Recurring Gift

Heidi Golden

Blackbaud team.


Can you please add in an option for recurring gifts to be 1 year from the date of the original gift?  We have a few membership based OLX pages and really want to disable single gifts so people don't have to rejoin year after year.  The way it is now, you can only choose a month and date. We don't want to pick a specific month because if someone joins the month before, their reucrring gift would be immeidate, and we also don't want to list every month because there is no way to explain that. Help!!


Thank you,

Heidi Golden

Rachel Nigro

Hi Heidi, 


This is a great question and an interesting point. If you're setting up recurring gifts in Online Express, in most cases, Online Express is just collecting the data about the recurring gift (donor information, amount, frequency, and payment information) - and unless the donor is making the gift on the date of the first scheduled installment, you'll likely need to charge the gift in The Raiser's Edge using the EFT module. For more information about charging recurring gifts from Online Express, we have instructions here.


Since charging recurring gifts is a manual process in The Raiser's Edge, you set up the frequency in Online Express to reflect when you'll go in to charge those recurring gifts. I think I understand what you mean though, you want the constituent to give (and be charged on that date) and then also automatically be charged again on that date a year later--almost like an automatic renewal. We have an idea for this in our ideas section: Recurring gift option for membership. We'd love for you to add your vote to this idea if this is something you'd like to see as well!


In the meantime, you could still have the option for members to renew annually using recurring gifts by enabling only 1 month at a time. This would prevent the issue you mentioned where members could sign up in January, but select to be charged in March. In this example, I only have the option for donors to be charged annually on January 31. Once you charge all of the installments on 1/31, you could go in and change this to be the last day of February on your form. That way, anyone who signs up online after 1/31, would be charged in February.  This would be an extra step for you to take, but would get the job done!



I hope this alternate suggestion was helpful! Definitely still add your vote to our idea linked above! 


Is anyone else doing something like this? What tips do you have for Heidi?