A monthly donor’s card gets replaced after a fraud alert. Next month’s installment fails, and the donor is now an emailed receipt short and slightly annoyed. Or a donor who gave $25 a month for three years loses a job and wants to drop to $10 for a while. They go looking for a “manage my gift” link on your website and don’t find one. The cheapest thing they can do is cancel at the bank, and that recurring gift is gone for good.
Setting up a recurring gift online in Altru is well understood. Changing or stopping one online is harder, and it’s worth being honest about why before you design a process around it.
What Altru gives you, and what it doesn’t
Altru can take a recurring gift through an online donation form and store it as a recurring gift on the constituent record, with an amount, frequency, and installment schedule. Staff can open that gift and change the amount, adjust the schedule, or end it.
What we have not seen in Altru is a donor-facing page where a logged-in donor can edit their own recurring gift. The online donation forms are built to start a gift, not manage one. If you think your configuration might offer something here, test it in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support directly before you promise it to donors. Blackbaud’s tools change, and your account manager can tell you what applies to your version.
The card itself is a separate issue. Card details for recurring gifts are generally stored as a payment token with your processor, not as a card number in Altru. Replacing a card means getting a new authorization, which is something a donor has to do through a secure payment form or by giving it to staff over the phone. A simple “update my info” form can’t do it.
Three changes donors actually ask for
It helps to treat these separately, because each one has a different fix.
1. “Change my amount or date”
This is a staff edit to the recurring gift in Altru. It’s quick once the request reaches the right person. The weak spot is the intake: donors don’t know who to ask.
2. “Update my card”
This needs a new payment authorization. Depending on how your processing is set up, staff may be able to take new card details by phone and update the gift, or the donor may need to start a new recurring gift online and staff end the old one. Confirm which path works for you before writing it into donor-facing copy.
3. “Stop my gift”
This should be the easiest request to fulfill, and it’s the one you most want to handle well. A donor who stops gracefully, gets a thank-you, and isn’t charged again is a good prospect for a future gift. A donor who has to dispute a charge with their bank is not.
A workable self-service setup without a native portal
You can get most of the benefit of self-service with a clear intake process and a fast staff turnaround.
- Publish a “Manage your monthly gift” page. Link it from every recurring gift acknowledgment and from your donate page. Say plainly what donors can change and how long it takes.
- Use a short request form, not a general inbox. Ask for name, email, the change wanted (new amount, new date, new card, or cancel), and the effective date. Never collect card numbers on this form.
- Route it to one owner with a backup. Recurring gift requests sitting in a shared inbox past the next charge date are how refunds happen.
- Set a turnaround rule tied to the charge schedule. For example, cancellations processed within two business days, and anything received close to a charge date handled the same day.
- Send a confirmation every time. The donor should get a written note that says what changed and when it takes effect. For a cancellation, include a sincere thank-you and a one-line way to restart.
- Add a note on the constituent record. Record what was requested, when, and who made the change. The next time the donor calls, whoever answers can see the history.
Catch problems before the donor does
Most recurring gift complaints start with a failed charge, not a change of heart. Build an Altru query of active recurring gifts with missed or past-due installments and review it on a set schedule, ideally right after each processing run. A short personal email (“Your card on file didn’t go through; here’s how to update it”) recovers many of these gifts and costs very little staff time.
It’s also worth reviewing recurring gifts with no installment activity for several months. Some are lapsed gifts that were never formally ended, which skews your sustainer counts and revenue projections.
A note on cancellation expectations
Donors are used to cancelling streaming services with one click, and some states have automatic-renewal laws aimed at subscriptions. Whether those apply to charitable recurring gifts depends on your state and how the gift is structured, so ask your counsel rather than assuming. Either way, making cancellation easy to find and quick to complete is the right practice, and it protects your reputation.
Where Social Good fits
Our Membership Portal covers the membership side of this problem: members can view their status, renew, upgrade, and update their profile online against live Altru data. It is not a recurring gift editor, so the donor process above still applies. For organizations whose sustaining donors are often members too, it takes a share of “please update my information” requests off staff and keeps the profile data your recurring gift team relies on current.
Quick answers
Can a donor cancel a recurring gift by replying to the receipt email?
Only if someone is watching that reply-to address and acts on it before the next charge. It’s better to point donors to a dedicated request form with a clear owner.
Should we delete a cancelled recurring gift in Altru?
No. End it and keep the record. The gift history matters for stewardship, reporting, and any future conversation with that donor.
