By GiveGrove• 9 min read • Published 2026
GiveGrove donors no longer need an account to give. On the Donate Now box, Fund-a-Need and voting, a supporter who taps your Giving Tuesday link can finish a gift without stopping to make a username and password.
Ticketing and silent and live auctions still ask people to sign in for now.
The timing isn't an accident. The last few weeks of the year bring in a big share of individual giving for most nonprofits, and every extra screen between "I want to help" and "done" loses a few people. A sign-up form is one of the easiest screens to cut.
If you've run events on GiveGrove before, this is a real change: your donors no longer hit a sign-up screen before they can give. If you're new to GiveGrove, it simply works the way your donors already expect. Either way, fewer steps between "I want to help" and "done" should mean more finished gifts.
How does giving without an account work on GiveGrove?
With no-account giving, a donor goes straight from choosing an amount to paying. There's no account to create and no password to remember. They enter their payment details and their email for the receipt right in the checkout form, not on a separate page.
Think about who's actually on the other end of a year-end appeal. A lot of them are your board chair's neighbor, a parent from last spring's gala, or someone who saw a coworker's post. They like you. They don't want a login for a site they'll visit once a year, and plenty of them won't make one just to hand you $50.
Donors who want an account can still make one; checkout gives them the choice. No-account giving just stops making it a requirement for the gift.
Which GiveGrove features work without an account?
No-account giving covers three GiveGrove features at launch: the Donate Now box, Fund-a-Need and voting. Ticketing and silent and live auctions still ask people to sign in.
| GiveGrove feature | No account needed | Where it helps most |
|---|---|---|
| Donate Now box | Yes | Giving Tuesday and year-end appeals sent by email, text or social |
| Fund-a-Need | Yes | Gifts tied to a specific item or program, like "$250 covers a week of meals" |
| Voting | Yes | Peer-to-peer contests where friends of a participant chip in a few dollars |
| Ticketing | Not yet | Still uses donor accounts |
| Silent auction | Not yet | Still uses donor accounts |
| Live auction | Not yet | Still uses donor accounts |
Voting is the one we'd watch. A peer-to-peer vote pulls in people who've never heard of your organization. They came because their cousin is dancing or their coworker is on the leaderboard, and they want to drop $10 and get back to their day. That's exactly the donor a sign-up form scares off.
Auctions are a different animal. Bidders come back to raise a bid, get outbid alerts and pay at the end, so the account does real work there. Ticketing stays on accounts for now too.
Does requiring an account really cost nonprofits donations?
Yes. Forced sign-up is one of the most common reasons people walk away from an online checkout. In a 2025 Baymard Institute survey of 1,026 US adults who shop online, 18% said they had abandoned an order because they didn't want to create an account. Baymard also found that 62% of the sites it benchmarks don't make guest checkout the most obvious option, so plenty of people who'd happily skip the account never spot the option.
That research is about shopping carts, not donation forms. We'd argue the pull is even stronger for a gift. A shopper at least walks away with a product. A donor walks away with a good feeling and a receipt, and a password prompt in the middle of that is a pretty good reason to close the tab and tell yourself you'll do it later.
We see the same thing on GiveGrove. From September 5 to October 5, 2026, 2,930 people hit our sign-in screen while trying to bid on an auction item or buy a ticket, and 2,385 of them got through it (81.4%). So about 1 in 5 people who hit the sign-in screen while trying to bid or buy never got past it. Auctions and ticketing still use accounts, but it's the same screen No-Account Giving now removes from donations.
"Later" is a problem in December. According to the 2025 M+R Benchmarks figures summarized by Neon One, December brought in about 40% of the average nonprofit's online one-time revenue in 2024, and December 31 alone accounted for 5%. Those are the gifts people give in a rush on their phone between other things. If the checkout makes them stop and set up an account, some of them won't come back before midnight.
How to use no-account giving for Giving Tuesday 2026 and year-end
Giving Tuesday 2026 falls on Tuesday, December 1, and year-end giving runs right behind it through December 31. Guest giving matters most in the appeals that reach people who aren't already in your system. U.S. donors gave about $4 billion on Giving Tuesday 2025, according to GivingTuesday.
Start with the Donate Now box. Put it front and center in your Giving Tuesday email and your social posts, and send people straight to it instead of your homepage. One tap, an amount, payment, done.
Fund-a-Need is where we'd put the specific asks. "$40 buys a winter coat" lands better than "support our programs" any time of year, and in December people like knowing exactly what their gift did. Now those donors don't have to make an account to buy the coat.
If you want something with a little more energy, run a short voting challenge. Board members, staff, or local business owners each get a page, and their friends vote with dollars. Honestly, this is where no-account giving pays off the most, because almost everyone voting is a first-time donor to you.
One thing to do before December 1: open your own donation page on your phone and give $5 without signing in. If anything feels slow or confusing to you, it'll feel worse to someone who doesn't know you.
Questions about giving without an account, or want a hand setting up your Giving Tuesday page? Reach out to the GiveGrove team and we'll walk through it with you.
FAQ
Can donors give on GiveGrove without creating an account?
Yes. On the Donate Now box, Fund-a-Need and voting, donors can complete a gift without making an account. Donors who want an account can still create one.
Does it work for ticketing and auctions?
Not yet. Ticketing and silent and live auctions still ask people to sign in. Auction bidders return to raise bids and settle up at the end, so the account does real work there.
Do guest donors still get a receipt?
Yes. Donors enter their email in the checkout form, and that's where their receipt goes.
Will guest gifts show up in my GiveGrove reports?
Yes. Guest gifts show up in your reports alongside every other gift. Since guests don't create an account, the report only includes what they share at checkout, so you won't have a phone number for guest donors.
Do nonprofits need to turn guest giving on?
No. It's on from day one for the Donate Now box, Fund-a-Need and voting. There's nothing to set up.
Thanks for trusting GiveGrove with your fundraisers!
The GiveGrove Team 🍋
A Code Works company
GiveGrove makes events and auctions for fundraising easy. Email info@givegrove.com for more info. Click here to sign up for our mailing list.
