Recurring Gift Plans

Recurring gift plans are the commitment a donor makes when they give a recurring gift through Blackbaud Donation Forms. The payments process automatically according to the frequency the donor chooses. When a payment processes, it appears as a recurring gift payment. You can access these plans from Contributions, Recurring gift plans.

Plan statuses

Recurring gift plans are active by default, but their status can change to:

  • On hold when a donor requests to pause payments for a while or when you want to stop payments after a payment fails. If a payment fails, you should contact the donor to update their payment method so you can resume payments or change the status from On hold to Terminated or Completed.

  • Completed when a donor no longer wishes to continue their payments or the end date has been met.

  • Terminated if your organization decides to end the gift. For example, you may want to end the gift if you are unable to update the donor’s payment method.

Tip: If a donor contacts your organization to pause their payments, from the recurring gift plan you can select Pause plan payment to skip up to ten payments. If the donor would like to pause for a longer period of time, you can put the plan on hold from Edit status. For more information, see Pause, Resume, or End Recurring Gift Payments.

You can open a recurring gift plan so you can review it or make changes to it from Contributions, Recurring gift plans. Select the plan's amount, then you can:

  • add or update the end date,

  • remove fee coverage for future payments,

  • update the frequency of payments,

  • add or update designations and appeal,

  • update the next payment date

  • update the name on the card used to make the payment,

  • update the card number and expiration date.