You've probably seen many sites on which webmasters try to increase their incomes by adding PayPal Donation buttons to their sidebar.
This is particularly true of programmers who give their software away for free – and ask only that you donate so that they may continue to improve their programs or create new ones.
There's no problem with asking for money.
Where there IS a problem however, is in using the word “Donate”.
Sometime back, I was talking to a fellow affiliate marketer who first had his PayPal account frozen, and then ultimately lost all the revenue therein, simply due to the fact that he had a PayPal Donation button on his site.
Why?
Because “donations” are reserved for recognized charities.
My friend's business wasn't a charity and Paypal took serious issue with the fact that he was respresenting himself as such by using the word ‘Donate'.
That's not to say that you can't accept PayPal payments from your blog readers.
What you can use is a text link or button graphic that reads ‘Buy me a beer‘, ‘Buy me a coffee‘, “Support our Blog” or anything else that comes to your mind — just don't use the word ‘donate'.
So, tell me, are you going to be scrambling to get rid of your Donate buttons now?
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Cheers,
Hi,
I don’t find any donation button individual paypal account so please suggest me how can i get that donation button for my blog. When i click on merchant services tab i don’t found any donations button tab. Please help me
Hi Rajesh,
Log into your PayPal account. Under Tools, click PayPal Buttons and then on the new window that comes up, select Create Button and under Choose a Button type, select Donation.
I hope that helps.
Cheers,
Ros
I am unable to find the Donation button. Can somebody tell me the solution for this?
Rahul,
Not sure I understand what you mean.
If you want to put a donation button on your site and have a PayPal account, either go to Merchant Services, or search for ‘donate’ in their search bar.
Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Ros
I agree with Becky… I am confused about this. From what I understand, everyone here is saying it’s okay to use the donate button as long as it says something else… but it is still technically the donate button, how does paypal know what it says? Does anyone here know of another site with a button I could use?
Thank you,
-A
Howdy, i read your blog occasionally and i own a similar one and i was just wondering if you get a lot of spam comments?
If so how do you prevent it, any plugin or anything you can advise?
I get so much lately it’s driving me mad so any support is very much appreciated.
Hi, I have a wordpress blog and I am trying to find a “donate” button without the word “donate” in it or one that allows me to edit that word out. Any suggestions of a widget that has that option because I am having a hard time finding one.
Thanks!!
thanks. i use ‘treat me a coffe’
Hi Kea,
Buy me a coffee or ‘treat me for coffee’ is a really good idea!
Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Ros
What I gather from the notice they’ve posted on their site, the issue is more about the actual USE of the button and not what you’re calling it. You could change the name of something but it still is what it is. I believe that taking money through that particular avenue if you’re not a non-profit organization would be against their policy and you risk having your accounts frozen.
Can anyone confirm this?
Thanks, I have managed to set up a button to for people to donate on Chatterclub Evo to keep running.
Thanks to this website, I was literately thinking of adding a Donate button on my website. That was close.
I have a question:
– I have a blog with .co.uk and I want to add something like “Support” or “Buy me a drink”, my question is, is the money paid Taxable?
– If buy any change you end up having more than 10,000 people buy you a drink, what happens when you plan to transfer the money? Is there any risk both from Paypal and Inland revenue?
Thanks
Hello Isaac,
I am not an accountant or a lawyer so I can’t provide that type of advice.
My thought on the matter, however, is that whatever you earn from your business efforts and transfer to your bank account is tax eligible.
Cheers,
Ros
I’m wondering: is it enough to just change the ‘donate’ on the button to ‘buy me a beer’, for example?
Because the type of button (you have to choose a type of button) stays the donate button, but I have no idea what other type of button I would have to choose for my blog…
Hi Sofie,
Absolutely! ‘Buy me a beer’ (or a coffee) is entirely legitimate.
Good luck getting those beers!
Cheers,
Ros
You could put a widget on your site that allows people to reload your starbucks card: http://adamwadeharris.com/starbucks-card-reload-widget/
That’s very cool, Adam. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Thanks. It’s actually available as a WordPress Plugin now http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/starbucks-reload/
Just about to put a paypal donate button… Thank goodness I found this article… 🙂
Thought this was about the IRS when it was tax time. Guess that’s why they don’t go through paypal. Donations are often asked for almost every day across the US for helping families and unfortunate accident victims (in California it’s hit and runs, drivers think they get bonus points for that and gang drive by shootings killing children.) to paying for medical and funeral cost. It’s understood that this is not a charity but a charitable cause. I don’t see where asking for a donation for a persons hard work is breaking any law.
