Comm2A Monthly Donations - Important Notice

Comm2A

Comm2A

Director Comm2a
Dealer
NES Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2010
Messages
187
Likes
1,516
Feedback: 0 / 0 / 0
Comm2A is making a couple of major changes to the way we accept money from donors. We are in the process of moving to a new credit card processor and will also stop using PayPal in the coming weeks.

This means that the existing recurring donations that people have set up through PayPal or our old credit card processor will stop and if folks want to continue their monthly commitment, they'll have to sign up again using our new credit card processor. We're giving NES members an advanced warning of this change as a way to slow-roll the transition.

Why are we doing this? Simple, neither PayPal or our old CC processor integrate with our back-end financial and CRM systems. As a result we spend a lot of time manually entering and reconciling transactions every month. Time we'd rather spend thinking of ways to make life better for gun owners. Working with PayPal is a particularly labor intensive and error-prone process.

We're very excited about making the long-overdue change as it makes the process of accepting, booking, acknowledging, and reconciling donations seamless. In addition donors will be able to make one-time or monthly donations in the form of a direct withdrawal from their bank accounts.

Anyone wishing to make this switch now should contact us at donate@comm2a.org and request that we end their monthly donation. PayPal donors can do this directly through their PayPal accounts. Once we've termination the recurring charge you can simply sign-up again on our website: Join / Donate - Commonwealth Second Amendment, Inc. (comm2a.org)
 
I am sure this is being done for a good reason, but I suspect that it will hurt you since the inertia to setup again recurring payments won't occur with some frequency.

The link you have given to your website is HTTP and not HTTPS. I will not enter my CC information or my bank account information over an HTTP connection. I tried to connect via HTTPS and you did not support this. This is a real issue...
 
CrackPot said:
I am sure this is being done for a good reason, but I suspect that it will hurt you since the inertia to setup again recurring payments won't occur with some frequency.

The link you have given to your website is HTTP and not HTTPS. I will not enter my CC information or my bank account information over an HTTP connection. I tried to connect via HTTPS and you did not support this. This is a real issue...
Click to expand...
The bulk of my day job involves working wit nonprofits. While this change will likely result in some leakage, I expect it will be small. By any metric - email opens; donor retention, engagement, longevity, etc., Comm2A out performs the nonprofit industry as a whole. From personal anecdotal experience with my clients, I know this to be absolutely true. Comm2A members are highly motivated, generous, engaged, and committed.

The amount of keyboard labor dealing with PayPal and our old processor has just become untenable. Out time is much better spent working through the backlog of incoming questions and issues we get each month.

As to the website, we have the new SSL certs, they just won't be installed until week's end. That said, the form is actually hosted by the CC processors who handles security. CC and ACH information NEVER hits our website or our systems.
 
CrackPot said:
I am sure this is being done for a good reason, but I suspect that it will hurt you since the inertia to setup again recurring payments won't occur with some frequency.

The link you have given to your website is HTTP and not HTTPS. I will not enter my CC information or my bank account information over an HTTP connection. I tried to connect via HTTPS and you did not support this. This is a real issue...
Click to expand...

I am going to take the opportunity of upping my ante just a bit every month, wish it could be even more... I'll wait for the HTTPS though.
 
CrackPot said:
The link you have given to your website is HTTP and not HTTPS. I will not enter my CC information or my bank account information over an HTTP connection. I tried to connect via HTTPS and you did not support this. This is a real issue...
Click to expand...
This wasn't a real issue. When you type into a browser, all of the information is kept inside the browser until you hit submit. When you hit submit, the URL your browser posts this info to was an SSL protected site. I put in our Comm2A SSL cert on the entire site so you will see a lock icon, but keep in mind when you post that form, it goes to our cc processor and not our site. We don't store, see, touch, etc; that CC info. It goes, securely, to our cc processor via their own SSL cert and not through our server. And that's a good thing.
 
Just checking, are you going to email your list with this info or post it on your website or social media? If I wasn't on NES I might have gone for some time without noticing that my current PayPal stopped... probably around year end, "what happened to that automatic thing that I used to have?" After the holiday makes the most sense but I figured I'd put it out there (and if you already did I need to go dig through spam folders or something). Thanks!
 
