Recurring gifts in OLX

Lisa Dean

Hi - we've just recently moved to OLX from NetworkforGood.  Recurring gifts under NetworkforGood allowed the donor to set up a starting date AND an ending date but I don't see this in OLX.  How does the donor specify when they would like their giving to end?  It doesn't seem like a donor would want to keep it open-ended like that?

Also, in the pledge option, I really would like to see a semi-annual option as a choice.  The donor is limited to annually, monthly, and quarterly?

Sunshine Reinken Watson

Lisa Dean:

Hi - we've just recently moved to OLX from NetworkforGood.  Recurring gifts under NetworkforGood allowed the donor to set up a starting date AND an ending date but I don't see this in OLX.  How does the donor specify when they would like their giving to end?  It doesn't seem like a donor would want to keep it open-ended like that?

Also, in the pledge option, I really would like to see a semi-annual option as a choice.  The donor is limited to annually, monthly, and quarterly?

That is interesting! I have never offered the option of an end date for monthly donations at any organization I've worked with. The donor is expected to contact us if they would like to end their commitment. Donors have never had an issue with that.

Jen Claudy

Is that something new that Network for Good added?  We used them until Oct 2014 when we moved to OLX.  I know a donor would set up an account with NfG for a recurring gift and could access that account to change the details or end it.  But I don't remember there being an option to set an end-date from when the gift was initially made/set up.  Then again, it could just be that we never had anyone use that option.  To me, that would mean it's a pledge rather than a recurring gift.


One of the differences, which has pros & cons, is that NfG requires the donor to have an account and OLX doesn't have that feature at all.  The pro being that the donor can make adjustments as needed without calling us; the con being that there (at least back then) was no "back end" that I could access on behalf of a donor who called in to make an adjustment.  We had one donor who doesn't do the email/online thing, but wanted to do a quarterly recurring gift on a credit card.  The only option was to basically pretend to be him, set up an account with NfG, and use an email address at our organization.  Never felt right about that, but it's what my boss told the donor we would do, so that's what we did.  OLX is much better in that case, because I can set it all up from within RE and it's done.


The one thing, though, that I really, really miss about NfG is that that system would automatically run recurring charges.  I didn't have to remember to go manually initiate that process each time.  (Although I do like having them all on the same day of the month.)