When your organization anticipates receiving large donations—whether from a special Campaign, major gift solicitation, or end-of-year giving—it's important to prepare so these transactions process smoothly and securely. This article outlines the measures Raise uses and additional steps you can take to protect both your donors and your organization.
Why Preparation Matters
Large donation amounts can sometimes trigger security measures designed to protect against fraud. While these safeguards are crucial for maintaining donor trust and data security, being proactive helps ensure Gifts aren't delayed or declined.
Raise Security Measures
Any time there is a transaction with your organization, it is important to maintain the trust of the donor by maintaining the security of their data. Raise employs several tools to make sure your donor data is safe:
- reCAPTCHA: This is built into Forms to analyze risk and keep malicious software from engaging.
- Stripe Radar: Radar pulls information from Stripe financial partners, data from payments and checkout flows, and analyzes it to identify and block fraud. This feature is enabled by default for organizations using Payments Powered by Stripe.
Click here to learn more about how these tools prevent fraudulent activity.
Additional Steps to Prepare
- Review Your Payment Processor Limits
Credit card and ACH transactions have a $5 minimum amount requirement as fraud is often processed by way of small transactions. Stripe does not impose a maximum limit for credit cards, but processing a substantially large transaction may trigger a risk investigation. ACH transactions have maximum limits as follows:
- $100,000 per transaction
- $100,000 per week
As your organization processes on Stripe, your ACH limits may dynamically change. Because of this, if you are not sure of the current limits or expect donations above your current limits, we recommend you reach out to Stripe support directly. Stripe support can provide your current limits and walk you through the increase process as needed.
- Enable Transaction Notifications
Set up email notifications for large transactions so your team can monitor and respond quickly if a donor reaches out with questions about their gift processing. Click here to learn more about team notifications.
- Test Your Forms
Before launching a major Campaign, building new Pages, or starting end of year appeals, test your donation Forms to ensure they're functioning properly. This helps you identify any issues before donors encounter them. Click here to learn more about testing Forms.
By taking these proactive steps, your Raise Forms will create a smooth giving experience that protects both your organization and your supporters.