Recurring Donation Settings

Overview

Recurring Donations are donations that donors give on a regular basis. This is different than a series of pledge payments. If a donor signs up to give $30/month, then a user would create a recurring donation in Salesforce. Each payment of $30 would be a separate Opportunity attached to the Recurring Donations object. If a donor pledges $5000 over 5 years, users would set up one Opportunity with a

Payment Schedule.⁠

⁠

Salesforce has two different types of Recurring Donations: Legacy Recurring Donations and Enhanced Recurring Donations. The data model is the same, the automation and UI is a little different.

Data Model-(Same in both versions)

When creating a recurring donation you need a contact or account and have the option of associating it with a campaign. You may designate to one or more General Accounting Unit through GAU Allocations and you could assign a series of stewardship tasks via Engagement Plans.

⁠

Legacy Recurring Donation Process

The NPSP Legacy Recurring Donations feature allows you to track gifts that donors have pledged over a period of time. This feature accommodates both Open-Ended Recurring Donations (no end date set) and Fixed-Length Recurring Donations (end date set).

In the Legacy Recurring Donation model by default, when a recurring donation was entered, for example $10/month, the next 12 Opportunities would automatically create. This can be changed in

NPSP Settings⁠

. The enhanced model by default will only create one future engaged opportunity and wait for the next month to create one more.

The process of creating Recurring Opportunities in Salesforce in the Legacy version is the same for both:

Step 1: Go to the Recurring Donations Tab and press new

Step 2: Fill in the pertinent information, see screenshot below.

*Note that if a fixed amount is selected rather than open, you have the choice between “Multiply By” or “Divide By”. In this case the amount is $50 so “Multiply By” would mean the donor is giving $50 every month and “Divide By” would mean that the donor is giving the Amount divided by the Number of Planned installments.

Fields in Legacy not in Enhanced version:

Legacy Opportunity When Entering

⁠

😱 Look what happens when you create Open Recurring Donations in the Legacy Model!!! So many Opportunities!!!

⁠

Enhanced Recurring Donation Process

The introduction of Enhanced Recurring Donations made the package more intuitive from the name of the fields to the different types of Recurring Donations. It is necessary to enable this feature in NPSP Settings currently.

Here you can see the create record screen is a little different from the legacy version. It doesn’t have the confusing “Multiply by” or “Divide by” for fixed donations. The amount field simple represents the recurring amount. The “Recurring Type” field replases the Open-ended Status field.

⁠

Instead of having Opportunities create, a Lightning Component allows for visualization of upcoming installments and formula fields allow for reporting on projected income for the current year and next year.

You can also pause or close the recurring donation without having to go into previously created Opportunities and set them to closed lost.

⁠

You can also make custom status if desired.

⁠

Recurring Donation Choice can be made here.⁠

⁠

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.