Why Charities Struggle to Manage Online Donations on Their Websites, and How to Fix It?

Most charities today have a website - often well-designed, full of moving stories, and built with great intent. Yet when it comes to managing donations collected through those websites, many organisations run into the same problem: donations just don’t flow in the way they should, and the process behind managing them is anything but smooth.

The issue isn’t donor intent - it’s what happens after the donation is made. And that’s becoming a bigger issue as more giving moves online:

• 54% of donors worldwide prefer to give online using a credit or debit card.
• 45% of online donations were made on a mobile device in 2024. [M+R Benchmarks]

In other words, the volume of digital giving is rising, but many charities’ systems aren’t built to handle it efficiently.

Fragmented tools, disconnected systems, and limited integrations make it difficult for charities to manage, track, and act on donation information efficiently. The result? Lost insights, delayed communications, and missed opportunities for long-term donor relationships.

This article explores why charities struggle to build seamless donation ecosystems, and how better technology and data integration can finally change that.

1. We already use a donation plugin - why do we still struggle to manage donations?

For many small and mid-sized charities, WordPress and Wix are some go-to platforms; they’re affordable, easy to maintain, and come with donation plugins like Donorbox, GiveWP, and Charitable that promise “quick setup and instant online giving.”

At first glance, these tools do the job: a clean donation form, a few custom fields, and a payment gateway connection. But limitations occur when charities try to scale their fundraising or connect those donations to their CRM systems.

Here’s where things typically go wrong:

• No real-time CRM sync: Most plugins store donor information within the platform’s database, not the charity’s CRM. That means staff have to manually export and import CSV files, often days later, leaving gaps in donor records and follow-up emails.
  For instance, GiveWP integrates with CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot through paid extensions like WP Fusion or Zapier-based connections, which can be delayed or error-prone.
• Unorganised Donation Data Starts at the Form: Most generic online forms lack a clear data framework. They usually let you create a project and capture basic donor details like name, address, and email, but that information often ends up stored in disconnected or arbitrary ways.

For charities, however, a structured form setup is essential to keep back-end processes organised and efficient.

For example, if a donor sponsors an orphan, the donation form should ensure the Direct Debit mandate flows directly into the CRM and links automatically to the sponsored orphan’s record. This way, all future payments are tracked against that specific relationship, without manual updates or data cleanups.

Similarly, collecting Gift Aid declarations and consent preferences (such as email, SMS, or phone) should follow a structured and compliant process. With proper validation like verifying a postcode or last name for Gift Aid, and tight integration with the CRM, these preferences can be linked to the donor’s account automatically, reducing human error and admin effort.

• Limited reporting and segmentation: While donation plugins offer basic analytics, they don’t provide the depth of insights charities need, such as lifetime donor value, campaign attribution, or Gift Aid tracking. That forces fundraising teams to juggle between multiple spreadsheets and systems just to generate a single report.
  
  
• Campaign agility suffers: Launching a new winter appeal, sponsorship drive, or emergency campaign shouldn’t be a technically heavy job, but with plugin-based setups, even small design or logic changes (like adding a recurring-giving option or adjusting payment methods) often do. And charities end up waiting on web teams instead of responding to donors in real time.
  
  
• Data silos multiply: When donations live in one system, email campaigns in another, and CRM records somewhere else, it’s impossible to build a unified donor view.

The result? Fundraising teams can’t move fast, data becomes unreliable, and what should be a smooth donor journey turns into a technical maze.

A donation form shouldn’t be a static page; it should be a living part of your fundraising ecosystem, feeding real-time insights into your CRM, automating thank-you messages, and empowering fundraisers to act on data rather than chase it.

2. The silent impact of bad data on your charity’s fundraising”

Nothing slows a charity’s progress more than messy, unreliable data. Every incomplete donor record, duplicated entry, or typo in a Gift Aid declaration adds friction that compounds over time.

Research indicates 90% of spreadsheets contain errors, and that same problem spills into charity databases when donation data isn’t validated at the point of entry.

Without data validation:

• Duplicate records pile up in the CRM.
• Donor communication gets delayed or misdirected.
• Finance and fundraising reports become unreliable.
• Hours, sometimes days, are wasted each month cleaning data manually.

Clean data isn’t just an administrative goal: it’s a fundraising multiplier. When your CRM reflects accurate donor histories, you can personalise communications, improve retention, and build long-term value.

