Setting Up a Recurring Plan

Last updated: May 20, 2026

Recurring plans in WeGive allow you to schedule automatic donations on behalf of your supporters. Whether a donor wants to give monthly, weekly, or on a custom cadence, you can set up and manage their entire recurring giving schedule from the dashboard.

This guide walks you through creating, configuring, and managing recurring plans in WeGive v2.

Creating a New Recurring Plan

In v2, recurring plans are created using the dedicated Add recurring plan action on a supporter's profile. This opens the Create Recurring Plan page (a Virtual Terminal flow) where you configure the schedule, billing details, and any related records.

Step-by-Step

Navigate to the supporter's record. Search for the donor in the Supporters section of your dashboard and open their profile.
Open the actions menu. On the supporter's profile, click the three-dot (more actions) menu in the upper right of the profile header.
Select "Add recurring plan." This opens the Create Recurring Plan page under the supporter's Virtual Terminal.
Fill in the Virtual Terminal section:
- Transaction Amount — the dollar amount charged each installment.
- Fair Market Value — optional, used when part of the gift represents goods or services received.
- Type — choose between Donation (tax-deductible) or Service Revenue.
- Primary designation — search and select the fund or designation.
- Frequency — choose how often the donation should recur (see Frequency Options below).
- Created at (date initiated for records) — the date used for record-keeping. Defaults to today.
Set the installment schedule under Recurring plan installments:
- Next due date — the date the first/next installment will process. (Required.)
- End date — optional. Set this if the plan should automatically stop after a certain date.
- Anonymous — toggle on to make the recurring plan anonymous.
Link any related records under Related (all optional):
- Campaign
- Checkout
- Fundraiser
- P2P fundraiser
Configure billing information:
- Supporter Login — the login the plan is associated with.
- Login email / Login mobile — auto-populated from the supporter record.
- Select payment method — choose an existing card or bank account on file. If the donor pays offline, leave this blank to create an offline plan (see Offline Recurring Plans below).
- Billing name / Billing zip — populated from the payment method on file.
- Cover the processing fees — toggle on if the donor is covering fees.
Add optional extras:
- Add a gift tribute — toggle on under Other information to add a tribute name, email, and message.
- Fund allocations — click Add allocation to split the gift across multiple funds.
Submit the plan. Save the recurring plan. Once created, it appears on the supporter's profile under Related > Recurring Plans and in the organization-wide Payments > Recurring Plans table.

Frequency Options

WeGive supports the following billing frequencies for recurring plans:

Frequency	Description
Daily	Charges every day
Weekly	Charges every 7 days
Every 2 Weeks	Charges every 15 days
Monthly	Charges once per month
1st and 15th	Charges on the 1st and 15th of each month
Quarterly	Charges every 3 months
Every 6 Months	Charges every 6 months
Yearly	Charges once per year

Note: Some CRM integrations (such as Virtuous) only support certain frequencies. If your organization syncs to a CRM, check whether your chosen frequency is compatible to avoid sync issues.

Configuration Options (Field Reference)

Virtual Terminal

Transaction Amount — Dollar amount charged each billing cycle.
Fair Market Value — Value of any goods or services the donor receives in exchange for the gift. Used for tax-receipting.
Type — Donation (tax-deductible) or Service Revenue (non-tax-deductible).
Primary designation — The fund or designation the donation is allocated to.
Frequency — How often the donation recurs.
Created at — The date initiated, used for records.

Recurring plan installments

Next due date — The date the next installment will process. For new plans, this is the start date.
End date — Optional. The plan stops automatically after this date.
Anonymous — Marks the plan as anonymous.

Campaign — Associate the plan with a campaign.
Checkout — Link the plan to the checkout form it originated from.
Fundraiser — Associate the plan with a campaign fundraiser.
P2P fundraiser — Associate the plan with a peer-to-peer fundraiser.

Billing information

Supporter Login — The login associated with the plan.
Login email / Login mobile — Contact information tied to the login.
Select payment method — Card or bank account to charge.
Billing name / Billing zip — Billing details on the payment method.
Cover the processing fees — Donor covers processing fees.

Other information

Add a gift tribute — Toggle on to add tribute name, email, and message.

