How to add a donation form to Native Church

Native Church can keep its Causes pages for the story while Donor Merchant takes the gifts, because each cause's Donate button can point to any URL.

Short answerPut [donor_merchant] on a donation page, using a Shortcode widget in Elementor or an editor widget in the SiteOrigin page builder. Then point each cause's Donate button at that page, which Native Church has allowed since version 4.0, and add a "Donate" custom link to your header menu. Your causes stay as they are; the gifts are taken by Donor Merchant.

What does Native Church ship for donations?

Native Church, by imithemes, has a built-in Causes Manager: a Causes post type, organized with Cause Categories, where each cause has a due date and a target amount. Donations to causes need the theme's Payments imithemes plugin, which also handles paid events.

Payment details go under Appearance > Payment Options: a PayPal email address, a PayPal Token ID, the currency, Live or Sandbox mode, and custom messages for the cause donation form and the event booking form. The documentation says that only PayPal Standard is available as a payment option. Its list of recommended plugins also includes GiveWP, so some Native Church sites use that instead.

About PayPal StandardPayPal Standard is part of PayPal's older Website Payments Standard system, which PayPal has deprecated. If your causes take PayPal through this setup, our guide to PayPal's Website Payments Standard changes explains the dates and how to check what your site uses. Donor Merchant uses PayPal's current Orders and Subscriptions APIs.

Which Native Church setup do you have?

Native Church has two ways of building pages, and the steps differ slightly.

  • The page builder setup. The original demos use SiteOrigin's page builder (SiteOrigin Panels with the SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle), and the header is set in Native Church > Theme Options.
  • The Elementor setup. Since version 4.0 the theme supports Elementor, and imithemes publishes a separate Elementor demo. Its header and footer are Elementor Theme Builder templates.

If your pages open with "Edit with Elementor", you have the second. Otherwise you have the first.

Where do I put the donation form?

First install Donor Merchant from Plugins > Add New (search "Donor Merchant"; it needs WordPress 6.2 or later, PHP 7.4 or later and HTTPS) and connect Stripe, PayPal, or both. For each cause you raise money for, create a campaign with the same goal under Donor Merchant > Campaigns, then a page for it.

  • Elementor: edit the page with Elementor, drag in the Shortcode widget, and paste [donor_merchant campaign="3"] with your campaign's ID.
  • SiteOrigin page builder: add a SiteOrigin Editor widget to a row and paste the same shortcode. SiteOrigin's changelog confirms that the Editor widget runs shortcodes when it renders on the front end.
  • Block editor: add a Shortcode block with the same shortcode (the Donation Form block has no campaign setting).

Donor Merchant > Settings > Shortcodes lists every shortcode with your real campaign IDs. Use plain [donor_merchant] for a general offering or "where most needed" page. A campaign form shows its own goal bar; [donor_merchant_progress campaign="3"] shows the thermometer anywhere else. Churches can also offer check or bank transfer on the same form; see accepting church donations online.

How do I point each cause's Donate button at the new form?

Native Church's changelog for version 4.0 (November 2021) added an option for a custom URL on the cause post's donate button. Edit a cause, find that donate button URL option in its settings, and paste the address of the matching Donor Merchant campaign page. Visitors still read the cause page you wrote, and the Donate button takes them to the new form. Do one cause first and test it before changing the rest.

Gifts made through Donor Merchant are recorded by Donor Merchant, not by the theme's Causes Manager. For a live amount raised, add the campaign's thermometer shortcode to the cause page's content or to the campaign page.

Once no cause uses the theme's own payment form, check whether you still take paid event bookings through the Payments imithemes plugin before you deactivate it, since it handles both.

How do I add a Donate button to the header?

Page builder setup

Native Church has six header styles under Native Church > Theme Options > Header. Most of them show the Primary menu, and several also show a Top menu. Go to Appearance > Menus, add a Custom Link to your donation page labeled "Donate", and save.

Choose the menu with phones in mind. The theme documentation explains that on small screens the Primary menu becomes a hamburger menu while the Top menu becomes a select box. A Donate item in the Primary menu stays a normal, tappable item inside the hamburger menu.

Elementor setup

Open your header template in Elementor's Theme Builder, add a Button widget with the text "Donate" and your donation page as its link, and publish. The display conditions stay as they were.

What about past donations and recurring donors?

Donations taken through the theme's PayPal setup are in your PayPal account's history. If you download that history from PayPal as a CSV, Donor Merchant > Import accepts PayPal CSV files, previews the result before writing anything, and never emails donors about old gifts. If you used GiveWP instead, its CSV export imports the same way.

Any recurring gifts set up through another plugin stay with that plugin, because they live in your Stripe or PayPal account. Keep it installed until those are dealt with. The steps are in migrating a donation plugin without losing donor history.

Are there performance settings to change?

The Native Church documentation we read does not describe a setting for minifying, combining or delaying scripts. If you added an optimization plugin that 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 themselves. On the Elementor setup, if Elementor's Element Caching is turned on, set the Shortcode widget's Cache Settings (Advanced tab) to Inactive. See page cache exclusions for donation forms.

How do I match the form to Native Church's colors?

Native Church sets a single primary color under Native Church > Theme Options > Color Scheme: one of ten preset schemes, or a Custom Color. On the Elementor setup, also check Elementor's Site Settings > Global Colors. Copy that hex code into Donor Merchant > Settings > Forms > Form style as a custom color, choose the button shape closest to the theme's buttons, and check the live preview.

What should I test?

  • A test donation from one cause's Donate button, on desktop and phone.
  • The header Donate link on a phone.
  • Webhooks, if you offer recurring giving.

Checked against Native Church's documentation in October 2026. Theme menus change between versions; if a label differs in yours, look for the equivalent option.

Sources

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