I know of a nonprofit that followed up on failed monthly donations by hand. Someone kept a Google Sheet, looked up donors, and tried to help them restart their gifts. As I remember it, the recovery rate was low, perhaps somewhere around 20%.

What stayed with me was the amount of work.

The team cared about its donors. But people had to find every failed payment, work out what had happened, contact the donor, and remember to check again. Meanwhile, more monthly payments kept coming due.

The good news is that software can do much of the payment recovery work. The harder part is knowing which tools you already have, whether they are turned on, and what still needs a person.

In this post, I’m going to cover:

• Why failed monthly gifts deserve a regular audit

• Common reasons recurring donations fail

• What payment-recovery software can handle

• A simple checklist for reviewing your setup

• How to calculate your recovery rate and revenue at risk

• Where donor engagement and EverRaise fit

Let’s do this.

Why failed recurring donations deserve your attention

Recurring giving is too important to leave on autopilot without checking the results. According to M+R Benchmarks 2026, monthly gifts accounted for 27% of nonprofit online revenue in 2025. In the same study, 71% of new monthly donors were still active after 12 months.

That 71% figure is a monthly donor retention measure. It does not tell us how many donations failed because of expired cards or bank problems. Still, it shows why keeping a monthly giving program healthy matters.

Imagine your organization signs up 100 donors at $30 a month. That represents $3,000 in expected monthly gifts, or $36,000 over a year if every payment arrives. Those are commitments, not money already in the bank. A few recurring payment failures each month can create a gap between what you expected and what you collected.

My point is simple: before spending more to acquire monthly donors, find out how much of your current recurring revenue is slipping through the cracks.

Why do recurring donations fail?

Most failed payments are not a statement about your mission. A donor may still want to give. The payment fails because something changed with the card, bank, account, or transaction.

Here are five common explanations worth checking:

1. A card expired or was replaced

A donor gets a new card after an expiration, a lost wallet, or a fraud alert. Your donation system still has the old details. The next payment may fail.

Some payment providers have an automatic card updater that receives eligible replacement-card information from card networks. Stripe explains how card updates work, including why they do not work for every card or bank.

2. The bank declined the charge

A bank may reject a transaction because of insufficient funds, a spending limit, suspected fraud, or another rule. Some of these problems are temporary. Others require the donor to contact the bank or use another payment method.

The nonprofit should not guess the reason. Look for the payment provider’s decline message. Sometimes the bank supplies only a general explanation.

3. The payment needs action from the donor

Some card transactions need another approval or updated payment information. A donor may need to complete a secure verification step or sign in to the giving portal.

Your role is to direct that person to the official, secure payment page. Do not ask them to reply to an email or text with their card number.

4. A bank account or payment method changed

Bank transfers can also fail because an account closed, details are no longer valid, or a payment was returned. Rules and retry options vary by provider and payment method. Do not assume the card retry process works for bank transfers.

5. The donation system is not set up to recover failures

Sometimes the original payment failure was unavoidable, but the lost revenue afterward was not. Your software may support retries, failure emails, or a donor portal, but those features might be disabled or poorly configured.

Also, a voluntary cancellation is not a failed payment. Keep those two situations separate. When someone chooses to stop, honor the decision.

What software can recover failed recurring donations?

You may not need another tool. Start by reviewing the donation platform and payment processor you already use. Many systems can recover some payments before a development officer ever opens a spreadsheet.

I would look for four features.

Automatic card updates

The processor checks whether eligible saved-card information has changed. If the bank and card network support it, the system can update details without asking the donor to do anything. This helps prevent some failures before they happen.

Automatic retries

A retry means the payment provider tries an unsuccessful charge again. Some systems choose a time when a temporary decline is more likely to clear. Others use a set schedule. The provider should control this process, including when it must stop.

For example, Donorbox’s recurring-payment guidance describes two automatic retries for eligible failed charges, generally two days apart. GoFundMe Pro describes statuses and smart retries. Your platform may behave differently.

Automatic notices and a secure payment-update page

When an updated card or a donor action is needed, the system can send a notice that points to a trusted portal. The donor should not have to call your office and read payment information to a staff member.

Fundraise Up’s recurring plan documentation describes how plans can move into a Retrying status and how donors can receive a failed-payment email. Its payment-update instructions explain the donor portal process.

Clear reporting

Your team should be able to see which installments initially failed, which are being retried, which recovered, and which remain unresolved. It should also be able to tell whether a recurring plan is still active or has been canceled.

These features are more important than a long list of fundraising software features that have little to do with payment recovery. If your platform already has them, make sure they are configured and working before buying something new.

A 30-minute audit of your recurring giving setup

You do not need to be an engineer to begin. Ask the person who manages your donation platform, finance reports, or donor services to review these six questions with you.

1. Can we see failed recurring gifts? Open the platform’s recurring payment report. Find unsuccessful installments from the last 90 days, not just canceled plans.

2. Do we know why they failed? Look for a decline reason or status. Separate temporary problems from issues that need a new payment method.

