Using Caging Firm to Process Credit Cards

Lucas Lineback 2

Hello,



We've recently decided to outsource our phone canvass operations, and discovered we need a caging firm to process our credit card transactions.  This is completely new territory for us. Does anyone have experience with this type of transition and could speak to choosing the right caging firm? Do any phone canvass vendors have in-house processing? Is there a compliant way to avoid using a caging firm? Has anyone used a lockbox at a bank? Thanks for any insight.



Lucas

Laurel Quaintance 2

Depending on what phone processing center you are using 

1: Are they processing your donations right into your internet product using Blackbaud Merchant Services? If so this is a non-issue

2: Can you work with Blackbaud to make this happen?

3: Lockboxes are great if you are processing 1 type of thing  (usually unrestricted annual fund) 

4: Make sure you work out all of the minute details - are you doing multi year pledges with this - how are you handling confirmation, initial payments, reminders and fulfillment. How are you handling the push of this information into your database if you have 'outsourced' this to a phone bank or lockbox

5: There are phone centers that can use blackbaud products - have you looked into them?

6: Is this a 'renewal cycle' with a purchase item like Season tickets and a donation item (College Athletics annual fund and Donation combined) - different than plain donation - QPQ

Debra Holcomb

Your telemarketing company should be able to provide you with some guidance on this as they are accepting payments for many other not-for-profits.  



The company we work with provides us with a file for gifts made during the call containing the gift details through a secure channels and we enter them into Raiser's Edge using our existing staff.  However, any pledge payments that are returned by mail (either check or credit card) are sent to our caging company. We use DMP (Direct Mail Processors). We tried a bank lock box, but that didn't provide the level of customized service we needed.