PayPal Donate Button | How To Implement It On A Website

By implementing a PayPal Donate Button on your site, you can start accepting donations from those loyal readers right away. In this guide, I am about to teach you everything that you’ll need to know. For instance, how to make a new donation page and choose how donors get there — via a link and QR code or with a button on your website. Sounds just great, right?

So, as I’ve just mentioned, there are several ways that you can utilize in order to start receiving donations from your web readers. Including the unique HTML Code implementation method, QR Code, a sharable URL link, etc. By adding a donate button to your site, you’ll also start to accept donations quickly. At this point, you should’ve already opened a PayPal Business Account too.

That said, if you need a quick way to accept donations on your website, we’ll walk through the process from start to finish. Notwithstanding, the average donor is not an expert on internet privacy and security. But, people are starting to pay more attention to this issue.

Learn Also: How To Withdraw Funds From PayPal Via Equity Bank Withdraw Service

So, building donor trust is paramount to retaining those donors long-term. Particularly, now that they are putting their data and personal information out there using your PayPal donate button. And now, let’s learn more about how to Implement a PayPal Donate Button for your website.

What Is PayPal Donate Button?

Whether it’s non-profit or for-profit, a PayPal Donate Button is a web development and assistant tool that makes it easy for people to support your business with donations. You just need to set up a shareable donation link that’s hosted by PayPal. Meaning, you don’t even need a website or do any coding. You don’t necessarily need a PayPal Business account to start.

Simply, because you can just use a personal account to create a donation page. But, you won’t be able to make updates to your page after creation. Meaning, you’ll need to get more features and customization options when you sign up for a PayPal Business account for that matter.

With your unique button, you’ll go where your donors are. Whereby, you’ll just accept donations securely via a button on your website, a link on social, or even a QR code at events. Start securely accepting donations online with the PayPal Donate button. Below are a few more features to look out for as well.

Consider the following:

• Set up in minutes: PayPal will host your page and process all the donations — no technical skills required.
• Customize your experience: Easily add a logo and imagery to your donation page to showcase your brand.
• Keep your costs down: No setup or cancellation fees. Eligible charities can get lower transaction rates on donations.
• Easy payments: Donors can use any major credit or debit card, so an account with PayPal is not needful.

But, wait a minute; what kind of fees will I be charged? Well, they offer consistently lower rates for eligible charities. Keeping in mind, transactions rates do apply too. On that note, just visit the consumer fees or merchant fees page for more details. And, above all, there are no fees for setup, cancellation, or withdrawals. You can also learn more about fees in detail.

Easier donations are right around the corner. Let donations post to your organization’s bank account usually within minutes. On one side, if you already have a website, you can quickly add a button to accept donations or contributions. You only pay a low transaction fee when donors contribute to your organization.

Get Started: PayPal Zettle | Introducing A New Point Of Sale System

On the other side, if you’re registered as a 501(c)(3) public charity or similar organization, you may be eligible to confirm your PayPal Business account as a charity. Charity accounts benefit from paying reduced PayPal fees. Including any payments made through the Donation button.

Just follow our simple instructions below on how to set up your business, or organization’s PayPal donate button. Or even, for a deeper dive, you can see a sample button code that’s live. Without further ado, let’s now dive in.

Setup Your Donation Button

Before I forget, here’s what you’ll need to complete the steps below:

• Your PayPal Business account username and password
• Access to your website’s HTML code

Step #1: HTML Button Instructions

1. Log into your PayPal Business account.
2. Click Tools at the top of the page, and then click the PayPal buttons.
3. Select the Donate button.
4. Enter the item name and price. You can also customize the button with additional features. Click Create Button.
5. Click Select Code to select the button code.
6. Copy and paste the button code into your own web page code where you want the button to appear. Repeat the above process for every page where you want to add a button.
7. This new button will appear on the “My Saved Buttons” page if you’d like to edit it at any point.

As a next step, you can confirm your PayPal Business account as a charity, and then enroll in PayPal Giving Fund. Charities enrolled in the PayPal Giving Fund can receive donations through PayPal fundraising or donation programs run by our partners.

When you’re ready, you can also: 

• Create and send invoices
• Create a link you can share in email, text message, or social media channels

That’s it! To this point, any pro webmaster can now accept donations on their website. But, in order for beginners to be fully acquainted, we’ll boil down everything in the next set of instructions.

