[donor_merchant] in an Elementor Shortcode widget on a donation page, point Alone's Donate buttons at that page, and import your GiveWP history. Keep GiveWP installed until your existing recurring donors are taken care of.What does Alone ship for donations?
Alone, by Beplusthemes, is a charity theme built with Elementor. Its ThemeForest listing says it requires Elementor Pro. Its documentation describes it as integrated with GiveWP, a separate donation plugin, and Alone adds its own Elementor widgets and settings on top of GiveWP:
| Alone feature | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Be Give Form widget | A chosen GiveWP form on the page |
| Be Give Form Button widget | A Donate button that opens a GiveWP form in a popup or goes to the form's page |
| Be Give Forms and Be Give Forms Carousel | A grid or carousel of GiveWP forms with goal and progress bar |
| Be Give Totals widget | Total raised across chosen GiveWP forms, with a goal |
| Customize Options > Give donation settings | Mini Donation in the site header, goal progress, and the GiveWP archive and single form pages |
If GiveWP is doing what you need, there is no reason to change. People who switch usually want everything in one free plugin: card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank debit through Stripe, PayPal, recurring gifts on both, fee recovery, printable receipts and annual statements, and a donor portal, with no paid add-ons.
How do I add the Donor Merchant form in Alone?
Alone pages are Elementor pages, so the form goes in Elementor's free Shortcode widget.
- Install Donor Merchant from Plugins > Add New (search "Donor Merchant"). It needs WordPress 6.2 or later, PHP 7.4 or later, and HTTPS.
- Connect Stripe, PayPal or both, using the Stripe and PayPal setup docs.
- For each GiveWP form you use as a cause or campaign, create a matching campaign under Donor Merchant > Campaigns, with its goal.
- Create a page for each one, choose Edit with Elementor, drag in the Shortcode widget, and paste
[donor_merchant campaign="3"]with that campaign's ID. Donor Merchant > Settings > Shortcodes lists the IDs. - For a general "give where needed" page, use
[donor_merchant]with no campaign.
A campaign form shows its own goal bar. To show a thermometer elsewhere, such as on your home page, use [donor_merchant_progress campaign="3"] in another Shortcode widget. See campaigns and goal thermometers.
How do I point Alone's Donate buttons at the new form?
The header
Alone's documentation says the theme uses Elementor's Theme Builder for its header and footer, with more than 40 header layouts. Open your header template from the Theme Builder. If it contains a Be Give Form Button, delete it and add Elementor's Button widget in the same spot, with the text "Donate" and your donation page in its Link field. Your header's display conditions stay as they are.
Then go to Customize Options in the admin menu, open Give donation settings, and untick Mini Donation, which shows a GiveWP mini donation in the site header.
Pages and cause sections
- Be Give Form: replace with a Shortcode widget holding
[donor_merchant campaign="3"]. - Be Give Form Button anywhere else: replace with a Button widget linking to the campaign's page.
- Be Give Forms and the carousel: Donor Merchant has no campaign grid widget. Build the cards with Elementor's own Image, Heading and Button widgets, add a Shortcode widget with the campaign's
[donor_merchant_progress]thermometer, and link each button to that campaign's page. - Be Give Totals: use the thermometer shortcode for the campaign you want to feature. There is no site-wide total shortcode.
Search your menus, footer and home page for links to old GiveWP form pages too. Once you retire a GiveWP form, a redirect from its old address to the new page catches links in old emails and social posts.
What happens to past GiveWP donations and recurring donors?
Past gifts move. In GiveWP, the donation export is under Donations > Tools > Export. Download the CSV, then upload it at Donor Merchant > Import. The importer recognizes GiveWP's columns, lets you confirm the mapping, previews the result without writing anything, and never emails donors about old gifts. Running it twice does not create duplicates.
Active recurring gifts do not move. A GiveWP subscription lives in your Stripe or PayPal account and is tied to the integration that created it. No plugin can transfer it. Leave GiveWP installed and connected so those renewals keep charging and recording. New gifts go through the new form, and you can decide later whether to ask monthly donors to restart there. Remove the Be Give widgets from your pages before you finally deactivate GiveWP, so no page is left with an empty block.
The full procedure, including lifetime totals and year-end statements, is in migrating a donation plugin without losing donor history.
Does Alone need any performance changes for the form?
Alone requires Elementor Pro, so check Elementor's Element Caching. Elementor warns that it cannot be used on elements containing shortcodes. If you have turned it on, click the Shortcode widget, open the Advanced tab, and set Cache Settings to Inactive. Donor Merchant loads Stripe.js, the PayPal SDK and its own script only when the form renders, and a cached copy of the widget could skip that step.
Alone's installation guide also says the theme prompts you to install companion plugins, some of them for performance. If any plugin on your site delays or combines JavaScript and the payment fields do not appear, exclude js.stripe.com, www.paypal.com/sdk/js and wp-content/plugins/donor-merchant/assets/js/donor-merchant.js, or turn that option off for donation pages. Page caching is fine: the form has no nonce, and the donor portal and receipts send no-cache headers on their own. See page cache exclusions for donation forms.
How do I match the form to Alone's colors?
Alone's pages take their colors from Elementor's Site Settings > Global Colors; Customize Options > Styling settings > Colors covers the archive, blog and single post pages. Copy the hex code of the color your Donate buttons use. Then go to Donor Merchant > Settings > Forms > Form style, choose the custom color, paste it, and pick the button shape (pill, rounded or sharp) that matches your theme's buttons. The live preview shows the result.
What should I test before switching?
- A test donation on each campaign page, on desktop and phone, with your gateway in test mode.
- Every Donate button in the header, footer and home page.
- Webhooks, if you offer recurring gifts.
Checked against Alone's documentation in October 2026. Theme menus change between versions; if a label differs in yours, look for the equivalent element.
Sources
- Alone documentation: Introduction
- Alone documentation: Installation
- Alone documentation: Header Customization
- Alone documentation: Customize Options
- Alone documentation: Be Give Form
- Alone documentation: Be Give Form Button
- Alone documentation: Be Give Forms
- Alone documentation: Be Give Totals
- Alone on ThemeForest
- GiveWP: Export Donation History
- Elementor: Element Caching
- Elementor: Shortcode widget