Fund allocations

Add allocation — Split the gift across multiple funds. Requires fund allocations to be enabled in your organization settings.

Offline Recurring Plans

For donors who give by check, cash, or other offline methods, create an offline recurring plan by following the same steps above but leaving the payment method blank. This creates a recurring plan with a Missing status, indicating no payment method is on file. The plan still maintains its schedule for forecasting and reporting purposes, and it will sync to your CRM (such as Salesforce) for offline tracking.

When you receive an offline payment, you can manually record the transaction against the plan.

Plan Statuses

Every recurring plan has one of four statuses:

Active — The plan is running normally with a valid payment method. Installments will process automatically on schedule.
Paused — The plan is temporarily suspended. No charges will process until it is resumed.
Closed — The plan has been permanently ended. Past transaction history is preserved.
Missing — The plan has no payment method on file. Commonly used for offline or manual donation tracking.

Managing Recurring Plans

Once a recurring plan is created, you can manage it from the plan's detail page or from the Payments > Recurring Plans table.

Editing a Plan

From the plan detail page, click Edit to modify the amount, frequency, payment method, fee coverage, fund designation, campaign, end date, or anonymous status. Changes take effect on the next billing cycle.

Pausing a Plan

You can pause a plan for a set period or indefinitely. Available pause durations include 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or indefinite. While paused, no installments will be charged. When the pause period ends, the plan automatically resumes.

Resuming a Plan

If a plan is paused, you can resume it manually at any time. The next charge date will be recalculated based on the resume date.

Canceling a Plan

To permanently stop a recurring plan, delete it from the actions menu. All past transaction history associated with the plan is preserved.

Additional Actions

From the Recurring Plans table, you can also:

Charge Installment — Manually process a payment outside the normal schedule.
Re-Sync to CRM — Push the latest plan status to your connected CRM (Salesforce, etc.).
Export — Download plan data as a CSV file.
Tag Supporters — Add donor tags to the supporters associated with selected plans.

What the Plan Detail Page Shows

When you open an individual recurring plan, the detail page displays a comprehensive view including:

Recurring Plan Details — Amount, frequency, status, and key dates.
Recurring Payment Details — Payment-specific information for the current cycle.
Payment Method — The card or bank account on file.
Installments — A table of all past and upcoming payments.
Communications — Emails and messages sent related to this plan.
Tribute — Tribute information, if applicable.
Source & UTM Parameters — Tracking and marketing attribution data.
Custom Fields — Any organization-specific fields.
Tasks & Notes — Internal tasks and notes associated with the plan.
Activity History — A log of all actions and triggers.
Audit Logs — A full audit trail of changes.
Integration Logs — CRM sync history and status.

How Failed Payments Are Handled

When a recurring payment fails, WeGive's automated dunning system kicks in to recover the donation (if your organization has dunning enabled).

The dunning sequence works as follows:

Day 1 (initial failure): The donor receives a "payment failed" email notification. A retry is automatically scheduled for 2 days later.
Day 3 (first retry): If the retry fails, a second notification is sent and another retry is scheduled for 2 days later.
Day 5 (second retry): If this retry also fails, a third notification is sent. The next retry is scheduled for the following billing cycle.
Next billing cycle (final retry): If this last attempt fails, a final notification is sent and the plan is paused indefinitely.

The donor exits the dunning flow immediately if any of the following happen: a retry succeeds, the donor updates their payment method, the donor pauses or cancels the plan, or any edit is made to the plan (such as changing the amount or frequency).

Many payment failures are temporary — expired cards, insufficient funds, or bank fraud flags — so the automatic retry system recovers a significant portion of failed donations without any manual intervention.

Tips for Managing Recurring Plans

Set an end date for pledge-based plans. If a donor commits to giving for a specific period (e.g., 12 months), set the End date so the plan automatically stops.
Use fund allocations for split giving. If a donor wants to split their recurring gift across multiple funds, enable fund allocations in your organization settings first, then configure the split using Add allocation.
Monitor the dunning filter. Use the in_dunning filter on the Recurring Plans table to quickly see which plans have failing payments and may need personal outreach.
Check CRM compatibility for frequencies. If you use a CRM integration, verify that your chosen frequency is supported to avoid sync issues. Weekly and semi-annual frequencies can cause problems with some integrations.