Mastercard requirements and sending the emails through NXT

April Snow

Forgive me if this has been addressed and I couldn't find it. I understand the requirements and what we need to do but, I've been working on setting it up and come up against a lot of roadblocks. I first tried to set up the reminder email but I can't get it to work. Unless I'm missing something, the receipt option will not send to Recurring gift types. I also tried to set it up through email marketing but of course the needed fields are not there, since it's not a gift email. Which means if I cannot set that up, I'm not going to be able to set up the receipt for when the recurring gift payment is charged with the required information. I'm at a loss as to how I'm supposed to send them through the system? Am I missing something? I am a long time user of database view but relatively new to NXT.

April Snow

I should add that we use online express for donations and not the module in NXT. It was too limited.

Faith Murray

@April Snow
April, even if you use OLX for your donation forms and regular emails, you can - and will probably need to - use NXT for your receipt emails for recurring gifts. I could not find a suitable way to do this in database view, Mailchimp, or Online Express. We literally do not use NXT emails for anything else except this function.

• In NXT, create a Gifts List with criteria: recurring gifts processed this week.
• Then, under Fundraising - Gift Receipting, upload the query.
• You will need to probably adjust your email template there (we added branded headers, etc.)
• You checkmark the ones that need receipting, and then send.

It should look similar to this:

Sheila Wortham

Are you utilizing Raiser's Edge NXt to remind contributors of upcoming payments?@Faith Murray

Faith Murray

@Sheila Wortham
Sheila, unfortunately, I don't have much advice on that point! We luckily don't have any irregular (quarterly, biannual) recurring gifts on credit card – our recurring gift society was set up specifically for monthly donors.

Neither NXT nor OLX have the merge fields necessary to pull this one off in their email marketing. My guess is they will add those fields in the near future as other nonprofits stress the need. Otherwise:

• If you have only a handful, you might be able to manage using a query to identify which records to send each quarter and then sending them manually.
• If you have a larger number and use a third party like Mailchimp, you could conceivably export the needed data (next payment info, processing date) as custom merge fields in a targeted Mailchimp email.
• You could send by snail-mail, which would cost more in postage, but be much easier to merge/export.
• If your donors don't have emails, Mastercard now says you don't need to send any digital reminders or receipts.

April Snow

@Faith Murray That works for payments on recurring gifts but not the reminder before the card is charged. However I saw your other message about it and am hoping Blackbaud adds the fields and the way to send the reminders to the original recurring gift and not just the payment.