How to put a donate button on your Tumblr, blog, or website
2011 February 17
thanks Ignacio Conejo & Javier Volcan!
No matter what kind of website you have, you should put a “donate” button on it! I find myself reading blogs every day that I wish had a simple way to donate to. You never know when you might write a post that really strikes a chord with someone, leaving them wanting to compensate you financially! Here’s how to get the money flowing into your bank account.
Using PayPal is easy!
- Get a PayPal account and select the “Business” type.
- If you already have a PayPal account, convert your account to a business account.
- Go to Merchant Services and click “Donate” under Create Buttons.
- Fill out your organization (just use your name or your blog’s name) and customize the button all you want. You can uncheck “Do you need your customer’s shipping address?”
- Click “Create Button” and copy the provided code.
Paypal provides two bits of code: one to embed the button on your site, and one to link text like this (click the “Email” tab), so you can make a hyperlink instead of using their button. Here’s what to do on your site:
On Tumblr
- Go to your site, then click “customize”.
- Click “Theme” then “Use custom HTML”. Copy and paste the code there into a plain text document in case you screw up when pasting in your code!
- Find a place to paste in your code, somewhere after the
</body>tag. I put mine right after the</header>tag. You can also paste the hyperlink code into an individual post.
On self-hosted WordPress
- Go to your “Widgets”, which adds things to your sidebar.
- Drag a new “text” widget into the widget area, then paste in your PayPal button code. Click save and you’re done!
On WordPress.com
Sadly they won’t let you paste in PayPal buttons! If you like WordPress and want donations, your best bet is to get self-hosted! ETA: I just realized you can use the donation button hyperlink (example here) provided under the “Email” tab, you could even make your own button and link it!
On Blogger.com
Blogger lets you do this easily! You can either embed the code in a post (HTML view) or go to “Design”, then “Add Gadget”, then add “HTML/Javascript” and paste it on in! Your button will show up in your sidebar (see my example here).
Don’t forget to write a little something before or after your pasted in code to encourage donations! Something sweet and simple should do the trick, like “If you like this site, please consider a small donation!” Get creative and see what people respond to best!
If you’d like to know how to put a donate button on a different kind of website, just ask in the comments!
Pro tip!
To get the donations flowing, start “practicing the feeling” of receiving donations. What will it feel like when you check your email and find a donation from a loving reader? Visualize the moment and really feel the thrill. The more you practice, the more you will attract experiences that produce the same feeling, and the more abundance you will receive!
Added to my site…. took practically no time at all! Thanks for the prompt, Jessica!
YAY that is awesome! So glad it was easy!
After a while of wanting to do this, I finally did! It was incredibly easy too.
Thanks Jessica!
Woo great news Amanda! So glad it was easy for you!
Thank you so much for this… are you able to tell me if it’s possible to do the same with a ‘Buy Now’ button on tumblr? I’d like to put one on a page not a post…. cheers, sian.
Hi Sian, yes you can just choose a “Buy now” button on the paypal options page instead of “Donate”. The process is exactly the same. Then you just paste the paypal code into your tumblr site template code.
I am super excited, I used some hacky skillz (not terribly hacky, more like stuff-I-learned-teaching-myself-HTML-in-1998 hacky, but still) to get a “donation button” on my free WordPress blog.
Taking your cue that you can put a hyperlink up, I went ahead and set up a donation page on http://www.torushoops.com, since that site is paid for. Then I snatched the image of the recognizable Donate button and uploaded it to Flickr. Flickr must already know of this “hacK” because it wouldn’t give me the source code for the image, so I searched the page source until I found it, then hyperlinked the image to the donate page on my paid site.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I feel like a master of teh intarwebs!!!
LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was VERY helpful, thank you!!
How do you put a donation button on Posterous in the header and how do I do the same for my tumblr blog. So that when people scroll down the button remains in place.
Thanks for the tips!
We created our own image for our PayPal donate button on our site at http://www.nighttimebrothers.blogspot.com to seek donations to work on our projects. Fingers crossed people will help us out
thanks – very easy to follow – also left you a small donation as a token of appreciation – all the very best
and the donate button looks great too
check it out:
http://rukminicounselling.blogspot.com
http://rukminiwriting.blogspot.com
thanks once again!
best
Mimi
Thank you so much mimi!! It looks GREAT!
thank you so much for the tips,they worked putting the donation button in my blogger,and you are such an inspiration cheers,if we can help each other in any way please contact me me
,from australia with love
Thanks for the detailed explanations on how to add a ‘donate’ button to your website. Very useful and easy to follow. I have only one doubt: Do people really donate by clicking on such a button even if they find your website useful?
Dinesh, the short answer is yes. It’s whatever you want to believe :]
Mine won’t work, I click on the donate button and it just makes my tumblr page go white, with only my music still remaining. Any suggestions?
Is it possible to change the text of the button to say something else?
I love that I googled ‘how to paypal button tumblr’ and was independently directed straight to your site anyway, it’s definitely first page google rankings for that search ^_^
Hahaha yay Ariane that rules!!
This was a huge help!
Jessica, How can I add one to my posterous? Thanks!
Jessica,
this is useful .. but I cannot find the donate option in the merchant services
Hi Jessica,
Thank you for sharing this it’s in theory extremely useful
I’ve followed your instructions but I’ve got the same problem as D on Tumblr:
It doesn’t work, when I click on the button it looks like it’s trying to connect to Paypal but the page goes white and if I refresh it it just brings me back to my website…
It does work when I’m logged in but it doesn’t when I’m logged out..
I would really appreciate some help on this as I have been browsing the web for an answer and it kept me busy all night…
Thanks
Noemie.
Hi there,
Just to let you guys know, I’ve found a way around it, for Tumblr:
Add the image of the button on your page and add the link of the email code in it
(clicking on the link icon…)
It works
Have a great day everyone,
Noemie.
Thank you for this tutorial! I got a button up on my page in minutes.
You rock!