Quick Start: Set Up Recurring Giving

This guide shows how to enable and manage recurring (monthly, quarterly, or annual) donations on your giving forms.

Prerequisites

  • A DonorPoint account with a credit card or ACH payment method configured
  • The payment processor must support recurring/tokenized transactions

Step 1: Enable Recurring on an Item

Recurring giving is configured per Item on a Campaign form.

  1. Open your Campaign and go to the Items tab
  2. Edit the giving item (or create a new one)
  3. Under Recurring Options, enable recurring giving
  4. Set the available frequencies:
    • Monthly
    • Quarterly
    • Annually
    • Custom (e.g., every 2 weeks)
  5. Optionally set a default frequency (e.g., Monthly pre-selected)
  6. Save

Step 2: Form Behaviour

When a donor selects the recurring item on the form:

  1. A frequency selector appears with the options you configured
  2. The donor chooses their schedule and enters payment details
  3. On submission, DonorPoint creates:
    • A Recurring Donation Instance — the schedule record
    • An initial Transaction — the first payment (processed immediately)

Step 3: Managing Recurring Donations

Recurring donations are managed from Transactions → Recurring Donations in the sidebar.

Each Recurring Donation Instance shows:

Field Description
Contact The donor
Amount Recurring gift amount
Frequency How often the gift recurs
Next Date When the next charge will process
Status Active, Paused, Cancelled, or Completed
Payment Method Stored card or bank account

Common Actions

  • Pause — temporarily suspend processing without cancelling
  • Cancel — permanently stop the recurring schedule
  • Update Amount — change the recurring gift amount
  • Update Payment Method — swap to a different card or account
  • Skip Next — skip the next scheduled payment

Step 4: Automatic Processing

DonorPoint’s recurring engine runs automatically:

  1. Each day, the engine checks for Recurring Donation Instances with a Next Date of today
  2. For each, it charges the stored payment method
  3. On success, a new Transaction is created and the Next Date advances
  4. On failure (declined card), the donor receives a notification email and the instance is flagged

Donor Self-Service

Donors can manage their own recurring gifts through the Donor Portal:

  • View active recurring donations
  • Update payment method
  • Change amount or frequency
  • Pause or cancel

To enable self-service, ensure the Donor Portal is configured on your account.

Next Steps