Recurring Gifts

Recurring gifts are gifts given at regular intervals, such as through automatic monthly gifts of $50. When donors fulfill their scheduled commitments, the payments are tracked as recurring gift payments. Recurring gifts differ from pledges because when donors donate, you don't know the total amount you'll receive. On the record of a recurring gift, you can skip upcoming payments, add amendments, and view information about its payments, schedule, start and end dates, and any amendments.

When you add a recurring gift in the web view or a donor donates through a donation form, its payments automatically process based on its payment schedule and status. Each payment attempt succeeds or fails until you change the gift status to Completed or Terminated, or its end date is met. If there is no end date, changing the status to Completed or Terminated stops future payments, and you can’t change the status back to Active. For more information, see Recurring Gift Status.

  • Payments that succeed are placed in unapproved batches and you must approve them to create their gift records. For more information, see Gift Management.

  • Payments that fail may do so due to a temporary soft rejection or a permanent hard rejection. When an attempt fails due to a soft rejection, it automatically retries each day until it reaches the maximum number of retries or the payment is successful. For more information, see Recurring Gift Payment Processing.

Under Recurring gift history, you can view details about the donor's payments toward the recurring gift, as well as any amendments or failed or skipped transactions.

  • For a payment, you can view how much — and when — the donor paid. Select the amount for more details about the payment.

  • For a failed payment, such as due to insufficient funds, a declined credit card, or a request to temporarily skip payments, you can view when it was originally scheduled for.

    Note: When a payment fails to process successfully, ($0.00) appears next to Failed payment. If a donor requests to temporarily skip one or more upcoming recurring gift payments, (Skipped) displays next to Failed payment.

  • For an upgrade or downgrade, you can view how the payment amount increased or decreased, and when the amendment occurred.

Under Recurring gift summary, you can skip upcoming payments and view a synopsis of the recurring gift, including its payment schedule and history, current status, and any amendments. For more information, see Recurring Gift Summary.

Note: In the database view, you can manage certain details from the Gift tab of the recurring gift's record. From Records, Gifts, search for and select the recurring gift. For recurring gifts added in the database view, select Schedule to update information about how much (and when) the donor will pay at each interval.

Tip: To avoid disruptions in recurring giving, process payments through Blackbaud Merchant Services. The Credit Card Updater service—automatically included in your Blackbaud Merchant Services subscription—provides real-time updates for credit cards, ensuring you have the most up-to-date card info. For more information, see Credit Card Updater.

Note: Recurring gift records are automatically set to Do not post because the gift only represents a schedule for future payments. However, the records for each installment are set to Not posted because they represent payments you should post to your general ledger.