I am not quite ready to get my game up on steam and offer keys, but I want those who are early backers to be able to donate if they want to. I will generate keys manually for these people in the future and offer non-steam versions to them as well.

So what I propose is to offer a direct Paypal donation button on my games page.

Is this against the rules on Itcho.io? I am not trying to circumvent their donation system but I do not see a way to set it up without offering downloads. My game won't have any official downloads ready until December of this year.

I could release one of the setup programs, what would you guys/gals recommend I do?

If this is against the rules I will remove it immediately from the page.

Can any staff respond here and clear this up?

I don't think we have an explicit rule about that, but the right thing to do would be to set up preorders. That's what they're for.

I am not trying to circumvent their donation system

What gave you the impression that  itch is exclusive? Circumventing would be to sell people stuff that is on itch  but processing it elsewhere. Whyever someone would want to even do this, there is not reason.

You might be circumventing certain laws, especially tax laws, if you accept "donations" but give out a product later. That is not  what a   donation is.

ordering it in an unfinished state

Uhm. Status in development  and payable would be quite normal here. But I guess you worry about those steam key integration. But if you plan to add that manually, why worry. Just put your demo version out there, so you can actually have people back you early. Or how or why are they backing you in the first place...

In theory you could sell a text file as a place holder. But an early access  version is     better.

And of course there is several preorder mechanism and if this is your first paid project, do not try to switch your payment status days befor your release, or you might open another thread, why your game is not indexed.

I feel that buying an unfinished product is very much a donation, because there is no guaranteed it will ever be finished. Which I why I chose to word it as such. Distribution platforms have pretty lengthy TOS so its easy to miss something which I why its often easier to just ask "Hey is this okay?"

Thanks for the input everyone.