Recurring gifts and new Mastercard Rules

Patty Driscoll 3

I just found out from a colleague that Mastercard implemented new rules around processing recurring monthly donations (one new set of rules in March and the next set coming up on Sept 22). I can't believe that I didn't get any notification from Blackbaud even though support knows about it and there is a page about it on the website: https://www.blackbaud.com/mastercard-compliance . This is going to make a whole lot of extra work for us! Wondering what everyone else is doing about this (or if you even knew about it). Not sure how we can obtain the donor's acceptance of the terms for offline gifts, so if you have any thoughts, please send my way.

Austen Brown

@Patty Driscoll - I recommend you check out the tread linked below, it has a good discussion about this topic:

Faith Murray

@Patty Driscoll

Yes, thanks to @Erin Macleod for posting about this on the Community back in March – that was how we first found out about it. Here's what we did:

• We took an inventory then of how many recurring donors lacked valid emails, and then sent them a mailing notifying them of the new requirement. In the mailing, we gave them a choice to either update their email address, or else sign an opt-out statement waiving their rights to email notifications. We'll keep the signed statements in their donor files.
• For those who use OLX forms like us, we added verbiage to their auto-receipts, saying: “To change or cancel your monthly gift, contact us at [phone number]”.
• We added the same language to the bottom of the web page that holds our monthly donor sign-up form.
• To send monthly email acknowledgements, we have to use the gift acknowledgement email option in NXT.
• We're giving them their own email type in RE so we can more easily sort out who gets e-receipts and who has stated they don't want them. (NXT acknowledgments doesn't have an easy way to sort donors quickly that way.)
• We just did this for all recurring donors, not just Mastercard, because let's face it, it's easier than sorting them all out by card type.
• Donation forms made by Blackbaud will be compliant with point-of-sale language, no other action needed on those.

I've noticed a larger number of people canceling their monthly gifts now that we're sending the monthly acknowledgements. Although I don't like losing the revenue, I think it's good in the long run because we're honoring donor wishes and practicing ethical donor stewardship.

On that note, however, has anyone seen the posts from the Nonprofit Alliance seeking to push back on this effort? I'll create a new post with the information.

Kaitlin Randall

@Faith Murray This is so helpful. Thank you!!