How to Use Cart66 Cloud to Accept Recurring Donations
While there may be no direct feature to collect donations in Cart66 Cloud, it is definitely possible and very easy. In this tutorial we will outline the things you can do with Cart66 to collect donations that recur and then show you exactly how to set it all up in 7 very simple steps.
Creating the Donation Products
There are several ways to collect donations. Some users like to enter their own amount, some like to choose from a set list of amounts and then some like both options with the ability to make those amounts recur each week, month or year (as outlined in this tutorial). The latter is very easy in Cart66 Cloud and it is a great way to get a lot of value out of the application. Other carts will charge an arm and a leg to collect donations on a recurring basis. Or you would need a handful of extensions all at the cost of only $99 a year for each one… It definitely adds up.
In this article, we will cover setting up a simple donation product where the customer can donate an amount that recurs. This is a great way for companies to collect recurring donations which will help increase the overall revenue from donations. While you can do this with preset amounts or User-Defined Pricing, we're going to keep it simple and show you how to do this with User-Defined Pricing. Its basically the same steps either way, sans setting up the variations for the preset option.
Step 1: Login to your Cart66 Cloud Dashboard and navigate to the Products tab to the lower left.
Step 2: Click the +Add Product button in the top right hand corner of the Dashboard.
Step 3: Enter a product name. I like to use "Donation Product (recurring)” or the like for this since we are using User-Defined Pricing but you can all it whatever you wish. Same for the SKU. Use whatever works best for you but be sure to use something that make sense and is cohesive with the product name. We’ll use “donate_recur” for the SKU in this example.
Also, I like to add some custom text for the button since we know users are going to ONLY donate with this product. Give Now and Each Month would be a good action word to use for this and probably help with conversions. It will also serve as a reminder that this will recur. Be sure to denote that on your donation page so customers don't accidentally sign up for a subscription when they just wanted to make a one time donation.
Note: You will not need to fill out any other fields on this page unless you want to create some custom Receipt Text which is certainly a great way to thank your users for donating, cross market other ways to give or suggest other ways they can help your cause.
Step 4: Click on the User-Defined Pricing Tab > Click the big green button there to enable User-Defined Pricing. That will result in the below:
I set the default and minimum price to $1, but it can be set to whatever amount you wish as long as it is set to $1 or more. Note: a price of $1 or more is required to create a subscription or you will get an error as subscriptions can not be free.
Click Save.
Next, let's make this a subscription product so it recurs each month. Click on the Subscription tab.
You can set up a subscription to recur in many ways. Generally speaking, the default option is a pretty great start. It will recur once a month for as long as the customer lets it recur. You can do this in weeks or months and you can even collect an initial payment if desired. Click Enable Subscription and and you are now done with adding the product to the Cloud so it’s off to WordPress we go!
Adding a User-Defined Product to Your WordPress Site
For this example we will assume you already have a donation page or the like. If not, now is a good time to create that page in WordPress, detail where the donation goes and how people can help.
Step 5: Navigate to your page in WordPress that you are using to sell donations. Right above the text editor you will see a button that reads Cart66 Product.
Step 6: Click that button and it will pull up a search feature where you will need to type in the first few letters (or any) of the product you just created and click Insert Product. It’s preference, but I like to uncheck Show Quantity Field but you must check Show Product Price.
Note: Because this is a user-defined price product, you MUST check the box to Show Product Price or it will not display correctly.
Once you click Insert Product, that will insert the product we just created in the Cloud, into your WordPress page.
Step 7: Go ahead and click Publish or Update (if already published) in the upper right hand corner of the page or post you are on and save the page.
That will result in the text field showing and the custom button we created showing on the page like so:
Congratulations! You have now created a donation product where users can enter the amount they wish to give AND it recurs on the basis you have defined. It is inserted into your WordPress site so users can start donating now in just 7 easy steps. This should take about 3 minutes or less!
Note: Buy Now links are a great way to send a way via email for customers to make a purchase. But because they need to enter an actual amount when using User-Defined Pricing, the buy now links are not going to work at all.
Here are a few other donation tutorials that you may find useful: