"Donor Cover" in Online Giving and Event Registration Forms

@Karintha Marshall
What you are finding out seems disturbing.

Here's what I understood, dispict potential change in the naming of the “program”.

• Blackbaud Cover (Comlete Cover)
  • org doesn't pay fee
  • donor doesn't pay fee
  • Blackbaud pay fee
  • Blackbaud display info that ask donor to donate to Blackbaud, voluntary, not required
• Donor Cover
  • donor optionally decide if they will cover fee (3.5% + $0.30) https://kb.blackbaud.com/knowledgebase/articles/Article/200575
  • org pay fee (as per org's fee % agreement + $0.30)
  • Blackbaud does not display option to donate to BB

We will never use Blackbaud Cover as we do not want donor to be confused and question why they are being directed to donate to Blackbaud, which they know nothing about.

@Karintha Marshall I would look into other options. Complete Cover is a causing a lot of complaints. There were a couple of posts about it a few months ago. I don't think they opted organizations into the Complete Cover though. It was always optional.

@Karintha Marshall thanks for raising this. I have not used Blackbaud pays but it is good hearing about the donor reaction.

I would like to add that Blackbaud are not the only ones using this model. Raisely have a similar model, asking donors to make an option tip to cover platform costs so it is free to the charity. The charity can opt out of this and pay 4% for platform fees instead. In this case the contribution/fee does not cover transaction fees which are charged by Stripe. In a small campaign with Raisely 85% of donors made the extra contribution which averaged out at 4% of the total amount. Some paid more which covered those who opted out. However it also upgraded the transaction amount so we received about 4% more than we would have if we were paying the platform fees ourselves. Raisely are transparent and we see the full transaction amount and the extra fee paid by donors, even though we do not receive the extra fees.

I hope Blackbaud are as good at math and the contributions cover the transaction fees and they are not making extra money. We are already paying annual subscriptions which should cover their other costs. However, the lack of transparency about the contribution paid by the donor is concerning and could certainly lead to customer service difficulties not knowing how much they actually paid.

I do note that you can refund either the full amount or the extra contribution only, see KB article, which may help resolve some complaints, but even then it does not seem to show you what the extra amount was. I am not planning on using Blackbaud Pays.

@Trent Smither
for event registration, i see it on each individual form editing

I do not use RENXT donation form at this time so don't know, but imagine the same

@Karintha Marshall Another thing to keep in mind is that Blackbaud will only cover the fees up to $3,000. Anything at or above this amount, your organization will have to pay the transaction fees. If your form will be used primarily to collect donations of a higher value, say for a gala, I would advise against using this option.

For refunds, you're also not able to automatically refund through BBMS, you will have to complete the refund offline.

@Karintha Marshall Yes, so if the gift were say $3,050 and you had Blackbaud Pays (Complete Cover) turned on, your organization would be responsible for all the transactions fees. When donor cover is turned, regardless of the amount, the donor covers all transaction fees.

We had no issues completing a refund through Donor Cover using BBMS and there was an option to adjust the refund amount. Through Complete Cover we had to process offline as the amount was locked to I believe just the gift amount and not transaction fees. This was back in Aug. 2024 so might be helpful to reach out to support directly for clarification in case there have been any changes. Also a good idea to determine internally how you would handle refunds where transaction fees are covered. Our organization refunds the full amount.