Credit Card Information Best Practices

Ely Heard

Good morning Blackbaud Community!

My orangization is brand new to BB products. For the past decade we have given our donors "Donation Cards" to complete. Each donation card gives them an opportunity to include payment information. In the past, we have had space for them to write down their Credit/Debit card information. Our Association has a new CFO who says this is not an acceptable practice moving forward. What are your best practices for retreiving Credit Card information from donors (specifically when pledge and gift entry is centralized). I greatly appreciate your input!


Thanks,


Ely

Beth Gibney

Hi Ely!  For our mailed appeals, we still use credit card language on the card so that they donor can write in their credit card info if they choose.  With this approach, one of our goals and hopes is that they will check off the "recurring payment" option too! The advantage if you went away with having them will it out, and driving them to your site, would be that with blackbaud, the donor info integrates to your database, so less manual work for your data team.

Melissa S Graves

Reminder - I am sure this has been discussed before so please search past discusssions as well before posting so people are not repeating answers they already gave.


It is 100% acceptable and still commonly done. You simply must be sure you are PCI compliant with how you handle the card numbers once received. Do you shred them - do you redact them, do you keep them locked up? All can be acceptable options but you must do something to keep them secure.


Should you encourage people to give online as much as humanly possible - YES! Even mention it on the paper reply device - YES! Should you require that be the ONLY way to make a credit card gift - no. Never limit the options for how people give to you. Even as the option is becoming more and more rarely used in some constituencies - it is still used.