3. What happens when your charity website and CRM are not integrated?

Imagine a donor gives online, but their record doesn’t appear in your CRM until two days later. Or worse, the data lands in a spreadsheet that someone must upload manually. That’s a broken donor journey, and is unfortunately very common.

Without real-time website-CRM integration:

• Thank-you emails and tax receipts are delayed or missed.
• Donors give once but never hear back again.
• Reports are outdated, leaving teams blind to campaign performance.
• No one truly knows where donations came from, what inspired them or where they are!

A seamless integration ensures every donation triggers the right sequence: acknowledgment, stewardship, and tracking. Anything less is a missed opportunity.

4. How limited checkout experiences quietly cost charities donations?

Most donation plugins today, even popular ones like Donorbox or GiveWP, technically support one-time donations and even recurring giving, but that’s where the flexibility often ends. The real issue isn’t about frequency; it’s about functionality.

Many charities want to create richer giving experiences, where a donor can:

• Support multiple projects in one visit (e.g., £10 to a water appeal + £20 to a food drive).
• Make a tribute gift in memory of someone while also contributing to another cause.
• Manage all their contributions in a single, seamless checkout.

Unfortunately, many out-of-the-box donation tools don’t offer cart-style functionality, meaning donors can only make one donation at a time before being redirected to checkout. This not only interrupts the giving flow but also limits average donation values.

For charities running multiple campaigns simultaneously (Such as food appeals, sponsorships, or disaster response funds), this becomes a serious bottleneck. Instead of empowering donors to give across causes, the technology forces them to start over every time.

That limitation doesn’t just affect convenience; it affects fundraising potential. When your technology can’t handle multi-project giving, you’re not just missing a feature; you’re missing the chance to raise more and build deeper donor relationships.

5. Why donors walk away when payment security feels uncertain?

Charities sometimes underestimate how much trust affects online giving. 

Some charities process donations directly through their website without using a secure payment processor, which creates serious compliance and data risks.

For instance:

• Custom-coded donation forms: Some charities hire freelance developers to build custom donation forms that collect credit card information directly on their website. Instead of securely tokenizing payment data via compliant payment gateways like Stripe or PayPal, these forms store credit card details locally in their own databases before forwarding them to a processor. 

This violates PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance because sensitive card data is stored on their servers without appropriate encryption or safeguards. Such setups risk data breaches where hackers can steal credit card information, exposing donors and the charity to fraud and financial penalties.​

• Manual Bank Transfer Donations: Some smaller charities post their bank account details online and ask donors to transfer funds manually, but this approach poses serious risks. Without HTTPS encryption or verification steps, such pages are easy targets for phishing and spoof scams, a concern flagged by both the Charity Commission and Action Fraud UK. Beyond security, it also hurts credibility: donors may see it as unprofessional or unsafe. Manual transfers offer no automatic receipts, Gift Aid capture, or donor data, forcing teams to match payments manually and losing valuable insights for future engagement. In short, posting bank details publicly can erode donor trust, create compliance risks, and make donation management unnecessarily difficult.

• Legacy CMS payment integrations: Older charity websites running CMS platforms like Joomla or Drupal still use legacy payment plugins or modules. These plugins rely on unencrypted HTTP forms or outdated API connections that do not support modern PCI compliance or secure tokenization. For example, some might post credit card forms over HTTP instead of HTTPS or use deprecated processor APIs that expose raw card data. While these may still appear functional, they bypass vital data security protections, putting donor information at risk without visible warning signs.

The Checkout Usability study found that 19% users abandon the cart if they don't trust the website/ checkout form with their credit/ debit card details. Although the stats are regarding ecommerce websites, the checkout process is the same as used by charities for donation collection. Hence, using trusted processors (Stripe, PayPal, etc.) not only keeps you compliant but also reassures donors that their data and their gift are safe.

6. How do team silos make donation journeys weaker?

A charity’s website may look beautiful and its fundraising campaigns may be well-planned — but if the teams behind them aren’t working in sync, donation journeys often break down.

Here’s what happens in many organisations:

• Web teams focus on uptime, design, and user experience.
• Fundraising teams focus on conversions, messaging, and donor relationships.

When these teams operate separately, key opportunities fall through the cracks:

• Donation forms don’t align with campaign messaging.
• UX changes go live without testing their fundraising impact.
• Valuable donor data gets trapped in one department’s workflow.

