An online donation page that earns trust before it asks
People give when they know who you are, what their money will do and that the payment is safe. A donation page should answer those three in order, then make giving one tap. Anticode can build that page and point its button at your PayPal or Stripe link; recurring gifts, receipts and tax schemes stay with your payment provider or a donation platform.
What builds trust on a donation page
- Who you are, exactly. Your organisation's full name, where you're based, and a registration number if you're a registered charity. People check.
- Where the money goes. Concrete and specific: "Every Saturday we cook for around sixty people at St Anne's hall; food and gas for one session is the biggest cost." Avoid percentages you can't support.
- Real people and real pictures. Photos of your volunteers and work, with permission from anyone identifiable.
- How to reach you. A contact form or address, and a named person responsible.
- Where the payment happens. Say plainly that donations are taken by PayPal or Stripe, so the move to their page isn't a surprise.
Suggested amounts
Suggested amounts help people decide, especially when each is tied to something tangible: "buys a week of fresh bread". Three options and an "other amount" are usually enough. Anticode sites take payment through one payment link per account, so every donate button opens the same checkout. Write the suggested amounts on the page and set the link up at your provider either to let the donor type a figure or to offer your amounts as options; whether that's possible, and how, depends on your provider, so check its settings before you design the page around it.
How the money is taken
Anticode doesn't process payments on the page. Every donate button points at the one checkout link from your own account with a provider: Stripe Payment Links, PayPal, or others such as Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad, Shopify or Whop. The donor pays on the provider's page; the money goes to your account; the provider sends its own payment confirmation.
| Task | Who handles it |
|---|---|
| The page, the story, the buttons | Anticode |
| Taking the card or PayPal payment | Your provider |
| Payment confirmation email | Your provider |
| Monthly or recurring gifts | Your provider, if it supports subscriptions; otherwise a donation platform |
| Tax-relief declarations and claims | You, with your provider or a donation platform |
| Thank-you letters and donor records | You |
Tax relief and receipts
Rules differ by country, and Anticode handles none of them. In the UK, for instance, a charity can claim Gift Aid on a donation only if the donor has made a Gift Aid declaration for that charity, and the charity makes the claim. A payment link doesn't collect that declaration for you. If tax relief matters to your income, use a donation platform built to collect declarations and issue receipts, and link to it from the page Anticode builds.
Building it with Anticode
As a donation page builder, Anticode works from a description such as "a donation page for Hartley Community Kitchen, a registered charity in Leeds that cooks Saturday meals; three suggested amounts and a donate button to our PayPal link". The Architect plans the page and may ask how formal it should feel. Organic (Figtree) suits local community groups; Editorial (Geist) suits campaigns with a lot of story to tell.
Create the link in your provider first, then include it in the request or add it afterwards. Make a small test gift through it and refund it, to check each amount option lands in the right account. For monthly gifts alongside one-off ones, send donors to a donation platform or your provider's subscription page from the text. The small charity donations workflow has a fuller checklist, and the nonprofits guide covers the rest of a charity's site.
What's missing, and what to use instead
- No recurring gifts built in. Use a provider link that sets up a subscription, or a donation platform.
- No tax receipts or Gift Aid. Use a platform that collects declarations if you rely on them.
- No donor database. Gifts are recorded in your provider's dashboard, not Anticode's; export from there.
- No progress bar or live total. Pages carry no scripts and don't read your provider's data. Update a written total by hand if you show one.
- No on-page payment form. Every gift completes on the provider's checkout.
Questions people ask
Can I add a PayPal donate button?
Yes, as a link. Create the button or payment link in PayPal, copy its link and point the page's donate button at it.
Is a donation page on Anticode right for a large charity?
For the story and the ask, it can be. For regular giving, tax relief and donor management at scale, a dedicated fundraising platform is the better fit, with your site linking to it.
Can I collect a message from donors?
Through a separate contact form on the page, yes. The payment and the message aren't linked, so ask donors to mention their name if they want a reply.