RaiseNow for TYPO3

Nonprofits lose donations when the giving process leaves their website

Every break in the user journey costs conversions. When a visitor clicks “Donate now” and is redirected to an external platform, 30 to 50 percent abandon the process, depending on the study. RaiseNow is a Swiss donation platform that solves exactly this problem: its TYPO3 integration embeds the entire donation process in the website. Donation amount, payment method, address details and confirmation all run in an embedded widget, and the visitor never leaves the page. For nonprofits, associations and foundations running TYPO3, this is the cleanest integration between CMS and donation platform.

RaiseNow processes more than CHF 300 million in donations every year and is the market leader for digital fundraising in Switzerland. The TYPO3 extension brings this ecosystem straight into the backend.

Typical use cases range from one-off gifts to regular giving campaigns

The basic scenario is a one-off donation on the homepage or a campaign page. A relief organization launches a fundraising appeal after a natural disaster. The landing page shows a progress bar (raised / target) and a donation form with suggested amounts (25, 50, 100 or an amount of the donor’s choice). The visitor gives by credit card, PayPal or Swiss methods such as TWINT and PostFinance, and receives an immediate confirmation plus a donation receipt by email. The entire transaction takes less than 60 seconds.

A second, economically more important scenario is recurring donations. An animal welfare organization offers monthly sponsorships: CHF 15 a month for the care of one animal. RaiseNow manages the recurring payments, sends alerts about failed direct debits and gives donors a self-service portal to change their gift. At successful nonprofits, recurring donations account for 40 to 60 percent of total volume, because they create predictable income.

The third scenario is peer-to-peer fundraising. A sports club organizes a charity run. Every runner creates a personal fundraising page, shares it on social networks and collects donations for the club. RaiseNow aggregates the amounts, assigns them to the runners and displays a live leaderboard. The TYPO3 extension provides the campaign overview and the personal fundraising profiles as content elements.

The technical architecture uses RaiseNow widgets via iframe and API callback

The TYPO3 extension integrates RaiseNow through a JavaScript widget that is embedded in the page as an iframe. The configuration (API key, campaign ID, payment methods, suggested amounts) is set in the TYPO3 backend as plugin configuration and passed to the widget via TypoScript.

After a successful donation, RaiseNow sends a webhook to a configurable endpoint. TYPO3 can process this webhook to log donations in a local database, update progress bars or trigger thank-you emails through TYPO3’s own mail system. Payment processing itself runs entirely on RaiseNow’s PCI DSS certified infrastructure, which usually reduces your own compliance evidence to the SAQ A self-assessment questionnaire but does not replace it.

The donation receipt is generated by RaiseNow and contains all the information relevant for tax purposes. For organizations recognized as tax-exempt charities in Germany, the receipt can carry the association’s tax number and the exemption notice issued by the tax office.

Common problems involve GDPR compliance and widget styling

For organizations in the EU, the biggest topic is GDPR compliance. RaiseNow is a Swiss company and processes payment data on Swiss servers. Thanks to an adequacy decision by the European Commission, Switzerland counts as a safe third country, but the privacy policy must still state transparently which data is transferred to RaiseNow. Organizations that want to be on the safe side obtain explicit consent through a consent layer before the RaiseNow widget loads.

The second problem is widget styling. RaiseNow widgets come with their own CSS, which cannot be fully overridden from outside. Colors, fonts and button styles can be adjusted in the RaiseNow configuration, but the form layout is fixed. For organizations with strict brand guidelines, that can mean a compromise. The alternative is a custom donation form that talks to the RaiseNow API directly, although that places PCI DSS requirements on your own infrastructure.

RaiseNow is actively developed, while the TYPO3 extension needs manual maintenance

RaiseNow itself is under continuous development. New payment methods (Apple Pay, Google Pay) and features (Swiss QR-bills) are added regularly. The TYPO3 extension, however, is a community project and is not officially maintained by RaiseNow. If TYPO3 v13 introduces a change to plugin registration, the extension has to be adapted manually. Organizations that plan to use RaiseNow in TYPO3 for the long term should fork the extension into their own repository and maintain it through every TYPO3 upgrade. Gosign takes on this maintenance as part of its maintenance contracts and checks RaiseNow compatibility with every TYPO3 update.