The Locked-in Low-Down on Recurring Transactions Migration

Existing recurring transactions are a perplexing issue that nonprofits often don’t know to think through when considering switching into a new donation platform or CRM.

This can be especially important when you are exploring one of the 2 zillion, new, “free” donation processing systems that keep popping up.

What’s the problem?

The problem here is that once donors set up a recurring transaction on one platform, it is difficult (or event impossible) to move those recurring transactions over to the new platform.

One client, before working with us, had been experimenting with several different online giving platforms simultaneously. During their testing process, donors established recurring gifts on all three “test” platforms. Eventually, they chose a new, completely different CRM and had to ask those donors to set up new recurring transactions within the new CRM.

Although this particular situation only involved a handful of donors, it can become a huge issue when you have a large amount of recurring donors on one platform that you need to move to another.

In some situations, if you cancel your subscription with a particular CRM, you’ll lose those recurring gifts. You’ll either have to ask each of those donors to set up a new recurring gift in your new CRM (which some organizations don’t mind doing, although they will inevitably lose a few of those recurring gifts, or continue paying for a low-tier subscription to your original CRM in order to continue processing those gifts.

So this is an often forgotten but very important consideration when deciding if you are going to migrate to a new donor database.

It is also an important to understand your potential new CRM’s policy for recurring transaction migration if ever you want to leave. Some CRMs make it much easier to migrate away from their product down the road. Kindful CRM for example will help you with migration out of their platform for an additional charge.

Additionally, some CRMs will assist you in moving your existing recurring donors from one platform into theirs. For example, DonorPerfect, because they have their own payment processor, has a “turn-key” process to import recurring transactions into their in-house payment processing system. This however depends on the payment processor currently processing the existing recurring gifts as some particular payment processors don’t have a way (or won’t) provide that information.

Why is it so tricky to migrate recurring gifts between platforms? (Getting technical.)

The difficulty and inconsistency in recurring transactions is because of credit card security issues and the cryptic processes used to keep them protected. Often the credit card numbers are processed through something the industry calls a “token” where the credit card number is stored until it is scheduled for processing. This means that a CRM doesn’t always have access to the actual credit card number, particularly when they use a third-party payment processor like Stripe.

When a larger CRM, like DonorPerfect or Blackbaud owns its own payment processing system, they have more control over those credit card numbers. However, they may chose not to release the “tokens” (often due to those security issues). There are businesses, such as Token X, who specialize in (very expensive) secure migration of those tokens between payment processors, but these are often cost prohibitive for small nonprofits.

Another consideration: when a CRM like Kindful or Bloomerang uses a third-party payment processor, it may make it easier to switch between platforms. Additionally, these two particular CRMs in my experience have a customer service philosophy where they are more willing to assist your migration away from their platforms. LIttle Green Light, although they also use the Stripe platform, does not provide any migration service and with them, you have to be prepared to work directly with Stripe to access your donor recurring transaction information.

This is really complicated! What to do?

You can see this is a really complex issue. Here are some things to consider:

1) Be very, very certain that you truly need to switch CRM platforms. The grass can often seem greener with another CRM, and most everyone has frustrations with their existing platform. None of them are perfect. But when you switch systems, you’ll leave behind some problems and gain new ones. Recurring transactions are one of them.

2) Consider how many recurring transactions you have on your legacy CRM. Are you willing to call those donors and ask them to set up a new recurring transaction on a new platform? Many nonprofits choose this as a solution, using it as an opportunity to communicate with their donors. You do have to prepare to lose some when you ask them to re-consider their recurring gifts.

3) Even if you do proceed with a behind-the-scenes migration from one platform to another, and incur those service fees, there will be a certain percentage of gifts that will not transfer for one reason or another. For example a particular banks may raise a “flag” that something odd is happening behind the scenes with these charges and not allow it to process. It may be a temporary hold, or it may be permanent. Typically around 10% of recurring gifts will not transfer to your new system.

4) Before you sign a contract on your brand new, shiny, clean CRM, make sure you get some clarification on how they will handle recurring transactions both on the migration into their system and on the way out, should you ever chose to leave.