Donations in VK: cheat sheet for connecting and setting up

You may have noticed that some VKontakte community owners accept donations from their subscribers. Of course, material donations for the development of the group motivate the editor to continue posting quality content. In addition, this is an opportunity for subscribers who left donations to gain a little popularity.

In order to collect donations you need to install a special application. To do this, go to the “community management” section and select the “applications” subsection there. The list of available applications includes “Donations to the header”. Next to this application, click on the “Add” tab.

What is donation on Vkontat: features and principle of its operation

Let's figure out what it is. Donations on VKontakte are usually called new functionality. Previously, there were no opportunities to invest money to provide charitable assistance or gain access to various types of information.

Today this is already an official monetization option for all authors of the social network. The service allows any user to subscribe and financially support their favorite group or public.

That is, if a person invests money in a VK project, its author or administrator, in turn, must come up with exciting content. In addition, to ensure fewer unsubscribes from public pages, it is necessary to monitor the quality of the publication of materials.

On a note! Do not confuse this service with a regular donation. For a monetary contribution, you need to offer your donations exclusive content that corresponds to the theme of the group or community.

Useful links: Senler sending messages to VK, how to set it up, Bot for sending messages to VK, Content plan for a VK group.

What are donations in VK?

Below we will definitely tell you how to add the donation option to a VK group, but now we will take a closer look at what it is and how it works.

As we said above, this is financial assistance that any VK user can provide to the group, if desired. As a rule, the purpose of the collection is written next to the “Donate” button. The community owner is not required to return this money or provide an account of how it was spent. However, feedback greatly increases the intensity of new receipts, because the more transparent the author of the group organizes the receipt of donations, the more confidence he increases.

By the way, many admins strive to put donations in the VK group not so much for the purpose of additional income, but for promotion. The option can be considered a tool for increasing user activity. Many groups today collect donations for charitable purposes. In turn, it is also beneficial for subscribers to contribute their money once, because after completing this action, their avatar and comment will be displayed in the header of their favorite group.

By the way, you can open donations in the VK group in two ways:

Just make a “Donate” button in the group interface;
Display receipts and comments from donors directly in the group header.
Some enterprising admins have even learned how to organize fun competitions with donations. For example, they set a symbolic amount of donations (1 ruble) and announce the condition: hold on to the hat for 15 minutes. In the settings, the top 3 senders and the last 3 are displayed. The prize is cash.

Participants start sending money and appear on the cover. Battles sometimes last for days, an innocent competition turns into a powerful financial channel, the proceeds of which are many times greater than the prize fund at stake. And words cannot describe how much the audience’s activity increases. In a word, you get promotion, attracting subscribers, and earning money.

So, let's sum it up! Donation is an official option for monetizing a group in VK, which successfully fits into the promotion scheme. You can make a donation using special applications or widgets, which, by the way, are free. Some programs even allow you to create and configure a paid subscription (monthly payments). In this case, all content in the group can be sorted: visible to everyone, visible to dons (those who managed to make a donation). The author of the group spends the funds independently.

What can the author offer his paying subscribers?

In most cases, a donation wall is prepared when promoting a community page dedicated to books, literature, creativity, and copywriting. Such information is more often read and discussed on social networks. Therefore, you can make good money from this.

But in order for subscribers not to lose interest, it is necessary to delight them with “goodies”. These include:

Absolutely exclusive content . That is, for your subscribers who make monetary contributions, you post materials on the wall that budget users will never know about.
They will be the first to know new information. The system provides such a possibility of publications. The author can show the content to his donations today, and to ordinary subscribers in 2-3 days or a week. To do this, you need to properly plan your publications.
Independent commenting. When publishing any content, you can put a marker “Comments are allowed only for donations.” For regular users this feature will be disabled.
Attaching an icon to your profile. Once your fan contributes, a small orange icon with a star will appear next to their username. She will make him stand out from the rest.

Important! Many are afraid that donations may share information with free subscribers. Reposting is not available in this case; a paid subscriber can discuss and view exclusive information on the wall of your community.

If he decides to forward the post via messages, the recipient will only be presented with an offer to pay for a subscription in order to read it.

Paid benefits

Paid subscriptions have been available on YouTube for a long time, where the paying audience gets some privileges. This approach is also used by content makers on Patreon and similar services. The idea is simple - paying subscribers either get more content or get it earlier. These may be additional materials to an existing publication or expanded versions of content.

