PayPal changed their DONATE button/link system recently; if you had a donate button that formerly went to a PayPal donate button specifically for your website, the link may now go to this generic page. If so, follow the procedure below.
(This step-by-step process presumes that you already have a PayPal account and have connected it to your bank account.)
To update the DONATE button on your website:
A) Log in to your existing PayPal account, then
B) Go to the list on your PayPal account of your donation pages assuming you have one already.
1) Now on the “Button Preview” page, under “Customize your button” you can probably use all the defaults.
You can “Use your own button style” if you have a custom button you want to use, but I would suggest the default option (Use PayPal button style) since the PayPal colors are already familiar to the vast majority of your site’s visitors.
(Optional: If you want to show tiny icons for typical credit cards – VISA, Mastercard, etc. which remind visitors that they don’t have to have their own Paypal account and can use most credit cards – you can check the Show accepted card logos checkbox.)
Tap “Continue” when done with this step.
2) You are now on the “Donation Page Preview” page.
You (optionally) may want to use a logo and/or an image (1200 pixels wide x 800 pixels high) to “brand” your PayPal donation page. If you have a logo, you can add (upload) it by toggling the “Display your logo” setting. If you have a photo, graphic, or another image that represents your site well, you can add (upload) it by toggling the “Add an image to your donation page” setting.
I would recommend replacing the “Your purpose” with a short statement of your website’s purpose to remind your donor why they are supporting you! The example below (for my GeometryCode.com website) uses all 3 options (logo, image, purpose) but none of these are required.
Scroll down to “How do you want to display your donation page?” and leave the default “Full page experience” option selected unless you have javascript expertise and want to make a popup.
Tap “Continue” when done with this step.
3) The default settings on this page are probably fine and recommended:
Tap “Continue” when done with this step.
4) The next step provides additional options. Recommended: leave the default settings as is, except for activating “Take donors back to your website”. If you need donor contact info, select “Get donors’ mailing addresses” – make sure your use of this visitor data is compliant with appropriate regulations (e.g. GDPR, FTC, CCPA, etc.)
5) On the “Share your donation page”, tap the “Get a button code” link:
6) On the “Add a donate button to your website page”, tap the “Copy to clipboard” to copy the button code which will look similar to the example below; it will start with <form … and end with … /form>
7) In your email application, make a new email to your webmaster with the subject of “Updated Paypal button code for” <the URL of the Donate page, or your website URL if the donate button is on every page>.
Paste the button code into the body of the email and send it.
That’s it!
Here’s an example of an updated donate page from one of our other websites – GeometryCode.com (which uses the optional logo and image available with this new donation button process):
