Donation Forms in Private Browsing Modes

Keith Wilson

Hey Community,

Has anyone encountered donors having trouble making their online donations while using their “Private” browser settings? We have had several calls from donors who either get an error message when they put in their information, or are unable to view the online donation form altogether. I have tried on my personal phone (iPhone) in Private mode to access our donation form and it doesn't display the form at all! Is this a donor issue, NPO issue, or a Blackbaud issue? I would hate to tell a donor they can't use their private browser settings in order to put in their credit card information!?

Dariel Dixon

@Keith Wilson I haven't experienced this, but I would think it's associated with cookies. I've had some issue with other Blackbaud pages not performing correctly with my home firewall as well. Most of these “private” modes in browsers reject all cookies.

Faith Murray

@Keith Wilson
Private browser mode, to my knowledge, does not have anything to do with credit card security when making gifts. Credit card security is guaranteed by the encryption of the page itself as it holds & transmits data, and is verified by the padlock sign on the url bar. What private browsing windows do is reduce cookie tracking, providing IP address anonymity when accessing webpages. But since online donations usually entail entering name/email information, the donor is already losing a certain level of anonymity to the charity, unless they pay through a third-party app like Venmo.

It would be nice if BB could enable private browser donations. However, I'm going to say that even Gmail and Netflix don't like to function well if you use private browsing, and Netflix (at least, back when I still had Netflix - maybe it has changed) won't function at all if you use a VPN. That's because they're trying to reduce foreign fraud and comply with privacy regulations in different international regions. So, I wouldn't lose much sleep over asking donors to donate in their normal browser settings.

Jennifer Kluh

@Keith Wilson
I have not heard of this