CAR said:
Just checking, are you going to email your list with this info or post it on your website or social media? If I wasn't on NES I might have gone for some time without noticing that my current PayPal stopped... probably around year end, "what happened to that automatic thing that I used to have?" After the holiday makes the most sense but I figured I'd put it out there (and if you already did I need to go dig through spam folders or something). Thanks!
Click to expand...
Yes. Brent was waiting for me to get back from vacation to install the cert to send out messages far and wide. Normally I have remote access but I moved the site to a new server just before leaving and well... Best to try to avoid things like that on the eve of vacation... :-)
 
We're slow rolling the transition and knew that only a small portion of our monthly donors would see this on NES. This gives us the ability to validate the new integrations and do so with a fairly forgiving subset of our stakeholders. So far, so good. I can't tell you what a huge change for the better this is.

At some point, probably in 1-2 weeks we'll contact current credit card donors and ask them to make the switch. Later we'll follow up with PayPay donors.
 
Do we need to do anything? For those of us who have our banks send a (I guess) live check to Comm2A monthly?
 
What about new customers? I want to send out a "blurb" to our club's membership in the newsletter. Should I hold off until the transition is complete?

Think you could put together something not only for myself, but I'm sure many others here could use, to send to people? This would basically be an introduction to Comm2A, what you are all about, what you've accomplished, and what is currently being worked on. Then, this could have a second section on how to contribute.

Thanks.
 
Len-2A Training said:
Do we need to do anything? For those of us who have our banks send a (I guess) live check to Comm2A monthly?
Click to expand...
We'll still receive and deposit (old fashioned) paper check just as we always have. However, our new processor also gives us the option ACH bank withdrawals, which is actually much simpler for us.

We did have a rude surprise this morning as our old credit card processor prematurely canceled our account causing all of September's credit card donations to fail. We sent all those folk information on how to create a new pledge along with an apology.
 
I got an email this morning that my recurring transaction was declined - is this why?

Nvm just saw above post and email.
 
Done, bumped up a bit over my last monthly recurring amount as I think you guys are doing great work and hope everyone does the same. I wish I could do a lot more but just not possible right now with two in college as of this fall.
 
Comm2A said:
We'll still receive and deposit (old fashioned) paper check just as we always have. However, our new processor also gives us the option ACH bank withdrawals, which is actually much simpler for us.

We did have a rude surprise this morning as our old credit card processor prematurely canceled our account causing all of September's credit card donations to fail. We sent all those folk information on how to create a new pledge along with an apology.
Click to expand...
"cuz guns"? I have been through 3 CC processors so far with the first two canceling my account with no notice "cuz guns"
 
CrackPot said:
"cuz guns"? I have been through 3 CC processors so far with the first two canceling my account with no notice "cuz guns"
Click to expand...

I'm truly surprised Paypal permitted Comm2A to be on their platform as long as they were. Cuz... Guns.
 
I feel like a moron cause I don't see any way on the donate page to set up my new scheduled payments. Is it not up yet?
 
I’ve been donating monthly for probably 3 years now. I just received the email saying PayPal canceled the withdrawal. I never received any correspondence about this at all until I logged on here. Just a FYI
 
Serapis said:
I’ve been donating monthly for probably 3 years now. I just received the email saying PayPal canceled the withdrawal. I never received any correspondence about this at all until I logged on here. Just a FYI
Click to expand...
We emailed all of our PayPal donors in late September and again last week. We want to be done with PayPal before the end of the year, so we're forced to cancel recurring payments for those who haven't done it on their own.

The problem is not all folks give us or keep current with their contact information. We've got a small back go challenge coins that have been returned in the mail and when we've emailed those folks we've gotten no response.
 
I've been making monthly donations a while now, I'd like to change the method of payment but it doesn't seem possible, it's been going to a credit card for months now and I really would prefer it go directly from paypal/my bank. I tried to find a contact email or something but couldn't, also reached out on twitter to no avail, any way we can fix this?
 
Shevchenko said:
I've been making monthly donations a while now, I'd like to change the method of payment but it doesn't seem possible, it's been going to a credit card for months now and I really would prefer it go directly from paypal/my bank. I tried to find a contact email or something but couldn't, also reached out on twitter to no avail, any way we can fix this?
Click to expand...
Contact donate@comm2a.org and the person monitoring that email can help.
 

Similar threads

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Comm2A
Replies
3
Views
989
yogi
yogi
Comm2A and Black Guns Matter in MA week of 12/10/18
Replies
12
Views
2K
CatSnoutSoup
CatSnoutSoup
Would some from Comm2A BC ME ASAP
Replies
4
Views
2K
Rat187
Rat187
Comm2A Challenges Burden Shifting
Replies
27
Views
11K
Rob Boudrie
Rob Boudrie
Comm2A on Nightside Again
Replies
19
Views
7K
JoseyWales
J
Back
Top Bottom