Fundraising Thermometer Generator
Set your goal, pick your colors, and download your thermometer as an image or a printable PDF.
A fundraising thermometer is a visual progress tracker showing money raised against a campaign goal. This generator makes one you can download or embed anywhere, with no design tools.
The image above is a snapshot. A CauseVox campaign page gives you a thermometer that updates itself with every gift, alongside donation forms, peer-to-peer and email. Book a demo →
Unlock advanced options, free
Add your name and email, and we'll unlock these straight away:
- Logo upload & custom fonts
- Milestone markers (25/50/75%)
- Transparent PNG & watermark removal
- Copy-paste website embed code
Free forever. We'll also send occasional fundraising tips.
Advanced options unlocked 🎉
Logo upload, milestones, transparent PNG, watermark removal and embed code are now live in the editor above.
Static thermometer or live thermometer?
A static fundraising thermometer is an image. It shows the number that was true when you made it, and it stays that way until you remake it. A live fundraising thermometer is connected to your donation records and updates itself every time a gift comes in. Static is right for email, print and slides. Live is right for a page donors return to.
Both have a place, and they are not interchangeable. Picking the wrong one is awkward to undo once a campaign is already running.
Static fundraising thermometer
An image file you download and place wherever you want it.
- Nothing to set up: download it and drop it anywhere
- No platform, no account, no code required
- You retype the numbers and re-download to update it
- Shows the total as of the moment you made it
Use it for: a newsletter send, a board slide, a flyer on the wall, a one-off social graphic, a printed tracker at an event.
Live fundraising thermometer
A thermometer wired to your actual donations, so it moves on its own.
- Updates the second a gift is processed, day or night
- Counts offline and check gifts once you enter them
- Rolls up peer-to-peer and team totals automatically
- Never shows a stale number to a donor mid-campaign
Use it for: your donation page, a giving day, GivingTuesday, year-end, or any campaign where the number changes daily.
A live thermometer is built into every CauseVox campaign page
It ties to real gifts in your account, so the number on the page is the number in your reports. Download the image above for your next email, and book a short call to see the live one running on a real campaign.
Donation thermometer, goal tracker, fundraising meter
The generator above makes all of these. Which name you use usually says more about where the graphic is going, and who is going to look at it, than about the graphic itself.
Donation thermometer
The name people use when the graphic sits on a donation page or in a donor email. Dollars raised against a dollar goal, with one job: make the gap feel closeable.
- Set the goal to the number you intend to hit, not an aspirational one.
- A bar stuck at 12% for three weeks does more harm than no bar at all.
- Got a stretch goal? Run the first thermometer to the base goal, then publish a second one once you clear it.
Fundraising goal tracker
The internal name, usually for something staff and board look at rather than donors. A tracker carries more detail than a public thermometer.
- Turn on milestone markers at 25, 50 and 75 percent.
- Add the donor count, and put the deadline in the title.
- Keep a plainer version for public use.
- Prints well for an office wall, where you fill in the next segment by hand.
Fundraising meter
A horizontal progress bar rather than a bulb thermometer. Switch the Style control above to Progress bar to make one.
- Fits an email header, a website banner or a slide, where a tall graphic will not.
- The safer choice for email: a tall thermometer scales down until the numbers are unreadable on a phone.
Thermometer goal tracker
Also called a donation tracker, a donation counter or a goal thermometer. All four describe a running count displayed against a target.
- On WordPress, paste the embed snippet into a text or HTML block. Works in any theme, no plugin needed.
- Keep a donate button directly beside it. A number with nothing to click is a statistic, not an ask.
Where to use a fundraising thermometer
The same graphic behaves differently in an inbox, on a wall, and over a livestream. Here is which style to export for each spot, what size to make it, and the mistake that shows up most often.
Fundraising emails
Most appeals run four to six emails, and the thermometer is what makes the series feel like one campaign instead of five reminders. Use the progress bar style rather than the tall thermometer: email clients scale a tall image down until the dollar figures are unreadable on a phone. Export around 1200px wide, remake it before every send, and put a donate button directly underneath. CauseVox’s built-in email tool pulls the current total in for you.
Social media
Post the thermometer when the number moves enough that people will notice, not on a fixed schedule. The vertical thermometer fits stories and reels, the progress bar fits feed posts and link previews. Put the dollars raised in the caption as well as in the graphic, because plenty of people scroll past before the image renders.
Your website
A homepage banner or a campaign landing page is one of the highest-value places to put a thermometer, and it is also where a static image ages worst. The progress bar suits a full-width banner slot, the vertical thermometer suits a sidebar. If you are using the downloadable image, refresh it two to three times a week, and pull it down the day the campaign closes: a stale number reads as an abandoned campaign. A donation page on your own website keeps the number current on its own.
