Description
HLX Donate adds a clean, single-page donation form to any post or page via the [hlx_donate] shortcode. Donors pick an amount, fill in their details, and (if WooCommerce is active) are sent through your normal WooCommerce checkout to pay with whatever gateway you already have configured — Razorpay, Stripe, PayPal, or any other WooCommerce-compatible processor.
Core features
- One-page donation form, no page reload — quick amount pills, custom amount, one-time/monthly frequency
- WooCommerce checkout integration for real payment collection — requires WooCommerce and a configured payment gateway
- Automatic PDF donation certificate emailed to every donor, no external PDF library required
- Certificate email delivery log, viewable from the admin dashboard
- Donations list and analytics dashboard (today/this month/total raised, top donors, last 7 days)
- Monthly donor reminder emails, sent automatically ~30 days after a monthly donation
- Configurable FAQ section and “where funds go” allocation breakdown shown on the form
- Optional social sharing icons (WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn)
- Fully theme-able button color, currency symbol, and copy from the Settings screen
Roadmap
Planned for future releases: direct payment gateway integration without requiring WooCommerce, recurring/subscription billing, campaign goal progress bars, and CSV export of donor data. If you’d like to see a specific feature prioritized, please open a topic in the support forum.
Installation
- Upload the plugin files to
/wp-content/plugins/hlx-donate, or install the plugin through the WordPress Plugins screen directly. - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress.
- Go to HLX Donate Settings to configure the form title, currency, amounts, and button color.
- Go to HLX Donate Email to set the “From” address/name and send yourself a test certificate email.
- Add the
[hlx_donate]shortcode to any page or post. - Install and activate WooCommerce with a payment gateway (Razorpay, Stripe, PayPal, etc.) configured — required to collect donations. HLX Donate automatically creates a hidden “Donation” product once WooCommerce is active, no extra setup needed.
FAQ
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Do I need WooCommerce?
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Yes. HLX Donate requires WooCommerce (with a payment gateway configured) to actually collect a donation. If WooCommerce isn’t active, the donation form shows an “unavailable” notice instead of accepting submissions — this is intentional, so no donation is ever recorded or certificated without a real payment going through.
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Does this plugin require an external PDF library?
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No. Certificates are generated with a small built-in PDF writer — no Composer dependencies or third-party services involved.
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Where are certificate PDFs stored?
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Nowhere. As of 1.2.2 the certificate is generated in memory and attached directly to the outgoing email — it is never written to your uploads folder or any other public directory, so there is no file for anyone to guess the URL of.
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How do I change the currency symbol?
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HLX Donate Settings General Currency Symbol. This is a display symbol only; actual payment currency (when using WooCommerce) is controlled by your WooCommerce settings.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“HLX Donate” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “HLX Donate” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.2.2
- Security: donation certificate PDFs are now attached to the email in-memory instead of being briefly written to the uploads folder — removes a predictable-filename exposure window that relied on
.htaccess(which offers no protection on Nginx hosts)
1.2.1
- FAQ section is now collapsed behind a “Frequently Asked Questions” toggle instead of always showing every question — keeps the donation page compact now that it sits inside the theme’s normal layout
1.2.0
- Funds allocation categories can now have an optional link — if set, clicking that category on the donation form opens the link in a new tab; if left blank, it stays a plain informational row, same as before
- Fixed several admin settings descriptions that were left in mixed Hindi/English text — all plugin text is now English
1.1.0
- Admin pages now use the full available page width instead of being capped at a fixed 1200px
- Removed the theme-guessing “fullpage” hack on the frontend donation form (it hid site header/footer/sidebar by guessing CSS class names, and used a hardcoded header-height offset). The form now renders inside the theme’s normal layout as a self-contained card — works correctly on any theme, no more header overlap
- Fixed a race condition where a donor could receive the certificate email twice for the same order
- Added database indexes for donor email, status, and date lookups — keeps the Analytics dashboard and monthly reminders fast as donation volume grows
1.0.2
- Donations without an active WooCommerce + payment gateway are now blocked with a clear message, instead of being recorded as “completed” and certificated without any payment actually being collected
1.0.1
- Added WooCommerce HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) compatibility declaration
- Removed in-dashboard “Premium” marketing tab
1.0.0
- Initial release