Recurring donations

In this article, you'll learn how to set up recurring donations.

Recurring payments/donations work with Stripe and Authorize.net—they do not work with external checkouts like PayPal!

Step one: set up a payment gateway

If you need more detailed instructions for this step, have a look at this article.

1. Go to Financial > Settings > Payment Gateways.
2. Click Add a payment gateway.
3. Select a provider.
   • If you select Stripe, click Connect to Stripe. Fill in the signup form (or log in with an existing Stripe account). Once you save, it will automatically connect to Populi.
   • If you select Authorize.net, enter the Login and Transaction Key they sent you after your account was approved.
4. Check the payment methods you wish to enable for this gateway.
   • If you'd like to accept e-checks and ACH payments through Stripe, please contact Populi Support.
   • To accept e-checks and ACH through Authorize.net, you'll need to sign up for eCheck.net™.
5. Finally, click Save to add the gateway.

Step two: select your gateway Uses

Under __ Transactions, you can specify which payment gateway you wish to use for different kinds of online payments.

1. Click the Donations use name to select a gateway for it.
2. Select the gateway you wish to use for each payment type.
3. Click Save to finish.

Step three: enable recurring donations

To enable recurring donations:

1. Go to Donations > Settings > General.
2. Scroll down to the Recurring Donation Options setting.
3. Check the interval options you'd like to make available to donors.
   • The week-based options will charge the donor on the same day of the week at the chosen interval.
   • The second three options will charge the donor on the same calendar day at the chosen interval.
4. Scroll back up and click Save Settings.

(You can disable recurring payments for specific donation pages by going to the page's settings and un-checking allow recurring.)

You can also go to the Recurring Donation Email Message setting and enter the text of the email you'd like sent every time the recurring donation is charged.

How recurring donations work

After enabling recurring donations:

• Donors who visit one of your online donation pages will have the option to make this a one-time donation or to give this amount monthly. If they choose monthly, they can then elect to make the monthly donation every month until they cancel or to make it a fixed number of times.
• You can also set up a recurring donation when you process a donation on the donor profile.

Managing recurring donations

If a donor has set up recurring donations, you'll see the Recurring Donations panel on Profile > Financial > Donations.

• Click to see your options for managing the recurring donation.
• Donors can manage their recurring donations via the donation management link, which they receive when they first set up the donation—and which you can re-send using the options.
• You can keep track of all recurring donations in the Donations > Recurring report.