🕯️ Nonprofit & Charity Ⓦ WordPress

Lantern

Make the ask clearly, then show people where the money went.

Download free 128 KB zip See the live demo

Version: 1.0.0
Platform: WordPress
Licence: GPL v2 or later
Requires: WordPress 6.0+, PHP 7.4+
Download size: 128 KB
Downloads: 1

Screenshot of the Lantern WordPress theme — The demo is this theme, rendered from the same stylesheet that is inside the download.

What Lantern is for

Lantern is a free WordPress theme for charities, nonprofits, community groups and fundraising campaigns. It leads with a donation goal and a live progress bar, backs it with impact numbers and cause cards, and keeps a donate button in reach on every screen. Warm, accessible and quick to set up without a donation plugin.

What’s in it

Fundraising progress bar — set a goal and a raised amount, it does the maths and the accessible labelling
Impact stat band for the numbers that prove the work
Cause cards with their own goals, for organisations running several appeals
Donate button in the header and a sticky one on mobile, pointing at any processor
Volunteer and newsletter call-to-action bands that take any shortcode
Warm, high-contrast palette checked against WCAG AA

Installing it

Download the zip — lantern.zip, 128 KB. Do not unzip it.
In WordPress, go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme.
Choose the zip and press Install Now, then Activate.
Set it up under Appearance → Customize — colours, menus, layout and the front-page sections all live there.

Installing by FTP instead? Unzip it and upload the lantern folder into wp-content/themes/, then activate it from Appearance → Themes.

Frequently asked

Do I need a donation plugin?

No. The donate buttons point at whatever URL you give them — PayPal, Stripe Payment Links, CanadaHelps, GoFundMe, JustGiving or your own page. If you prefer a plugin, paste its shortcode into the donate section instead.

Does the progress bar update automatically?

It reflects the raised figure you enter in the Customizer. It is deliberately manual — automatic totals would mean handing the theme your payment credentials, which no theme should ask for.

Can I run more than one appeal?

Yes. The cause cards each take their own title, description, goal and raised amount, and each links wherever you point it.

Is it accessible?

The palette was checked for WCAG AA contrast, the progress bar exposes its value to screen readers with proper ARIA, and every interactive element is keyboard reachable.

Colours

Every one of these is editable in the Customizer, and they flow through to the block editor palette.

Accent #0d7377
Secondary #e07a3f
Text #1a2124
Background #fffdf8

In the zip

style.css — one stylesheet, no imports
theme.json — block editor palette
functions.php + inc/
Full template hierarchy
languages/lantern.pot
readme.txt and LICENSE

SHA-256
8418795049336524f34d91c082c5b185…

Need it customised?

We build WordPress sites, iOS apps and internal tools for businesses across Canada. If a theme here is close but not quite it, we can finish the job.

Get in touch

The same promise on every theme here

Genuinely free, including commercially

WordPress themes are GPL v2+, Shopify themes are MIT. Either way: use it on client sites, change it, rename it, sell the site you built with it. There is no “pro” version being withheld and no licence key.

No account, no email, no upsell

The download button is a download button. We do not ask who you are and there is nothing to unsubscribe from afterwards.

Nothing phones home

No Google Fonts, no analytics, no external requests of any kind. Everything the theme needs is inside the zip, which is also why they are small.

Not a page-builder trap

Every theme works with the block editor and the Customizer alone. None of them require a plugin to look like the demo.