Look at real charities. majority of all cash goes to salaries, expenses and anything except the actual cause. Example; A cancer charity took in over 25 million in donations. less than 3 % went to cancer. A vets charity did the same thing, after intense private investigations it was learned they never spent 10 cents on a vet. That’s something paypal should be against.
I’ve read many stories about paypal from actual customers. If banks worked the same way there would have a war in this country. Three words come to mind when I hear the name Paypal, “don’t trust them”.
Said thing is, paypal absorbed all that money. A. they won’t show it as income from operations and B. that poor person get’s screwed out of all that money.
Paypal should be forced to refund all of the people’s money rather than keep it themselves.
It is grotesque how paypal and other online payment companies have violated the rights of people, their game their rules right?
What a scam.
What this blog illustrates is that Paypal are closing people’s accounts and effectively stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from them.
There is no legal redress, nobody to contact, and you’ve lost both your account and your money.
And it seems, for some reason they are allowed to do this!
Now, look up the dictionary meaning of the word “DONATE”
Nothing wrong with the use of the word, it’s none of their business unless you are claiming to be a non-profit charity when you’re not.
Haha, nice post and blog good thing I had something in my head telling me to put a donate button but mine still has the word “Donate” but with, “Some blad!”
Hehe. My blog is about Panic Attacks and I sound freakish and mental there haha, but I am a recovered sufferer and I hope you pips don’t worry too much and can achieve all your goals in life as of right now cuz it was really hard back then while I had that condition.
Anyways, just want to ask sir if changing the Picture of your donate button, I followed an article on how to put a donate button on my Blog and it was good I chose the Picture “Make a Donation” and I am just scared maybe this can happen to me. What can I do about it?
Thank you for your considerable reply.
how can i get donation for my friend’s non profit charity via paypal account? as paypal donation button disabled for Indian sites .please help me by guidance.
Hello Jamal,
You might want to do a search online for third-party payment processors that operate in India. Or, find some Indian sites that use the same model as you would like to use and then ask them what service they are using.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Ros
Great post. My personal experience is that it’s not worth using the button. We recently ran a campaign to raise money for our beach volleyball campaign to try and get to London. I added the donate button to my site not realising it was only for not for profits… Even though I realised my error after two days, my account was frozen (And all donated money in it) so now haven’t been able to access it for almost four months. Again I have a rang and emailed , uploaded ‘official documentation’ and they keep giving me the same generic response which has effectively amounted to nothing. Don’t do it I say. Not worth it.
PayPal gives a discounted fee rate to legally registered non-profit organizations. That’s why they want proof if you claim to be one. As I read their site today in Nov 2011 I don’t see any restrictions on using a Donate button for any other non-charity person, business, or group. The only issue outside of PayPal is that in some places local government may require anyone soliciting donations to register as a charity, which can be a prohibitive process (background check, fingerprints, photo, yearly fee, yearly financial reports, etc.).
Language is the key.
If this tactic surprises you, then you should not be engaging in commerce.
I was recommended this blog by my cousin. I’m not certain whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my trouble. You’re amazing! Thanks!
Wow that was strange. I just wrote an really long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyhow, just wanted to say excellent blog!
I’ve just become a victim of this.
Through my website I offered relief to Japanese tsunami victims, I live in Japan, all money donated went direct to providing relief to the victims.
I logged into PayPal to receive a message saying that as I had a charity account I had to validate it. I had never asked for a charity account, my paypal account had been open as a business account for years.
In an e-mail they advised information that they needed, or remove the ‘donate’ button’. Upon advising them I’d removed the donate button I got another e-mail advising my account was frozen and would be closed in 180 days.
Yes, you are very much right, you cannot open a PayPal account for Charity, if your charity is registered in India, same thing happened with me also, I applied a Charity account for my client and after completing all the formalities they just denied for the account.
I have a suggestion for you, apply for a normal account with some other website and then use it for your Charity website, I have list of websites who are doing the same thing.
You can also try some other Payment Gateways like CCavenue, but in case you are using Vbulletin script, I don’t think so that it may help you. The first suggestion may work for you.
Hi,
I came across this page because I was looking for information on how to add a “donate” button on one of my pages.
I am so glad I read your article!! I think I will do some brainstorming tonight and come up with some ideas on what name the button should have 🙂
Dolors