• Donation frequencies — one-time, monthly, yearly, and the Monthly Suggestion Text
• Donation amounts — preset amounts, default, minimum, descriptions
• Currencies and payment methods — default currency, auto-switching, which methods to enable
• Fee coverage
• Personal information — which fields to require, email and SMS disclaimers
• Exit popup — catch visitors trying to leave without donating
• Receipt page — post-donation content donors see after giving
• Monthly upsell — when one-time donors are prompted to recur
• Dedications — in honor of, in memory of, dedication emails, cards
• Designations — letting donors direct gifts to specific programs
• Footer — trust badges, contact info, legal links
• SEO and social preview — page title, meta description, URL slug, social preview image, favicon
• Tracking and conversion events — Google Analytics, GTM, conversion pixels
• Test transactions
• Drafts and publishing