Recurring Gifts w/out Credit/Direct Debit Option?

Denise Miller
Denise Miller
Tenth Anniversary Raiser's Edge NXT Fall 2025 Product Update Briefing Badge Kudos 1 Name Dropper
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

As we are approaching a new FY to start sooner than later, we were thinking of converting our employee payroll deduction pledges over as recurring gifts. I think I know the answer to this already, but am asking anyways. In order to have a recurring gift, you HAVE to have a payment method of either a credit card or direct debit correct? We would have no way to create a recurring gift without having something to process it with correct? Our current synopsis is we have employee pledges in as bi-weekly pledges for 26 and sometimes 25 weeks, we then at the end of the month get a report back from our financial team of the amount deducted from their pay, and, if split funds set up within their pledge, how much per fund. We are never actually "charging" these but adding through a batch then "pay-cash" to apply to that month's worth of pledge payments that are handled through our financial team. Am I on the correct track for this? Our goal with switching over to recurring was to then NEVER have to re-enter a "pledge" per say as the recurring would simply NOT have an end date. Any thoughts, anyone attempt this at your organization, is it simply not an option? Appreciate anyone's input/opinions, etc. Thank you! ~Denise

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  • Denise Miller
    Denise Miller
    Tenth Anniversary Raiser's Edge NXT Fall 2025 Product Update Briefing Badge Kudos 1 Name Dropper

    Thank you @Carlene Johnson and @Anthony Gallo for your input/wisdom! I am in for the May update so I look forward to the information shared during that. Maybe we'll still need to utilize the pledge system one more year or until we can fully utilize the recurring option and then convert, but this is all good information. Appreciate you both! Have a fantastic afternoon! ~Denise

  • Therese Morris
    Therese Morris
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    We have recurring gifts that come from bank standing orders (checks), from payroll withdrawals, and the rest come from our online vendor, none of which come through Blackbaud Merchant Services. We have been unable to create recurring gifts in NXT to process these imported incoming payments or manual checks payments to and satisfy the donors recurring gift installments.

    An Idea: https://renxt.ideas.aha.io/ideas/RENXT-I-5432

  • Rachel Cavalier
    Rachel Cavalier Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 April 2026 Monthly Challenge bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    We're in the same boat as Therese's organisation - have voted on the idea!

  • William da Silva
    William da Silva
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    Based on what you wrote, Recurring Gifts is a much better option than pledges.

    TLDR: Low volume = batch; mid to high volume = automation

    Main difference between a pledge and a recurring gifts is that a pledge is for a total amount with a payment schedule, whereas a recurring gift is for a recurring amount with no promised total. Your employee deductions sound more like RGs to me.

    Also, RGs are much easier to manage than pledges (no renewals for one).

    For adding the payments on a monthly / bi-weekly basis, if your payment list is small (under 150) the following works. If your batch is bigger, then you need automation and scroll to the bottom of this post.

    Small batches, a recurring batch as @Carlene Johnson mentioned can work, but has some caveats. Because it's a recurring batch, and sometimes you need to remove donors for a payment or two, you will have to juggle adding them back the following payroll etc. You also need to add all new RGs to the constituent record, then again to the batch.

    Creating a regular batch and using the "load transaction payments" functionality works a little better as it creates a fresh set of payments from your RGs. This does however require that you manage the skipped payments etc..

    In both cases, you will need to cross check the batch line by line to add, remove, adjust each payment.

    Large batches of payments (hundreds or thousands), automation is key. This is where the payment report you get from payroll can be processed and added into Raiser's Edge NXT automatically. No need for reconciling individual payments, no need to manually manage each RG etc. If this is of interest, DM me, we automate flows like this for many organizations.

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