Guild Wars 2

There is currently no reward for those donating to Guild Hall upgrades other than progress toward the completion of the objective.

In community-type donation systems like this, some other games provide players with a currency or some individual return for instant donations. This encourages players to complete a larger objective by providing a short term goal.

As it stands now, the altruism of a few individuals carries the burden of high-cost upgrades while the motivation for most is to not donate and reap the rewards. This is furthered by there being no tracking or ranking system to record the donations. So even if a few drop a huge amount of gold to progress the upgrades, this is still just hearsay. It becomes a black hole for money.

I hope some currency (like guild commendations) might be rewarded by a certain amount of donation such that players have an additional reward they can receive for supporting their guild.

Yeah, this could be something that could be looked into. However, I think that ANet intended the reward to be the upgrade.

Yes, like Guild Missions, members actually getting Guild Commendations from participation.