NOTE: If your website is hosted by an ecommerce platform – like BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify, or others – you may be able to add a new Donate button from your site’s administration console. Meaning, you can just skip the steps above.

Step #2: Customize Your Donate Button Page

• Make your page as unique as your cause.
• Your donation button, QR code, or link will take donors to this page.
• Upload to display your company logo
• Add an image to your donation page if necessary

Although optional, you can also decide to add an inspiring message to your donation page. Why? Obviously, because a compelling story helps donors understand your cause. Therefore, make sure that you share a bit about what you’re raising money for and why it matters (i.e. state your purpose).

Step #3: Add An Image & Customize Your Details

High-quality pictures help donors understand why this cause matters to you and can inspire them to help. Below are some tips on choosing a great image.

• Make sure your image is well-lit and clear.
• Choose an image that shows your cause in a positive light and inspires donors to take action.
• The recommended image size is 1200 pixels wide x 800 pixels high.

Once you are done, the next thing is to check for your PayPal Donate Button Preview on the right side window panel. And once you are fully satisfied, you can hit the ‘Continue’ button in order to proceed. As you can see, below is a sample donation button preview as of the jmexclusives page:

The next step is to customize your donation details as we’ll showcase. In this stage, you can now set donation amounts, programs the donation can benefit from, and other options for your donors. In most cases, your donors will have options to make one-time donations — that’s if they input the amount or select from your predefined list ($30, $50, $50, etc.).

Personally, out of the experience, I recommend that you leave the options open. For your donors to input their desired values. Simply because you may either under quote or even over quote — you’ll get less or turn them away. Donors can donate in any currency. In the case of applicable countries, it’ll then be converted to your preferred currency.

How much do you want donors to give?

• Any amount
• An exact amount
• Suggest 3 amounts, plus “other”

Set amounts that will appeal to your donors. They’ll also have the option to donate any amount they want. In addition, you can let donors make monthly recurring donations. And, as such, give donors the option to increase their donation amount to help offset the cost of fees.

PayPal suggests this for donors; ‘I’d like to add to my donation to help offset the cost of processing fees.’ You can also specify to let donors choose a program for their donations. In our case, we can consider a selection of 7 key items about what we do.

Consider the following:

1. Free Content Creation
2. Digital Online Consultancy
3. Career Courses Training
4. Digital Online Marketing
5. Cloud Computing Technology
6. Website Security Solutions
7. Associate Affiliate Programs

As of the time of writing this guide, there are at most 10 selections to consider. But, make sure that you choose as wisely and carefully as you can. You don’t want your donors to feel agitated just by looking at your list. If need be, leave them out altogether.

Step #4: Setup Your Payment Checkout Page

Let donors choose what to share with you and where they’ll go after they finish donating.

Email Address: Get donors’ mailing addresses. Donors have the option to not share their addresses with you. You can only use donor addresses in accordance with PayPal’s Privacy Policy if I may add. For example, to a donor; ‘Share your mailing address with jmexclusives so they can acknowledge your donation.’

Optional Note: Let donors send you an optional note with their donation. This lets donors share things like a dedication or instructions for how they want their donation used. You can consider writing ‘Personalized Instructions’ in the blank space to address your donors. However, personalized instructions won’t be translated. So, stick to a common inter-language like Eng.

Call To Action: Take donors back to your website. This takes donors to your website or social media page when they finish their donation or cancel.

Some CTAs to consider include:

• • First, take donors to this URL (Homepage) if they cancel a donation before completing it
  • Secondly, take donors to this URL (Blog) once they complete the donation as well

Next, you can also add extra HTML button variables (only if need be). HTML variables control how PayPal responds when people select your donation button. They also control how your buttons interact with special PayPal features. This option requires more technical knowledge. And now, it’s time you hit that ‘Finish’ button.

Hurray! That’s it! You are now all set with your PayPal Donate Button creation as simple as that. Your PayPal Donate Button Preview will look something like this:

Next, it’s time to customize your PayPal Donate Button within your dashboard. Eventually, you’ll get a unique code to put on your website, plus a link and QR code to share far and wide.

• QR Code: As shown above, you can use your QR Code for events, in-person fundraisers, printed materials, etc.
• Shareable Link: Your shareable PayPal URL link allows for sharing on social media, blogs, emails & other donors source.

Lastly, you’ll get a notification on the next page from the PayPal development team. Indicating that your donation page is now fully active and is ready for you to share. In that case, just go to saved donation pages to see your good results. In order to customize your button successfully to your site, there are a few more useful tips to follow.