Livestream and stream overlays
In OBS or Streamlabs, add the downloaded PNG as an Image source and pin it to a corner of your scene, or point a Browser source at the saved file and hit refresh after each new export. Download the transparent PNG so it sits cleanly over gameplay or a camera feed, and keep it under roughly a quarter of the frame width so it does not crowd the content. On Twitch and YouTube, say the running total out loud every few minutes: most viewers arrive mid-stream and are not reading the corner of the screen.
In-person events
Project a large version on the room screen, or print the PDF template poster-size and color in the rest with a marker as gifts land. The number moving during the ask is what moves the room, so call it out from the stage rather than letting the graphic sit there. Give one volunteer the job of re-exporting the image so the screen is never more than a few minutes behind the gifts. For a ticketed event, an event page tracks ticket revenue and gifts against the same goal.
Donor newsletters
While a campaign is live, drop the current thermometer into the newsletter body with one line of context and a link to give. Keep the same style and fill color every issue so returning readers read the bar instead of re-reading the design. Newsletters reach people who never opened the appeal, so this is often where lapsed donors and first-time givers find the campaign at all.
Thank-you emails
Include the thermometer as it stood right after the gift, so the donor can see where their money landed. Keep it small and place it below the thank-you itself, never above it: the message is gratitude first and progress second. Do not staple a second ask onto the same email.
Peer-to-peer and team campaigns
Give every team its own thermometer against its own goal instead of one shared bar, because a team sitting at 8% of an organization-wide total has nothing it can close. Send each fundraiser a ready-made image so they are not asked to build one themselves. Team totals change hourly, and nobody keeps eight static images current, so this is the clearest case for a live peer-to-peer campaign page.
Why fundraising thermometers work
A thermometer is not decoration. It changes how a donor decides, and it does it in three specific ways. Knowing which one you are leaning on tells you where to put the graphic and how often to touch it.
Goal proximity: the gap motivates, not the total
People work harder as a goal gets closer, and effort speeds up near the finish line. Researchers call it the goal gradient effect, and it is why the last stretch of a campaign is your strongest ask rather than your most tired one.
- A bar sitting at zero gives a donor nothing to close. Soft launch to your most committed supporters before you go wide.
- Set a goal you actually expect to hit. A bar that barely moves for three weeks tells donors the campaign is failing, and you do not get that back.
Social proof: people give when they can see people giving
Field experiments in charitable giving have found that telling a donor what other people have already given shifts what that donor does. A filled bar is the cheapest way to show it.
- Turn on the donor count when the count is the better number. If 340 donors sounds stronger than $6,800 for your campaign, show the count.
- Keep a donate button within reach of the graphic everywhere you put it. The window between feeling it and acting on it is short.
Urgency: a deadline is what turns interest into a gift
Without an end date a thermometer is a status bar, and a status bar can be read again tomorrow. A deadline makes every update carry two facts at once: how much is left, and how little time there is to close it.
- Put the deadline in the campaign title so it travels with the image wherever the image gets forwarded.
- Keep the campaign under about 60 days. Attention decays, and there is only so much you can say about the same bar.
- Update two to three times a week while it runs. An unchanged number over a week does the exact opposite of what you built it for.
Four things people miss
- Set the goal from what the same appeal raised last year, not from what you wish it would raise.
- Use the same color and style everywhere the campaign appears, so people read the number instead of re-reading the design.
- Raise the goal only after you clear the first one, and say out loud that you passed it.
- Mark it complete or take it down the day the campaign ends. A finished campaign still showing 94% looks like a failed one.
Sources for the two research claims above: Kivetz, Urminsky and Zheng, "The Goal-Gradient Hypothesis Resurrected," Journal of Marketing Research (2006); and Shang and Croson, "A Field Experiment in Charitable Contribution," The Economic Journal (2009). Everything else on this page is practitioner guidance, not a research finding.
How to make a fundraising thermometer
The whole process takes about a minute. Nothing to install, no account needed.
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Enter your campaign title and goal
Type the name donors will recognize, then your goal and the amount raised so far. Dollar signs, commas and decimals are all fine, so you can paste a figure straight out of a spreadsheet. The preview updates as you type.
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Pick a style and a color
Three styles: Thermometer for social posts, flyers and event signage, Thermometer Classic for the traditional navy-cased look with a scale and pointers, and Progress bar for email headers, website banners and slides. Choose a preset fill color or paste your own brand hex value into the color picker. Add a donor count if the number of givers is more persuasive than the dollar total.
