To create a Zeffy donation form for your nonprofit, you register an organizational account, complete identity and bank verification through Stripe, and then work through the platform’s form editor step by step: campaign title, visuals, donation amounts, receipts, custom questions, thank-you email, and sharing. The platform is free, with no transaction or platform fees charged to your organization.1Zeffy. How Is Zeffy 100% Free?
Before You Build: Eligibility and Account Setup
Any registered U.S. nonprofit can use Zeffy. You do not need 501(c)(3) status; the platform accepts 501(c)(4), 501(c)(6), 501(c)(7), 501(c)(19), and other designations under Section 501(c), as long as your organization operates on a not-for-profit basis and holds a bank account in its name.2Zeffy Help Center. Is My Organization Eligible to Use Zeffy?
Sign-up starts with your email, your name, the organization’s name, a phone number, and a website URL. From there, U.S. organizations provide an EIN and clear Stripe’s identity check. Stripe asks for your organization’s legal name exactly as it appears on government documents, the legal address, and the legal representative’s name, date of birth, home address, and a photo of a driver’s license or government ID.3Zeffy Help Center. How to Get Started on Zeffy
Last comes the bank connection. Have a voided check ready so the platform can confirm your routing and account numbers for direct deposit.3Zeffy Help Center. How to Get Started on Zeffy Only after this is done can donations actually move.
Walking Through the Form Editor
From your dashboard, start a new donation campaign and the editor steps you through a numbered sequence.4Zeffy Help Center. Setting Up a Donation Campaign A few decisions here are permanent, so slow down:
- Campaign title. This becomes part of the form’s URL (zeffy.com/donation/your-form-name). It locks in the first time you save and cannot be edited later.
- Fundraising goal. Optional. If set, a progress bar appears for donors, and you can adjust the goal later without affecting existing donations.
- Description. The text where you explain your mission or the campaign’s specific purpose. Zeffy supplies a starter template.
- Color scheme. Light or dark mode, with or without decorative shapes.
- Banner image. Upload your own or pick from Zeffy’s library. A YouTube link works instead of an image.
- Logo. Transparent PNG files sit cleanest against your chosen color scheme.
Donation Amounts and Recurring Gifts
The donation step controls what donors see when the form opens. Turn on any combination of four frequencies: one-time, monthly, quarterly, and yearly.4Zeffy Help Center. Setting Up a Donation Campaign For each active frequency, you set suggested amounts, and donors always have a text field for a custom figure.
Each suggested amount can carry an impact description. Instead of a bare “$50,” you might add “provides school supplies for one student for a semester.” You also pick which suggested amount loads pre-selected (the default is the third-highest) and which frequency appears first.4Zeffy Help Center. Setting Up a Donation Campaign
Recurring billing dates are set by the donor’s first gift. A donor who contributes on the 15th gets charged on the 15th each subsequent period. Donors can later change their amount, update their payment method, or cancel from a self-service portal, but changing the billing date requires canceling and starting again on the preferred day.5Zeffy Help Center. Set Up Monthly Recurring Donations
Turning On Tax Receipts
If your organization is a registered 501(c)(3), toggle on automatic tax receipts inside the form editor. Zeffy will attach a PDF receipt to the confirmation email after every donation.6Zeffy Help Center. Automatic Tax Receipts for Donations This matters because the IRS requires donors contributing $250 or more to have a written acknowledgment from the charity before claiming a deduction, including the organization’s name, the cash amount, and a statement about whether any goods or services were provided in return.7Internal Revenue Service. Charitable Contributions: Written Acknowledgments
If donors receive something tangible in return for their gift (an event ticket, for example), additional IRS disclosure rules apply beyond what the standard receipt handles.8Internal Revenue Service. Substantiating Charitable Contributions For a plain donation form where nothing is exchanged, the automatic receipt covers you.
Custom Questions and Fund Designation
Zeffy collects each donor’s name and email by default. The custom questions step lets you add short-answer fields, multiple-choice selections, and multi-select options, each marked required or optional.4Zeffy Help Center. Setting Up a Donation Campaign Common additions: phone number, mailing address for physical acknowledgments, newsletter opt-in, and employer name for corporate gift matching.
Fund designation is set here too. You can let donors pick a program from a list, or pre-assign every donation from this form to a single fund. That choice is what separates a general operating form from one tied to a specific initiative.
Thank-You Email and Advanced Options
The thank-you email editor controls the message donors receive after giving. The receipt rides along as a PDF attachment, so the message body is better used for gratitude and context than for repeating receipt details.4Zeffy Help Center. Setting Up a Donation Campaign
Advanced settings enable honorary or memorial donations, a public donor list on the campaign page, check donations for gifts over $1,000, and translation into Spanish (U.S.) or French (Canada).4Zeffy Help Center. Setting Up a Donation Campaign You can also invite team collaborators and list email addresses that should get notified on every new donation.
Publishing and Sharing the Form
After saving, go to the Campaigns section of your dashboard, hover over the form, click Edit, then click “Share my form” at the top of the page.9Zeffy Help Center. Sharing Your Zeffy Campaign With Your Supporters and Community Four distribution methods are available:
- Direct link. A unique URL for email newsletters, social posts, or text messages, with social sharing icons for Facebook, LinkedIn, and others.
- QR code. A downloadable PNG for flyers, event signage, or direct mail.
- Iframe embed. HTML that places the form inside a page on your website. Embedded forms do not display your banner image, description, logo, or nonprofit name, so the surrounding page needs to provide that context.9Zeffy Help Center. Sharing Your Zeffy Campaign With Your Supporters and Community
- Pop-up widget. Two code snippets, one for a button anywhere on the page and one pasted into your site’s header scripts. Wix no longer supports pop-up embeds, so Wix-hosted sites need the iframe or direct link instead.9Zeffy Help Center. Sharing Your Zeffy Campaign With Your Supporters and Community
Payouts and the Donor Tip
Deposits aren’t instant. Every payment goes through an anti-fraud review of one to three business days, and your bank may take another one to two business days to post the deposit. Zeffy initiates payouts on Fridays, timed to arrive by Monday. Donations received late Thursday, Friday, or over the weekend may slip into the following cycle.10Zeffy Help Center. Zeffy Payouts: Schedules, Amounts, and Reports
The platform stays free through a voluntary contribution donors see at checkout. A dropdown lets them add a tip to Zeffy, which they can lower or set to $0 with no effect on their donation.11Zeffy Help Center. What Is the Contribution Made Towards Zeffy? About two in three donors leave a tip on average.1Zeffy. How Is Zeffy 100% Free? The tip goes to Zeffy, so it never appears in your payouts or donor records. A short note on your thank-you page explaining the model can head off donors who are confused about the extra line on their statement.
Before You Launch: State Registration
Publishing an online form counts as soliciting contributions, and most states require charities to register before they do so. Rules vary; annual filing fees alone range from roughly $25 to $500. Some states also require specific language on the form itself. Florida, for example, requires a conspicuous notice on any webpage that processes contributions, stating that a copy of the organization’s official registration and financial information is available from the state’s Division of Consumer Services.12The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 0496 – Section 0496.411 Check your state’s charitable solicitation rules before you publish; noncompliance can bring fines or a cease-and-desist order.