I was wondering about best proactices regarding credit card expirations. When do you contact people about impending expirations and how? Also, has anyone had luck converting occasional donors to recurring donors? Thanks!

As we run them each month we make note of those which will expire the next month and attempt to contact them. Contact them too early, and they don't have their new card yet. It is not easy but some places have converted a lot of donors or acquired them as recurring gift donors. Ask Harriet Farmer at the Ottowa Humane Society who has the largest program I know of. It may depend on the type of program you run and the need. A Humane Society can easily demonstrate a monthly need for contributions with the new animals coming in - another charity may have difficulty making that case. Melissa S. Graves Director of Development Services The Village for Families and Children mgraves (at) villageforchildren.org www.villageforchildren.org GET ON THE BUS! Check out what the Blackbaud User Society is talking about today at www.blackbus.org!

HI We run a query each month to catch both cc that will expire in the next 1-2 months and those credit cards that haven't been working and are missing installments on their recurring gifts. Then we use this query in Mail to mail merge them into our credit card expiring letter and keep copies so we know who we have already tried to contact 1-2 times. We run this Mail once a month on a set date. We just started our recurring gift program last year and people have been excited about adopting this monthly program - it's much easier to pay $20/month than $240 at once for some members. Good luck! *********************************** Marin Agricultural Land Trust Laura Patterson Membership & Database Manager [Email Removed] www.malt.org