In this approach, the main thing is not to go too far, as ordinary subscribers may feel that they are being cut off in content. And if they are allowed to think so, then the outflow of the audience will begin immediately and will be difficult to stop. Don't make the difference between a paid subscriber and a free one too obvious. It may not appear in the content, but, for example, in gifts or discounts, then there will be no strong irritability of the audience. Even better, as a promotion, let users get acquainted with paid content to understand whether they are willing to pay for it. Give temporary access to everyone. This way they can clearly see what you are asking money for.

Advantages and disadvantages of a paid service

Each new opportunity in VK is immediately very popular. Over time, relevance decreases, so everyone is interested in the advantages and disadvantages of use. First, let's talk about the advantages.

There is a high probability of retaining more users and attracting new paying subscribers.
A good option for earning money and self-promotion, you will always have readers and comments.
Community statistics will constantly improve, and accordingly the possibility of increasing income.
You can receive funds directly to the card of absolutely any bank or electronic payment system.

As for the cons:

If the quality of materials decreases, a mass unsubscription of paid users will begin, and income will suffer as a result.
If donations increase the amount of contributions, you will not be able to offer them more interesting content. All donations are equal.
The support page for users is located very inconveniently, which is why the subscriber may not complete the target action in the community.

If you are the author of several public pages with high-quality and frequently updated content, then you can make money on each of them and provide yourself with an impressive monthly income.

NGO community content

Why do you need a welcome post?

If the community has few subscribers and low activity (comments, reposts, etc.), then it makes sense to write a “welcome post.”

This is a post that is pinned at the very beginning and remains hanging there in order to quickly cover the questions of all newcomers to the community.

Any person is not comfortable in a new place, so our task is to create a “road map” for donors.

In most cases, for a charitable NPO, the structure of the welcome post will be as follows:

Greetings
The key task that the NPO is addressing is
What kind of content will be in the community?
Current charity event
Link to fund reporting
Hint on what to do next

You must attach a picture to the text. It would be great if the design complements the community cover, but it is not necessary.

The picture should contain text welcoming all visitors to the community.

Let's move on to examples. Here's a welcome post from the world of commerce:

Here is an example of a post without a picture, but the structure is the same.

The operating procedure will be as follows:

Write the text of the post using the template
Add a picture on the topic
Pin the post to the beginning of the feed
Welcome post is ready

When to change your welcome post

The welcome post changes as the giving community evolves. It is changed in two cases:

When the fund turns off active advertising, and the influx of new visitors is not expected at the moment.
When the number of people who visit the community regularly and without advertising reaches the required NPO mark.

At this point, the welcome post is replaced with a post that details the current charity event.

Why are goods needed in the community?

If everything is clear with the cover and welcome post, then the products are more flexible in management. With the right approach, a block with products can receive slightly fewer views than the main page. But there are more interesting scenarios.

Charity fair

Very often, shelters and foundations organize charity auctions. In this case, you need to place the best lots on the main page of the community. People place bets in the comments.

Current charity events

If a foundation collects donations for more than one purpose at a time, then it is better to describe these same goals as goods. It is better to place urgent goals on the main page, so they will receive maximum views.

We will continue this article a little later. Please wait.

Imagine a website where you can do everything: communicate, find out news and gain new knowledge, watch movies and listen to music, play strategies and puzzles, book tickets, buy equipment, sign up for a manicure, get advice from specialists. Without even moving to the next browser tab, you can easily do many other things that we do every day online and offline.

You might think that such a site can replace the entire Internet. And you'll be right. VKontakte has already determined for itself that this will be more practical and safer for users. And, of course, it is more convenient for businesses and the whole variety of communities represented on it.

Probably, many of you have already noticed in some VKontakte groups there are buttons inviting you to leave a request, fill out a form, or buy a ticket. By officially launching iFrame applications in groups, VKontakte integrates the functionality of e-commerce sites on its platform and takes a big step towards ceasing to be just a social network. It is obvious that selling through groups is not only a new convenient opportunity for users and a promising solution from a commercial point of view for businesses represented on the social network. Globally, this is VKontakte’s strategy to retain its audience even longer, to deprive them of the need to leave their contacts and money on third-party sites.