Consider the following:

• What do you want your button to look like?
  • From Button Size, Country/Region, Language, Acceptable Card Logs, etc.
• Do you want to customize your own button style?
  • If yes, you’ll need to use your own image design
• How do you want to display your donation page?
  • Full Page Experience:
    You’ll get an HTML code that you can paste on your website. When donors click on your button, a new page will open.
  • Pop-up Page Experience:
    This option requires Javascript knowledge. The donation page will appear as a pop-up window on your website.

As soon as you are all set, you can now generate your HTML Button Code it looks something like this:

---

<div id="donate-button-container">
<div id="donate-button"></div>
<script src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/donate/sdk/donate-sdk.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>
<script>
PayPal.Donation.Button({
env:'production',
hosted_button_id:'283WUA2XPVSU2',
image: {
src:'https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif',
alt:'Donate with PayPal button',
title:'PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!',
}
}).render('#donate-button');
</script>
</div>

---

Step #5: HTML Donate Button Code Setup

Basically, for you to successfully implement your HTML code on your preferred site location, you’ll have to do a few things. In the first place, copy the entire code as it’s the case above. And then, thereafter, paste this code onto your website as follows:

1. Copy the HTML code to the clipboard
2. In your HTML editor, access the HTML code for the page where you want the button to appear
3. Paste the code from the clipboard into the HTML page code so that the button appears where you want it
4. Save the changes to the HTML file and publish it to your website.
5. Check the page in a web browser to see that the button is in the right place.
6. Click to make sure it links to your PayPal payments page.

If successfully done, the code will now direct your donors to your preferred PayPal Donate Button Page as it’s the case for the jmexclusives donation button as such. But, in order to be precisely sure, you can make a test donation, if you wish. There are more options on the right sidebar for you to mess around with.

Consider the following:

• Edit: If you want to make new changes to your PayPal Donate Button variables
• Preview: Showcase how your button page outlooks to your potential donors
• Duplicate: If you don’t want to mess with what you just create, this is what you need to work as a dummy
• Delete: If in any way you get tired of your sample HTML button code, this is where you can say bye-bye

With that in mind, you may also ask yourself; how is PayPal set up on your website? Well, through the use of a variety of PayPal API Credentials, especially, for advanced webmasters. As an example, let’s consider how your payment API credentials work.

Related Read: 12 Best WordPress Donation and Fundraising Plugins

To accept PayPal payments on your website, you or your developer will need API credentials. The API (Application Programming Interface) allows PayPal to communicate with your online store or shopping cart. You can also check what the My Apps & Credentials entail.

In short, you can log in to the Dashboard to create, edit, and manage PayPal apps. PayPal apps give you sandbox and live credentials that you use to make API calls, build, and test integrations. That said, let’s elaborate on PayPal APIs in detail.

Consider These PayPal APIs:

API Call: Specific API services that allow you to make payments, refund payments, search or view transaction data, and more.

API Signature: A PayPal-generated unique digital signature, such as a line of text or hash marks, that you copy from the PayPal website and use with your API username and password when making a call. An alternative to the digital signature is the API certificate; if you’re developing a custom solution with PayPal APIs, we recommend this option.

API Certificate: A file that you download from the PayPal website. The API certificate, an alternative to an API signature, is used with your API username and password when you make API calls. The API certificate is a text file that must be readable by your application each time an API call is made.

API Username & Password: A PayPal-generated name and password that identify you when you make API calls. The API username and password are different from your PayPal login username (email address) and password.

API Three-Token Authentication: Your API signature, API username, and API password together are called three-token authentication.

Other Setup Tools Include:

Pre-built Payment Solution: It’s most communicable through a shopping cart provider. More so, if you’re using or plan to use a 3rd-party platform. Such as Magento or Shopify, for shopping carts and online stores where the PayPal payment processor is built-in. Learn more about how to Grant API permission, or Manage API permission in detail.

Custom Checkout Experience: This is more of a Braintree SDK integration. The Braintree SDK is powered by Braintree, a PayPal service. These easy-to-integrate SDKs allow you to accept payments via PayPal on your website and native mobile apps. You can learn more about how to Manage SDK Credentials in detail.

NVP/SOAP API integration (Classic): You or your developer integrated NVP/SOAP (or “Classic”) APIs that allow you to accept payments via PayPal. Perse, you can learn more about how to Manage API credentials in detail.

