Originally posted on NonProfitPro Today, June 26, 2017
Last week, I wrote about those “pesky” monthly credit card donors whose card expired or changes all the time.
The good news is that there is a solution that you can implement for very little money. It works in the back-end and is able to find updated information for some 15 to 25 percent of your cards. That’s 15 to 25 percent of donors you do not have to contact–the money keeps coming in.
Account updater (also called account recycling or account recovery) is becoming more and more popular. Some donor base systems have started offering it for a small fee. Some systems charge a flat fee every month, and some charge a small fee based upon the amount to be recovered. In any event, it’s totally worth it!
Of course, you do have to consider your total number of monthly donors. In my view, I’d definitely look at account updater if you have 500 monthly donors or more or if that’s your goal.
Simplified, the way it works is that the system identifies those cards where payments are not going through. They are then hit against a huge database with updated information (all tokenized and PCI-compliant), and the database finds the new card info, updates it and processes the monthly charge. So, you won’t lose that payment and, better yet, you don’t lose that monthly donor!
Ask your online processor or donor base company if they can offer this for you, because they need to set it up for you. You’ll still have to immediately call, email and write to those donors not yet captured through the account updater system, but the number will be smaller.
Just think of it this way: If the average monthly donor value is $23 a month, that’s $276 a year. Investing a tiny amount to retain him or her is absolutely worth it. You’ll improve your monthly donor retention rate. What’s not to like?