7 facts about community apps:

Among Russian social networks, the VKontakte website was the first to introduce an application platform. A month earlier, a marketplace for online shopping appeared on Facebook.
To date, VKontakte has officially authorized 8 applications for communities.
Only one can be installed in a group at a time. This means that if at some point the administrator realizes that it is more important for him to conduct a survey than to announce an event, he will need to temporarily remove the GIGZ application and replace it with “Questions”. When returning to the previous application, all data inside it remains unchanged, but the display of buttons and snippets will have to be adjusted again through “Settings”.
Everyone can develop their own application for their community. Of course, to do this you need to understand something about programming.
At the end of November, a 24-hour VKontakte hackathon was held in St. Petersburg, dedicated to the development of applications for communities. The winners were the creators of three applications: a chat for communities, an interactive registration for events and an application for recording at a car service center.
Thanks to cross-platform (for each application a page is created on m.vk.com), applications are available not only on the desktop version of VKontakte, but also work fully functionally on the mobile version of the site and in mobile applications for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
There are several settings that are common to all applications:

There are three visibility options: applications can be available only to administrators, only to community members, or to everyone who opens the group page.
The text of the snippet (the button that appears if you provide a link to the application) must be selected from those proposed.
You can use free text to specify the name of the application itself, as well as the button that will encourage users to go to it.

By the way, using community statistics, you can analyze how this or that text on a button affects transitions to the application. Test different options to see which one works best. Of course, you should pay attention to the fact that during the period under review, community attendance should be approximately the same.

How to install VKontakte Donations: step-by-step instructions

In this section we will tell you how to configure the extension. In order to try using the application, you must follow the following algorithm. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with it in detail so that you can connect VK Donut the first time.

Go to the group that is under your control, on the right side find the “Management” section. Go to the VK Donut Beta subsection and click on it.
Set the application to “Enabled” status and click the blue “Save” button located below.
In the column that appears, select the amount that should be the minimum payment for donations. At first, 50 rubles will be enough.
Choose a convenient way to receive money from paid subscribers. This could be a bank card or VK Pay.
Then simply add it to VK using the installed button.
Now enter the card details, indicate in whose name it is registered, write down your passport information, and then click the “Save” button.

After all the settings are saved, the “Support” button will appear in the community at the top of it.

On a note! Cash contributions are made without commission, so this is a profitable donation application. When withdrawing, the author must make a donation to VK administrators.

The amount of the commission depends on the withdrawal method: for bank cards 2.3% plus 25 rubles for this and each subsequent transfer. If you withdraw to electronic wallets from VK Pay, then the commission will be 3% of the withdrawal amount.

How does VK Donut work?

A VK Donut subscription may include exclusive materials, the ability to comment on posts, early access to publications, prize draws, meetings or chamber concerts, closed sales, promotions and any other loyalty programs.

Users can subscribe for a month or more. Owners of paid subscriptions are called dons .

After connecting VK Donut, a special block with a “Support the author” button will appear on the main page of your community. It will display all the detailed information about the subscription, as well as the number of exclusive materials available only to dons. This block will be visible to all users except those who have already purchased a subscription.

With the help of VK Donut you won’t be able to make money on just any materials. Here is a list of what is prohibited:

Pornography . Pornographic publications are prohibited. But this does not apply to erotic materials: paintings and sculptures with nudity, nude photo shoots;
Copyright infringing materials;
Prohibited materials , goods and services: shock content, images of child abuse, sexual images of minors, materials containing violence against people or animals. You also cannot offer hacking services to users, or invite subscribers to place bets or participate in gambling. Also, drugs, alcohol and tobacco products should not be sold in the community;
Insults and slander.
Any other materials that violate the rules of VKontakte and the Boosty platform.

Where to see savings

To see the balance from BK donation support, you just need to go to community statistics, go to the VK Donut tab and see the number of investments from subscribers. The entire report can be downloaded to your computer as a file in xls or csv format.

In case there are no updates in the statistics, there is no need to worry. The administration of the VK website produces them once a day. Therefore, some credits may not be displayed.

Basic settings in the “donations to the header” application

To access the application, you will be asked to give permission to access your community. To continue, click on the “allow” tab.