By all means, it’s very important that you also know when or how to accept or block payments from your online stores before setting up APIs. To begin using APIs, you first need to accept or block payments from your stores. If you’re not sure about setting up APIs, ask your shopping cart provider or website developer. Or rather learn how to Manage PayPal checkout settings in detail.

Mind you, when was the last time your nonprofit read PayPal’s User Agreement? What about their Privacy Statement? If you’re like most people, you probably breezed right past that and agreed to the terms without doing any digging at all. It’s good that you head on and read to learn more in detail.

PayPal Donate Button Alternative Tool

Generally speaking, there’s an alternative tool that I’d recommend to you besides using PayPal Donate Button for your donation campaigns. Mightycause is your best bet. It’s built for nonprofits, by people who understand what nonprofits need in order to function. And they’re continually increasing the number of tools they offer to support nonprofits and help them grow.

Here’s what they offer:

• Comprehensive donation reports
• Donor retention reports
• Offline donation tracking
• Recurring donation reports
• Advanced analytics (for Advanced subscribers)

And that’s all in addition to their fundraising tools like peer-to-peer fundraising, teams, and events — to help you engage new donors in your cause. Additionally, they also issue tax receipts to donors too. Whilst, allowing you to create custom thank-you pages, and automate thank-you emails to donors.

Their Resource Links:

• Giving Days
• Fundraising Tips
• Fundraising Ideas
• Team & Event Fundraising
• Fundraising Strategy
• Guest Posts

Having said that, just in case you want to ditch the PayPal donate button, you can swiftly turn to Mightycause. All you’ll need to do is Signup For Mightycause — for better value, lower fees, and more fundraising tools to support your growing nonprofit.

Start Using Fundraising Quotes For More Results!

Surely, do you need to boost motivation at your fundraiser? Or are you just looking for a bit of inspiration to add to your event flyer? Everyone has seen quotes by famous people, but these original and unique quotes can make you stand out.

In general, Fundraising Quotes allow you to inspire others (donors) in terms of giving. Not only that, but they can also be fun. However, you don’t need to just stick to these quotes. Instead, you should use them as a jumping-off point. That’s if you want to create your own inspiration for your charity efforts.

One thing is for sure, fundraising quotes are great and all! But, wait a minute; how do you use them effectively and successfully? Of course, since they are meant to inspire giving, you want your donors to see them at all costs.

Therefore, you can;

• Add a fundraising quote to an event flyer
• Create inspirational posters and put them around the building
• Post motivational quotes to fundraising websites and social media
• Use them to inspire more giving in donors at special events
• Add them to a thank you card

The fact is that there are a plethora of different ways unique fundraising quotes can come in handy. Thus, in addition to the list above, if you don’t mind, you share with us some more ideas.

Additional Reading:

1. Words To Thank Volunteers
2. Volunteer Appreciation Quotes
3. Creative Donation Jar Ideas To Encourage Giving
4. Creative Volunteer Appreciation and Recognition Ideas

In reality, it isn’t just those that donate that need a little inspiration to get them jazzed. Rather, it’s the people working at the fundraiser too. With that in mind, you can use some motivational fundraising quotes as listed by www.charity.lovetoknow.com today. More so, in order to inspire your crew to get those donations.

Bearing in mind, part of the fun of fundraising is to get your donors ready to pump and give. As such, keep your crew and donors jazzed about the charity by utilizing the motivational fundraising quotes on the link above. Furthermore, sharing a few keywords can be just the boost your efforts need to meet your goals.

Related Topics:

1. Online Store | 9 Simple Steps to Start Selling your Products
2. Ecommerce Business Models | 10 Best Hybrid Store Picks
3. BigCommerce | 5 Reasons Why Its Your Best Store Builder
4. Shopify | The No #1 Website Design Tool For Online Stores
5. WooCommerce | Why Is It The Best eCommerce Platform?

Finally, what’s your take about the PayPal Donate Button installation guide above? Well, your feedback is really very important to us as well as the PayPal development team alike. How easy or difficult was it to make a donate button? Is it very easy, easy, not easy/not difficult, difficult, or very difficult?

Well, feel free to air out your opinion thoughts, suggestions, contributions, recommendations, or even more related questions in our comments section. However, if you’ll need more help, you can Consult Us and let us know how we can sort you. But, all in all, don’t forget to Donate to our cause for support/motivation to what we do.