The result? A donor journey that feels disjointed and under-optimised.
Even small changes, like updating a call-to-action or adjusting a checkout flow, can take weeks because no one truly “owns” the full process.

Breaking silos isn’t just about collaboration; it’s about creating a single, continuous line from campaign concept to conversion, where every team’s effort contributes to one goal: making it easier for supporters to give.

What does all this cost charities?

Here’s how these problems show up in the real world:

The impact of poor integration, bad data, and disjointed systems goes far beyond inconvenience; it directly drains resources.

An average UK charity spends £23K–£35K per year just covering hidden admin costs caused by poor digital integration. That’s a budget that could fund new programmes, campaigns, or staff, lost to inefficiency.

How Charities Can Fix These Issues

1. Adopt Donation Tools with Real-Time CRM Integration

Shift towards real-time integration that ensures every gift, form fill, or campaign response is automatically captured and reflected in donor profiles.

This enables charities to:

• Automate thank-you emails and tax receipts within seconds.
• Get updated real-time performance dashboards for active campaigns.
• A single, up-to-date source of truth accessible to fundraising, finance, and programs teams.

A charity using a Donation form + Automation connector + CRM might experience data sync delays of several hours. In contrast, N3O’s Engage CRM connects donation forms directly to donor records - no middleware, no lag. Every donation instantly updates the donor’s giving history and triggers automated communications.

2. Standardize Data Collection & Validation

Clean data in = clean data out. Opt for data standardization and validation to avoid duplicate records or incomplete data records. So that contact details become reliable, and reporting accuracy is maintained.

What to implement:

• Form validation: Use forms with validation (auto duplicate checks, email syntax, address verification). 
• Progressive profiling: Collect core data (name, email, donation amount) upfront, then ask for more later.

In Engage: Every online donation form runs real-time validation rules — flagging duplicates and verifying emails before they enter the CRM. This keeps your donor database clean and campaign-ready. 

3. Use Trusted Payment Gateways

Invest in secure payment processing platforms to gain donor trust - which is foundational for the non-profit sector.

Best practices:

• Use PCI-DSS–compliant providers such as Stripe, PayPal, or more.
• Offer multiple payment options: credit/debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, bank transfers, and local methods where possible.
• Ensure payments are embedded securely, and donors shouldn’t be redirected to third-party pages that feel disconnected from your brand.

In Engage, Donations are processed through integrated, secure gateways, keeping donors on your domain while ensuring full PCI compliance and instant CRM syncing.

4. Enable Advanced Giving Options

Modern donors expect flexibility; they want to give how and where it matters most to them. Yet many charity websites still limit supporters to a single one-time gift flow.

Expand your donation experience:

• Offer recurring giving as the default option.
• Support multi-cause giving (add multiple projects to one checkout).
• Enable tribute or memorial donations.
• Design campaign-specific pages with real-time progress indicators.
• Match technology to fundraising goals, not the other way around.

With Engage’s embeddable donation forms, supporters can select several campaigns in a single, highly functional checkout, mirroring the smooth experience of modern e-commerce.

5. Close the Gap Between Teams

Even the best technology won’t deliver results if teams operate in silos.
What works:

• Define shared KPIs between web, fundraising, and communications teams, such as conversion rate, donor retention, and average gift size.
• Hold joint reviews of your donation funnel using CRM and analytics dashboards.
• Implement collaborative tools (e.g., Slack or Notion) to keep campaigns agile.

In Engage, fundraising, donor, and finance teams can access the same live dashboards, seeing donor trends, campaign performance, and conversion metrics together in real time.

The Next Step for Charities: A Unified Giving Experience

The good news? N3O offers a purpose-built donation widget, addressing the unique challenges of nonprofit giving. Instead of patching plugins, charities can now adopt embeddable donation solutions that:

• Sync instantly with your CRM: every donation, donor, and campaign update flows in real time.
• Validate data automatically: no more duplicates, typos, or missing details.
• Support diverse giving types: from recurring donations to sponsorships and tributes.
• Keep payments secure: PCI-compliant by default, with trusted gateways built in.
• And much more.

This means charities can focus less on fixing data and tech fragmentation, and more on what matters most: building lasting donor relationships. 

With solutions like Engage CRM, charities get a complete ecosystem for non-profits not just a donation tool. It brings together donations, sponsorships, communications, and analytics in one place, so teams can focus on growing impact, not fixing tech.