In the main section, you can also change the standard text that will encourage subscribers to leave donations. Next, you can choose to approve donations without verification, or check before the user’s message is published in the group header. It’s better not to check this box, since you don’t know what exactly the user might write in the donation. In addition, below you can specify the minimum amount that must be donated for the user to be featured in the entire group. Once you have configured these settings, click on the “save” tab.

Then go to the "cover" section. Here you can upload your cover image, and also choose the color of the text that will be displayed in the donation. There are also options for how many donors will be shown on the cover. After saving all the settings, anyone can leave a donation in your group.

Which community topics cannot be monetized?

For VK communities, there are some restrictions regarding the installation of the VK Donut extension. They are mainly associated with the promotion of taboo topics. These include:

Pornography. People watch content such as videos, copywriting, gifs, etc. too often. Sometimes statistics reach more than a million visitors per day. However, this does not apply to materials of an erotic nature, paintings with naked mannequins and other areas of art.
Materials that violate the rights of the author. This could be a copied post or text, a picture posted on the wall, or a book by someone else’s author. Social network algorithms track this and refuse monetization.
Prohibited topics: hacking services, sale of goods, violence, poor treatment of children and other negative content. This also includes the sale and distribution of alcohol, tobacco and narcotic products.
Any materials that violate the rules of VK and do not meet the requirements. They can be studied during the community creation stage.

On a note! When trying to connect VK Dunat, make sure that all requirements are met. Install the application exclusively on the web version of the social network.

How to publish content only to paying subscribers

We'll tell you how to make a publication for donations without showing them to other subscribers.

Go to your VK group, start typing text or filling the window with another type of content.
At the bottom, select the “Visible to Dons” button. Then make the necessary settings for the material.
Click the "Publish" button. Information will only appear in the tab for paid subscribers.

You learned how to add exclusive hidden content to donations. A separate page is created for budget subscribers.

Useful life hacks: How to make an active link in VK, How to log into VK recently, How to view deleted messages in VK.

How can I collect donations in the VK group?

Well, we told you how to make a donation widget in a VK group, and at the end of the article we will explain in more detail what “merits” it is customary to ask for money for. By the way, there are no restrictions here, except perhaps moral and ethical ones.

Well, that is, it is not entirely correct to collect money for an operation for the girl Masha, and then spend it on buying new lenses for a DSLR. It’s better to honestly write that you dream of a lens than to spoil your karma with a moral crime against a sick child.

Why do they most often try to add a donation button to VK in the community?

For the purpose of charity (collection for treatment, for nature conservation, animal care, for the fund to protect the Earth from global warming, etc.);
Just for fun, “tip the admin.” And this happens, why not?
To start a battle of donors (a competition with a prize fund);
As an additional tool for promoting the page (that is, financial interest is not the main goal);
In order to raise money for some project (release a collection of poems, record an album with songs, climb Elbrus, go to a summer language camp, buy a new laptop, etc.);
Streamers collect money as symbolic payment for their work. Many broadcasts (online games, various tutorials) are very useful!
Additional source of account monetization;
Etc.

Today any administrator can connect a donation in a VK group. Widgets are free, and withdrawals are carried out with a minimum commission from the site (but do not forget about the commission of payment services). You also do not need to pay taxes on these funds. The service is very convenient and often extremely useful. Donations actually increase activity in the group and allow its owners to earn a little extra money. Be trendy!

Is it possible to make a donation on a personal page: how to do it

To create a donation for your personal account, do the following:

Follow the link: https://vk.com/pay (only through it you can start a donation). Works using the VK Pay system, find the “Open” button at the top of the screen.
Click Continue. Please make sure you agree to the terms of use. There should be a check mark there.
Create a security PIN, then enter it in the appropriate field. The code must consist of 4 digits.
In the main menu, click the “Collect money” button, a project is created in VK Donut goal. State the required amount in the appropriate column.

Donations in the VK group are a very convenient thing. Therefore, each author can create an unlimited number of communities and promote them, while earning money.

Donations in the VKontakte group

All. Now you can see what came of it. We go into the community and under the avatar we see a new button “Donate”:

This application will be very useful for charitable organizations and projects that bring benefits to people.

In accordance with which the use of the resource for charitable fundraising is permitted.

The rules are being introduced to prevent the use of social networks to commit fraudulent activities.