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Download it
Download JPG gives you an image for email, social and your website. Printable template gives you a one-page PDF sized for US Letter, with your title and goal filled in and the thermometer shaded to what you have raised so far, so you can color in the rest by hand as gifts land.
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Update it as the campaign moves
Come back, change the raised figure, and download again. Refresh it two or three times a week during an active campaign. If you would rather not do this by hand, a live thermometer updates itself with every gift.
Fundraising thermometer FAQ
How do I make a fundraising thermometer?
Use the generator at the top of this page. Enter your campaign title, your goal, and the amount raised so far, then pick a fill color and one of the three styles. The preview updates as you type. When it looks right, download it as an image, or download the printable template if you would rather fill it in by hand. Nothing needs to be installed and no account is required. If you are still deciding what campaign to run behind the thermometer, our 200 fundraising ideas are filterable by effort and revenue potential.
Is this fundraising thermometer generator really free?
Yes. The image download, the printable template, the color controls, the donor count, and both styles are free with no account and no email required. A few extras (logo upload, custom fonts, milestone markers, transparent PNG, removing the CauseVox watermark, and the website embed code) unlock once you fill in a short form: first name, last name and email. That is the whole trade. There is no paid tier of this tool.
Is there a free printable fundraising thermometer template?
Yes. The Printable template (PDF) button in the generator produces a one-page PDF sized for US Letter, with your campaign title and goal already filled in and the thermometer shaded to your current total, so you can color in the rest as gifts arrive. Milestone amounts are calculated from your goal and printed alongside the tube. It prints in black and white, so an office printer is fine. This is the version to tape to a wall or hand out to a classroom or team.
What is the difference between a static and a live fundraising thermometer?
A static thermometer is an image. It shows the number that was true when you made it, and it stays that way until you come back and remake it. A live thermometer reads your actual donation totals and updates itself as gifts come in. Static is right for email, print, and slides, where the graphic is frozen the moment you send it anyway. Live is right for a donation page or campaign page that donors visit repeatedly over days or weeks. See the comparison above for the full breakdown.
Can I embed the thermometer on my website?
Yes. Unlock the embed code with the short form and the generator gives you a copy-paste HTML snippet that works on WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, and anything else that accepts an HTML block. The snippet is self-contained, with no scripts to load. Keep in mind that the embed still holds a fixed number. It renders on your site, but it does not know about new donations. For a thermometer that moves on its own, use a live campaign page.
Can I use this for a church, school, or sports team campaign?
Yes, and those are among the most common uses. Building funds, capital campaigns, mission trips, PTA and PTO drives, band and athletics fundraisers, class gift campaigns, and youth group goals all work the same way. Set the campaign title to whatever people call it locally, pick a color from your school or church palette with the custom color picker, and print the template for the hallway or the narthex. There is no restriction on how you use the image, commercial or otherwise. Still choosing what to run? Our 200 fundraising ideas cover schools, churches and sports teams, and there is a longer church fundraising ideas guide if that is your setting.
Will the thermometer work in an email newsletter?
Yes, as a downloaded image. Email clients strip most HTML and block scripts, so an image is the only reliable way to put a thermometer in an email. Download it and insert it the way you would any other picture. The progress bar style usually reads better in email than the tall thermometer, because it survives being scaled down on a phone. Always add descriptive alt text with the actual numbers, since a large share of readers have images turned off by default.
Can I add my logo and change the colors?
Colors are free and unrestricted. Pick one of the presets or open the color picker and paste your brand hex value. Logo upload and font selection sit behind the free unlock form. Your logo is processed entirely in your browser and is never uploaded to CauseVox or stored anywhere. One practical note: a high-contrast fill color reads better than a pale one, especially in print and at small sizes in email.
What happens if we raise more than our goal?
The fill stops at the top of the tube, but the percentage label shows the real figure, so 118% stays 118%. That is deliberate, since overshooting the goal is worth celebrating in the graphic rather than hiding. If you plan to keep fundraising past the original target, the cleaner move is to publish a new thermometer with a raised goal and say plainly that you passed the first one. Donors respond well to that framing and badly to a goal that quietly changes.
What size is the image, and where should I use it?
Both thermometer styles download at 800 by 1000 pixels and the progress bar at 1000 pixels wide, all large enough for a website, an email, or a social post without looking soft. For print, use the PDF template instead of the image, since it is vector and stays sharp at any size. The tall thermometer suits social posts, printed flyers, and event signage. The progress bar suits email headers, website banners, and slides.
Last reviewed September 16th, 2026 by the CauseVox product team. We revise this tool and page as the fundraising software landscape changes.
