Monthly giving is a subscription in everything but name. A donor sets up a recurring gift once, and from then on it renews every month on a card or a direct debit. Most lapsed monthly gifts are not a decision to stop supporting you: a card expired, a bank account changed, or money was tight for a month. NoChurn helps organisations that bill recurring gifts on Stripe, GoCardless, Mollie or their own system keep those gifts going, with a tone that fits donors rather than customers.
This page is about operations, not tax or legal matters. NoChurn does not issue tax receipts and does not advise on what you may or must tell donors in your country; check that with your own adviser.
How donors pay
- Cards, usually through a donation form on your site, billed as a monthly subscription.
- Direct debit (for example SEPA in the eurozone or Bacs in the UK) through a provider such as GoCardless or Mollie. Direct debit avoids card expiry, but a donor can cancel the mandate at their bank. See mandate cancelled.
- A donor CRM or fundraising platform that holds the schedule and calls a payment provider. If that is your setup, you send gifts, payments and cancellations to NoChurn through the REST API.
Why recurring gifts lapse
Failed gifts
- Expired or replaced cards. A donor who gave two years ago has probably had a new card since. See expiring cards.
- Insufficient funds near the end of the month. Small gifts fail for ordinary reasons and the donor may not notice for weeks.
- Direct debit failures and cancelled mandates. A bank switch or a tidy-up of standing payments can end a mandate without the donor meaning to stop. See GoCardless failed payments and SEPA direct debit failures.
Donors who choose to stop
- Money is tight. The most common reason, and often temporary.
- They give elsewhere now. A new cause or a one-off emergency appeal takes the budget.
- They lost touch with what the gift does. No news, no sense of impact, and the charge starts to feel like a forgotten subscription.
- Something went wrong. A wrong amount, a duplicated charge or an unwelcome phone call.
How NoChurn handles it
Failed gifts
On Stripe, NoChurn retries failed card payments at times based on the decline reason and likely paydays, or you can keep Stripe Smart Retries. On other providers, the provider’s own retry rules stay in place and NoChurn adds emails and a link to update payment details next to them.
Recovery emails are written by AI and can be reviewed before they go out. That review step matters here: a message to a donor should thank them first and explain plainly that the gift did not go through, not read like an overdue invoice. Each email links to a hosted page where the donor updates their card. Card data stays with your payment provider; NoChurn never sees card numbers. See failed payments and dunning email templates.
A cancel flow that respects donors
Donors must be able to stop giving easily. NoChurn’s cancel flow keeps a one-click “cancel now” button visible on every step, and a cancel that is asked for is carried out. Before that, it can ask why and offer something that fits:
| Reason | Offer that fits |
|---|---|
| Money is tight right now | Pause the gift for a few months |
| I want to give less | Lower the monthly amount (a plan change) |
| I prefer to give once a year | Switch to an annual gift, if you offer one |
| Something went wrong | Pass it to your supporter care team |
A discount makes no sense for a donation, so you can leave that offer out. The hosted modal takes your colors, fonts and logo, or you can build the screens in your own donation pages with the headless API. See cancel flows and pause vs discount.
Win-back, gently
Donors who stop get win-back emails at 30, 60 and 90 days, written from the reason they gave. A donor who paused because money was tight should hear something very different from one who was unhappy. You can review the AI drafts before they go out. Donors who asked not to be contacted must not receive them; keeping NoChurn in line with those preferences is your responsibility, not something NoChurn decides for you. See win-back.
Chargebacks on donations
A donor who does not recognise a charge on their statement may dispute it with their bank. On Stripe and Braintree, NoChurn gathers evidence automatically (the donor’s cancel flow answers, emails sent, support conversations) and drafts a reply with AI, which is sent only after a person on your team has reviewed it. On Stripe, early fraud warnings show up with a one-click refund, which is usually the right move for a donation made with a stolen card. Disputes on other providers are shown read only. See chargebacks and Stripe early fraud warnings.
Custom data worth sending
The churn score (0 to 100 at signup and on every change) works with whatever you send. Keep it to giving behaviour; NoChurn does not need sensitive personal information about donors, and you should not send it.
signup_source: campaign, appeal, event, peer fundraising page.gift_amountandbilling_intervalmonths_giving: how long the donor has given.last_update_sent_at: when they last received news of impact.upgraded_amount: did they increase the gift after an appeal?country
NoChurn shows which attributes go with lapsed gifts. This is correlation, not causation: a campaign whose donors lapse sooner may simply reach a different audience. See custom data.
Integrations that fit
- Stripe for card donations, in one click.
- GoCardless and Mollie for direct debit.
- Any billing by API for a donor CRM or fundraising platform.
- Zendesk, Help Scout or HubSpot for supporter care conversations, read only.
What to watch out for
- Tone over tactics. Donors give, they do not buy. Review AI drafts until the voice is right, and keep messages short.
- Consent and contact preferences are yours to manage. Send only to donors you may contact, and keep NoChurn in line with the preferences in your CRM.
- Tax receipts and gift declarations stay in your existing tools. NoChurn does not produce them.
- When NoChurn is not the right tool. If most of your income is one-off gifts rather than recurring ones, a donor CRM with good appeal tools will do more for you.
Pricing
Every feature is on every plan, and the price depends only on your monthly recurring revenue (here, the total of monthly gifts): free up to $300, then from $9 a month in small steps up to $399 at $500k, custom above. NoChurn never takes a share of recovered gifts. See pricing, or the page for memberships and communities.