Recurring Gift as gift type - with no pay cash -Question

Rob Price

Edit: Thanks to everyone who responded, I've decided to continue the normal recurring gift/recurring gift payment process.

We moved our donations to Fundraise Up, so all recurring gifts process automatically. It seems to me that it's extra work to add a new recurring gift, then add the actual transaction (recurring gift pay cash) and apply it to the recurring gift. Since we don't have to process this in RE, what's the point? Why not just use the Recurring Gift type and post it as I would a cash gift? It won't have any pay-cash gifts. Each month, each gift will be a "Recurring Gift". This keeps us from having to add another attribute or other data points. Is there anything about RE that makes this unfeasable?

Karen Diener

@Rob Price:

We moved our donations to Fundraise Up, so all recurring gifts process automatically. It seems to me that it's extra work to add a new recurring gift, then add the actual transaction (recurring gift pay cash) and apply it to the recurring gift. Since we don't have to process this in RE, what's the point? Why not just use the Recurring Gift type and post it as I would a cash gift? It won't have any pay-cash gifts. Each month, each gift will be a "Recurring Gift". This keeps us from having to add another attribute or other data points. Is there anything about RE that makes this unfeasable?

I already answered this post in Facebook, but reading it here I either missed something on Facebook or it was worded differently.

I am not sure I would use the gift type of “Recurring Gift” for each monthly gift. In RE, a Recurring Gift is more of a template gift than an actual transfer of money. Even though you aren't using the recurring gift functionality of RE, I fear that this could potentially cause confusion when you migrate to Salesforce. I don't think there is a significant difference in the fields on a Recurring Gift vs. Cash gift that would result in not having the correct information for migration, and you should be able to everything you need from the API and from database view, but without studying it more carefully I cannot confirm. Adding these as a Cash gift with an Attribute might still be my preference.

JoAnn Strommen

@Rob Price Agree with @Karen Diener some red flags in long term if not short.

Recurring gift type usually is handled differently by finance than payments. If at some point you have folks entered for a recurring gift (like a pledge) and you are using recurring gift as the type for payments you are going to mess up your $ reports.

I would think you could easily do a batch of the payments and enter them in RE quite easily.

Another point to consider is your metrics. Is each recurring gift payment counting as a gift? Will that gift type pull in lifetime giving? IMO, if you use recurring gift as type for payments, you can not use it as intended to indicate someone's intent to give on a recurring basis.

Dariel Dixon

I can't agree any more with @Karen Diener and @JoAnn Strommen. In RE, the recurring gift type is a template, as opposed to cash or payments which show actual transactions. If you're entering these gifts in batch, it should ask and give you the option to just load them as payments very easily. Even if you're not entering them through batch, there should still be a pop-up.

I'm not sure how what you're proposing isn't harder than what currently exists. Unless you're trying to run all of the gift entry through NXT, and those pop-ups/options don't exist there. Are you importing the gifts from FundraiseUp into RE directly? Is there a way that you can import them in as a batch, and have the batch automatically associate them to the recurring gifts?

Rob Price

Thanks, everyone! This is exactly why I posted here. I'll figure out a different option, such as an attribute.

Alex Wong

@Rob Price
We mostly process donation through Luminate Online, and what we do with recurring gift is “Gift Type”="Cash" while adding a “Recurring” gift attribute that signify where the recurring gift is from (i.e Luminate Online, Check, PayPal, etc)

Similarly, we have a “Online Origin" gift attribute that signify the gift came from online, and which platform (i.e. Luminate Online, Online Express, RE NXT Event Registration, etc)

Mitchell We

@Rob Price It would be better to use gift type recurring gift or the pledge to track these kinds of gift. If you use the gift attribute then you would have to add that attribute and make sure those are updated if the donor stops giving or terminate the gift. Creating as recurring gift is the proper way to enter the gift. For monthly recurring gift, you can run it automatically through RE NXT or RE database view.

Alex Wong

@Mitchell We
just want to clear any misconception, there's no “updating” of the gift attribute needed.

recurring gift on LO is coming into RE with the attribute via the import profile that is setup, no additional work needed to add the attribute, and the gifts that are marked as recurring via attribute is a recurring gift regardless if the donor stopped the recurring charge, the “stop” just mean there will be no new gift with the recurring attribute.

Using Recurring Gift and then Recurring Gift Payment is for what you said, to charge through RE NXT, but given what Rob has posted, the recurring gift is already charged via Fundraise Up, there is no need for RE NXT to do the charging and creating of Recurring Gift Payment.

Given Fundraise Up's integration with RE NXT, Fundraise Up recurring gift will come in automatically as Recurring Gift and Recurring Gift Payment, so keeping it that way may be best

Christine Robertson

@Rob Price The only reason to link them to a RG in your case would be for the reporting metrics on when these gifts are expected. If you have all of the metrics that you need elsewhere, then I wouldn't see a problem with not linking them.

That said, if you are not linking the payments to a Recurring Gift, then I would simply add them as Cash/One Time Gifts. Using the RG gift type could be problematic with reports if you historically used it for processing RGs in RE. Then the old ones wouldn't represent actual cash, but the new ones would.

Mary Beauclair

@Christine Robertson
Yes, I can tell you that using "Recurring Gift" to indicate a payment is problematic. I've seen where this was done at some point in the past (say in 2009) and then several years later (say 2020) new gifts were entered and applied to those “Recurring Gifts” as “Recurring Gift Pay-Cash". Both in 2009 and in 2020, the gifts should have been either “Recurring Gift Pay-Cash” or “Cash” because in both cases the money was coming in, but now it looks like the 2009 gifts are not actually money in. This is an incorrect use of the “Recurring Gift” gift type and it is very confusing and almost impossible to fix because of the way gifts can and cannot be deleted or modified in NXT vs. database view. Be very careful with the “Recurring Gift” gift type, and based on my experience, I would never use it to mean “Pay-cash” or “Cash”.