Plugin Origins
One of LightSpeed’s clients was running a non-profit exercise to raise money save the Rhinos in Southern Africa in about 2015. They need a solution to accept donations and potentially set up recurring donations in the future once the fundraiser gained traction.
The requirement was to build a landing page with some information about the fundraiser with a simple donation form. Once the donor submitted the form with their selected donation amount, they would be taken to a payment processor. We proposed using PayFast payment gateway plugged into the GiveWP donations plugin as their fundraising solution.
PayFast Payment Gateway offers secure online payments in South Africa. PayFast is the ultimate online payment solution. Experience fast and secure online payments with South Africa’s leading payment gateway. Flexible payment solutions for any business. Whether you have a website or not we offer easy, secure and instant payment processing for South African businesses.
GiveWP is a WordPress Donation Plugin and Fundraising Platform. GiveWP is the highest-rated, most downloaded, and best-supported donation plugin for WordPress. Built from the ground up for all your fundraising needs, GiveWP provides you with a powerful donation platform optimized for online giving.
Open Source Plugin on WordPress.org
LightSpeed submitted version 1.2 of the LSX PayFast Gateway for GiveWP plugin was officially approved for download on WordPress.org in January 2019. Non-profit WordPress website owners can use PayFast Payment Gateway and the GiveWP Donation Plugin are able to download the LSX PayFast Gateway for Give WordPress plugin for free from WordPress.org.
LightSpeed is committed to maintaining the plugin to ensure it stays up to date with changes in the WordPress core, the GiveWP plugin and the PayFast API. Keeping a plugin like this updated is essential for the security and stability of the plugin.
More information about the GiveWP PayFast Gateway plugin can be found on our LSX Product Website.
Important notice for existing PayFast for Give users
If you previously bought the PayFast Add-on for Give, the following information is very important. There are a few steps you need to follow when moving to the new version.
- Deactivate and delete the previous plugin completely.
- Then install the new version. Either:
- Search for the plugin, “LSX PayFast Gateway for Give”, via the plugins screen inside your WordPress dashboard
- Or download the PayFast Add-on for Give from WordPress.org and upload it via your plugins screen
Unfortunately you may need to reconfigure payments via PayFast in Give. The plugin changed in a way that could not avoid this.
Documentation & Support
Whether you are an existing or new user of the PayFast Add-on for Give, detailed setup documentation can be found here.
The plugin is free, but we do not offer free support. Please consult our documentation which answers all questions related to setting the plugin up. If it’s not working, please follow the steps below. We recommend you test on a development or staging version of your website, most good hosting companies offer a tool that can easily copy your site to a staging version. If not, contact your host directly to set one up.
- Ensure that WordPress, your theme and plugins are fully up to date.
- Activate a default WordPress theme, like twenty sixteen or twenty eighteen
- Disable all plugins but Give and the PayFast Extension
- Test your payments again
- If it works, it means there is a problem with your theme or one of your other plugins that isn’t covered by our support policy. Or, there is a problem with your server environment.
- If it still does not work, create a user with administrative access and email that to us at [email protected], please include detailed steps on how to reproduce the error, reference any relevant links and include screenshots. We also need to know what operating system and browser you are using.
If you need assistance setting up the plugin, a customisation, or it needs to be made compatible with your theme and plugins, please contact us for a quote.
LightSpeed would like to thank all those who have supported the development of the PayFast Add-on for Give, we hope you continue to enjoy this useful plugin. Thank you to our new users as well, we hope it helps you receive donations. If you run into problems and need support, please send a detailed query to [email protected].
Need a design & development partner?
We offer premium support for advanced customizations
