Sustained Giving in Online Express: Parking Lot Questions from 7/27/2017

Grace Tate

Thanks for another great webinar yesterday Online Express-ers! I hope you found our discussion around Sustained Giving in Online Express helpful and are ready to hit the ground running. I know we did have a lot of questions. I appreciate all of the great conversation around pledges and recurring gifts. Since we did run out of time, as promised, I've answered all of the submitted questions below. I know this post is longer than most but i wanted to ensure everyone had an opportunity to have their questions addressed. Have a happy Friday!

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Question: How do I access/purchase credit card updater?  What is the cost associated with it?
Answer: If you have questions associated with Credit Card Updater and how to access it/what fees are associated we’d love to have you reach out to BBMS@blackbaud.com with your Site ID and Organization Name. One of our representatives with our BBMS team is happy to talk through the details with you!

Question: Current state processing recurring gifts is manual. Is there any plan to automate this process? If so, when? 
Answer: We absolutely hear the need for an easier way to process these recurring gifts. We are working with Product Development to set a time and date for our next “Roadmap” to discuss where the product is heading which will take place in Q3. Additionally, I’ve requested Product Dev. specifically speak to recurring gifts/pledges improved processing. Although I do not have an official date yet I will ensure we have posts throughout the Community to notify our users of the meeting and it will be recorded. In the meantime you can check out our RENXT + OLX Roadmap meeting from Q2 here.

Question: How can we brand different eforms?  For example, put a photo that's the same as my November mailing on the November Donate hyperlink?
Answer: There is not currently functionality to upload photos to your forms themselves. I would recommend working with your webmaster to create an overall brand of the page which hosts the form to provide a consistent donor experience.

Question: Let's say that the donor calls over the phone with a credit card to set up monthly donations.  Can this be done by creating a batch? If yes, how do you set the date when the monthly donations are charged?
Answer: You can absolutely add a recurring gift through batch. You would add the gift information as normal being mindful to include the credit card fields so that all the information lives on the “Master” record. To set up the schedule from there you can add a schedule as discussed in https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/48534

Question: How can I get more room for text (and space) next to suggested gift amounts? For example, a baby diaper next to the $100 and so on.
Answer: I one-hundred percent see the value in this. I’d recommend adding this to our idea bank to up the space available in the description which you can access at https://community.blackbaud.com/products/onlineexpress/ideas. I can attest that this is where product development goes as they build out more and more functionality within the product.

Question: Does OLX create the batch or does it just add it to the constituent record? Can you create new constituent records from OLX? 
Answer: Online Express gifts flow into a batch before being added onto the constituent record. You have the option to either link gifts to existing constituent records or create new constituent records if this is a first-time donation. For more information on downloading transactions I’d recommend checking out our 3rd video (towards the bottom) of our “Getting Started” page

Question: How do I add a current recurring donor to the system without contacting them again? Note: Some I have the credit card info for but not all.
Answer: In order to charge the gifts in the Raiser’s Edge the credit card information would have to live in the Raiser’s Edge either on the “master” Recurring Gift/Pledge record or on the Bio 2 tab where it could then be added to the gift to a new “master” recurring gift/pledge in a batch (https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/49347) and the old record without the CC number could be marked as completed.

Question: Do you have stats that break down the effectiveness of a recurring gift program versus a pledge gift program? Does soliciting pledge gifts result in higher revenue than a recurring gift program?
Answer: To be completely transparent here, I do not have individual breakdowns comparing the two strategies. Our study looked at sustained giving rather than breakdowns of pledges vs recurring gifts. To take a deeper look at the data trends and strategies in the market around Sustained Giving altogether from a product-agnostic standpoint I would recommend checking out our Sustainers in Focus study.

Question: Will the automated processing improvements include having the option to generate an email receipt to the donor each month?
Answer: I have no currently seen a large volume of requests for this functionality but I absolutely see the value here. Just because I haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it does not exist. I’d recommend adding it to our idea bank to see what kind of response we get. 

 
Question: Are you going to address how to deal with existing recurring gifts? 
Answer: We did not discuss how to deal with existing recurring gifts in this particular session as we just had a lot of content to cover. The strategy for existing recurring gifts would really depend on the overall data health as this time (for example: are they all current and ready to be collected on). If you’d like to give a little bit more background on your current state I’m sure our Blackbaud Community could help define a path forward.

 
Question: How is a direct debit initiated by the donor? 
Answer: In this session we were focusing specifically on direct debits through Online Express so you would first have to enable direct debit giving. Once this was enabled on the form (set up on the “Get Started” tab under Payment Methods) the donor would see this available for selection. Keep in mind for direct debits Online Express only collects the information to then be passed off to Raiser’s Edge for charging to take place in a batch.

 
Question: What if you commit without an authorization code? How can you get the cards charged?
Answer: If you commit a batch without creating the EFT transmission file at all (aka: no cards in the batch were charged) you can temporarily mark the Batch as recurring by clicking Tools > Edit Batch Setup > Mark Batch is Recurring. This will then allow you to go to Tools > Create EFT transmission files to complete the charging process. Note: Do not commit the batch again as this will result in duplicate gifts on the record. If you only have some gifts in a batch that do not have authorization codes we’d recommend following the steps in https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/41965

Question: Are there canned reports on monthly giving?
Answer: Absolutely! There is an entire section on Reports called “Pledge and Recurring Gift Reports” to help you stay on top of those sustained donors.

Question: To process CC and EFT in separate batches, do we need to download them from OLX in separate batches? 
Answer: Remember that the downloading from OLX is just of the master records. You can place OLX gifts into specific batches from the linking grid though by going to Tools > Transaction Options.

 
Question: Is there a recurring gift process in online express for the membership piece?
Answer: Recurring gifts are not currently available for memberships. However, I did find this idea that requests RG’s for membership. I’d encourage you to go online and vote for it! 

 
Question: Is there a way in online express to segment thank you/receipt messages? So we can send a different message to our recurring donors than we send our one-time donors? 
Answer: The eReceipting function in Online Express is a hardcoded receipt. The only time a eReceipt would be generated for a recurring gift is it you have the option marked in Account > Receipt Options to “Generate an eReceipt if the first payment occurs on the same day that the online gift is submitted by the donor.” Any segmented or customized receipting would need to be done through the Raiser’s Edge “Mail” function. 

Whew! Success! I know this was a lot of information packed into one post. I appreciate you hanging in there with me. I did also want to call out the additional available resources we have available to help with recurring gifts/pledges in Raiser's Edge. Please see those below:

Developing and Managing Recurring Gifts in Raiser’s Edge* training developed by our instructors in a virtual classroom
Managing RE: EFT eLearning* to learn how to create EFT transmission files and steps to process Direct Debit and Credit Card files
Blackbaud Institute: Sustainers in Focus which discusses in depth data trends and best practices around Sustained Giving programs across the non-profit space

Knowledgebase solutions

 

•How do I process recurring gifts, pledges, and direct debits from Online Express in The Raiser's Edge?

•How to process (charge) credit cards and direct debits

*Included as part of your package if you have a Learn More or Learn Everything


Enough from me on your Friday afternoon! Have a wonderful weekend!