GivebearConnect a custom domain
Serve your Givebear giving page from a domain you own, such as donate.yourcharity.org.
By default your public giving page lives at givebear.io/@your-slug. A custom domain lets the same page answer at an address you own, such as donate.yourcharity.org, with an HTTPS certificate Givebear issues for you.
You need to be an owner or admin of the organization, and you need access to the DNS settings for the domain.
Only the public giving pages move to your domain: your organization page, funds, campaigns, events, and the thank-you flow. Your team keeps signing in to the dashboard at givebear.io.
Connect the domain
Open Settings, then the Domain tab.
Enter the domain and select Connect. Type the host only (donate.yourcharity.org), not a URL: anything with https://, a slash, or a space is rejected.
Copy the CNAME record the page shows. Name is the part of your domain before your root (donate in the example); for a root domain it shows @. Value is the Givebear target to point at. Each has a Copy button.
Add that CNAME record at your DNS provider. When Givebear recognizes your provider (Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Route 53, or Google Domains), an Open DNS settings link takes you to the right console.
Wait. The page rechecks the record every 30 seconds while the status reads Pending, and flips to Active on its own once the record resolves and the certificate is issued.
DNS changes can take anywhere from a minute to a day to propagate, depending on your provider and the record's previous time-to-live. Leaving the page is fine; the status is checked again whenever you return.
A domain can belong to only one Givebear organization. If you see "Domain is already registered to another organization", the domain is connected elsewhere. Remove it there first, or use a different subdomain.
Root domains
Most DNS providers only allow a CNAME on a subdomain, not on the root (yourcharity.org). Use a subdomain such as donate. or give. unless your provider explicitly supports CNAME records at the root (sometimes called CNAME flattening or ALIAS records).
What visitors see
| Status | Visitors to your domain see |
|---|---|
| Pending | A plain "This domain is being set up" page. Search engines are told not to index it. |
| Active | Your giving page. donate.yourcharity.org shows your organization page, and paths such as /events/spring-gala work the same as under givebear.io/@your-slug/. |
| Failed | Nothing is served. Fix the record, then retry. |
On an active domain, links Givebear generates on your pages drop the /@your-slug prefix, and any old /@your-slug/... link that reaches your domain redirects to the clean path.
Fix a failed verification
The status turns Failed when the certificate check gives up, usually because the CNAME record is missing, points somewhere else, or is proxied so Givebear cannot see it.
- Confirm the record at your DNS provider matches the Name and Value shown exactly.
- If your provider proxies DNS (for example Cloudflare's orange cloud), turn the proxy off for this record so the target is visible.
- Select Retry check. If the record is right, the status returns to Pending or Active.
- If it keeps failing, select Remove and start over and connect the domain again.
Remove the domain
Select Remove domain on the Domain tab. Your giving page immediately goes back to givebear.io/@your-slug only, and requests to the old domain are refused. Delete the CNAME record at your provider as well so the hostname does not dangle.