3. Are automatic card updates and retries enabled? Check the actual account settings. Do not assume a feature is on because the vendor advertises it.

4. Does the donor receive a helpful notice? Check whether the platform sends an email, when it sends it, and whether the link leads to the secure donor portal.

5. Who handles unresolved cases? Give one person or monitored team responsibility for exceptions after the automated recovery process finishes.

6. Can we report what was recovered? Compare failed installments with successful later collections. Make sure you are not counting every retry as a separate failed donation.

If the team cannot answer these questions, that is your first improvement project. You do not need to replace the platform immediately. You need to understand what it does today.

How to calculate your failed-payment recovery rate

This is the most useful starting number for the audit. Choose a full month of initially failed recurring installments, wait at least 30 days for the recovery window to finish, and check how many of those same installments were successfully collected.

30-day failed-payment recovery rate = Failed installments recovered within 30 days ÷ Initially failed installments × 100.

Count each installment once, even when the payment system tries the charge several times. Exclude deliberate cancellations from the failed-payment group. Use the same rules every month.

A simple recovery calculator

Let’s use a fictional nonprofit with 50 initially failed monthly installments averaging $40 each. The team eventually collects 10 of those installments within 30 days.

The following table shows how to do the math. These numbers are an illustration, not a forecast or a sector benchmark.

That is a 20% recovery rate: 10 recovered out of 50 failures. The organization recovered $400 in missed installments, while $1,600 in those original installments remained uncollected after 30 days.

If it could recover 20 instead of 10 installments, at the same $40 average, it would collect another $400 from that month’s original failures. That is a scenario, not a promise that software will deliver that improvement.

Do not automatically multiply the $1,600 by 12 and call it lost annual revenue. Some donors may resume giving, make up a gift later, or stop for reasons unrelated to the failed payment. Money missed this month and future recurring revenue at risk are different measures.

What is a good recovery-rate benchmark?

There is no single number I would tell every nonprofit to hit. Published vendor figures may use different payment types, time periods, and definitions of “recovered.” A rate for card retries is not the same as the share of canceled donor plans that become active again.

Start by calculating your own rate for three complete monthly groups of failures. Compare the same measure over time. Then ask your processor for a benchmark calculated the same way, preferably for nonprofits with similar payment methods and donor volumes.

A roughly 20% result, like the one I remember from that Google Sheets process, is a reason to investigate. It is not a verified industry percentile or a universal judgment about what your organization should achieve.

Also track a separate measure: How many recurring plans that entered a failed status returned to active giving? Recovering one missed installment and keeping the giving plan active are related, but they are not identical.

What happens after the software has tried?

The payment system should handle the actual transaction. Staff should step in where a person can make a difference.

A practical workflow looks like this:

• Payment fails: The processor records the reason, applies any eligible card update, and follows its retry rules.

• Payment recovers: The system records success. Stop recovery notices and let the regular giving acknowledgment process continue.

• Donor action is needed: Send one clear message with the official secure update link if the platform has not already done so.

• The problem remains unresolved: Give a staff member a list of genuine exceptions to review. Avoid repeated or conflicting notices.

• Donor cancels or asks to stop: Honor the request and remove the person from recovery outreach.

Here is an example of a helpful donor message when the system confirms that action is needed:

Subject: A quick question about your monthly gift

Hi [First name],

Thank you for supporting [Organization] each month. We were unable to process your latest scheduled gift.

If you’d like to continue your monthly support, you can review your payment method securely here: [official donor portal link].

If you’ve already made an update or need help, please let us know. We are grateful for your ongoing partnership.

[Name]

This should not become a general fundraising appeal. The donor is trying to fix a payment, not respond to a new request for money.

Fix the leaks before you fill the bucket

Your team may be working hard to grow monthly giving. But if you cannot see failed recurring donations, you may not know how much support was lost because a card expired or a payment process broke down.

Start with one audit. Review the software settings. Learn why gifts are failing. Calculate the recovery rate. Then assign someone to the small group of problems technology cannot solve on its own.

Before investing more in recruiting monthly supporters, make sure you are taking care of the gifts those supporters already intended to give.

Frequently asked questions about failed recurring donations

If this is new to your team, start with these basic questions. The answers can help you understand your payment report and decide what to check first.

Does a failed recurring donation mean the donor canceled?

No. A failed charge may be temporary or may need updated payment information. A voluntary cancellation is a separate status. Check the giving platform before contacting the donor.

Can software recover failed monthly donations automatically?

Often, yes. Depending on the provider and settings, it may update eligible saved cards, retry certain charges, notify donors, and offer a secure way to fix payment information. Not every failure can be recovered automatically.

What should a nonprofit measure first?

Start with initially failed installments, the amount at risk, the share recovered within a consistent 30-day window, and recurring plans that remain unresolved. Compare the same measures month to month.

Should staff still call donors about failed payments?

Sometimes, especially when the donor requests help or the payment system cannot resolve an issue. First check the platform’s actions and messages so you do not duplicate them. Follow applicable consent and contact rules.

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