“There are thousands of charitable communities on VKontakte. They raise money for the treatment of adults and children and help animals. The goal is noble, but, alas, sometimes we are faced with outright deception. In addition to the fact that scammers take advantage of the kindness of others and embezzle other people’s money, they also undermine trust in online charity as such,” said representatives of the resource’s administration.

According to them, the administration of the social network has been considering complaints about suspicious fees in charitable communities for more than 5 years, but cannot replace the police and conduct full-fledged investigations. Therefore, it was decided to establish requirements in accordance with which collectors must provide supporting documents and reporting.

According to the new rules, personal data of those in need and collectors is not required to be publicly available, but you must be prepared to provide photocopies of them to the resource administration. Requirements are also established for the maintenance and relevance of financial reporting, the constant openness of the resource and the preservation of important documents in the public domain, and compliance with the rules of the site.

“By following these instructions, your group will enjoy a well-deserved reputation and the trust of users,” representatives of the social network administration emphasized. If you have any questions related to the use of the new rules, they recommend contacting VKontakte support.

Mandatory conditions for conducting charitable fundraising on the VKontakte website: Providing documents confirming the authenticity of the situation described: documents confirming the identity of those in need and their parents, if the needy person has not reached the age of majority (photos of passports, birth certificates); documents confirming the identity of the person responsible for collecting funds, if a collection is being conducted to help animals on behalf of an individual; medical documents confirming the diagnosis and prescriptions (certificates, written epicrises); veterinary documents if funds are being raised for the treatment of the animal; financial documents confirming the amount declared for collection (invoice for the collected amount); other documents confirming the purpose of fundraising, if required. Identification documents may not be publicly available. However, you should always be prepared to present photocopies of them to VK Support. We only care about the part with the first name, last name and photograph - the series and number can be retouched. Honest and comprehensive information about fundraising will not only allow you to find financial support, but will unite community members and help you get really important advice. People trust real people more than faceless anonymous people. Maintaining financial statements according to the following rules: To collect funds, it is necessary to select separate details for which there are no movements of personal finances. This will help financial reporting be transparent. Receipts of funds must be recorded in the community and confirmed by screenshots from electronic details and bank statements. Expenditures of funds must strictly correspond to the purpose of the collection. All expenses must be recorded in the community and confirmed by expense documents (receipts, invoices, etc.). Transparent financial reporting builds trust. Trust is the key to mutual understanding and sincere help. It is worth monitoring the relevance of documents and promptly publishing newly appeared documents. Please note that the document confirming the amount to be collected (invoice) must not be older than 6 months. Posting fundraising reports, documents, and news in a timely manner will help engage new community members and make them more active. Charitable communities must remain open throughout their activities. Important documents should not be deleted. It is highly recommended to add a watermark (translucent text with the community address) on them. A history of successful collections indicates reliability and consistency, and watermarks will prevent others from using your materials for fraudulent purposes. The development of a charitable community, like any other, must take place in accordance with the rules of the site. You can read about this in one of our articles: Starting community promotion. The high goals of a community do not justify bad practices. If the community is blocked for spam mailings or increasing numbers, this will negate all efforts to disinterestedly raise money and undermine the trust of participants. Remember, gratitude is not only warm words addressed to those who help you get closer to an important goal, but also responsibility to those who provide help. Take the time to dialogue with subscribers, do not delay the publication of reports, and show respect to those who ask questions.

Let's sum it up

In this article, we described in detail what donations are in VK, as well as the principle of operation of the new function. In addition to the main tool on the social network, you can use third-party applications to enable the donation option.

Sincerely, Victoria Chernyshenko specially for the proudalenku.ru project

Gain subscribers on VK

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Targetologist from scratch

How to accept money?

So, you know how donations work in VK, you probably already managed to add the first button to the group. The balance is checked directly in the widget, and information can also be monitored by viewing notifications.

You don’t need to do anything special to receive funds. The money is credited to the application balance on its own, accumulating with each new contribution. Withdrawals, as a rule, are possible to any bank cards (Visa, Master Card, Mir), electronic wallets (Web Money, Yandex Money, etc.), payment systems (QiWi, Pay Pal), to a mobile phone, to an internal account in VK Pay .

Only the owner or administrator of the group can accept donations on VKontakte.