Recover lapsed supporters

Before you can recover anyone, you need a list. Fundraise Up stores everything — every cancelled recurring plan, every failed payment, every abandoned checkout — but it does not label supporters as "lapsed" in a single view. You build that list yourself, either from the Dashboard's Exports tool or from your CRM.

Pick the path that matches your setup. If you use a CRM with a native Fundraise Up integration, Path B is usually better for ongoing work because your data stays current automatically. If you don't use a CRM, or if you need a one-time snapshot, Path A gets you started immediately.

Go to Exports in your Dashboard. You will create separate export files for each type of lapsed supporter.

Group 1. Cancelled recurring plans

This is your primary lapsed recurring list — supporters who actively stopped their plans.

1. Go to Exports and click New export.
2. Select Create new export file.
3. Select Cancelled recurring plans as the data type.
4. Switch to the File columns tab and click Clear all.
5. Add these fields:
   • Supporter Email
   • Supporter First Name
   • Supporter Last Name
   • Recurring Amount — set to Amount only in the Format column
   • Recurring Currency
   • Recurring Frequency
   • Recurring Began
   • Cancellation Reason
   • Cancellation Details
   • Canceled Date
   • Campaign Name
   • Campaign ID
   • Designation Name
   • Designation ID
   • General Consent
   • Customized Consent For Email

     You can add other fields based on your needs — check the Export Data Dictionary to see all options.

6. Click Download file and set a date range that covers your target window — cancelled in the last 12 months is a good starting point.
7. Click Download.

Export settings configured for this example

The Recurring Began field shows you how long the supporter gave before cancelling changes the message. Someone who cancelled after three years needs a gratitude-led approach; someone who cancelled after two months may need re-onboarding.

The Cancellation reason field is critical for what comes next. Fundraise Up populates it based on what the supporter said when they cancelled through Donor Portal, or what your team recorded when they cancelled from the Dashboard. Possible values:

• Financial difficulty
• Life changes
• Switched donation method
• Change in giving preferences
• Subscription consolidation
• Loss of confidence in organization
• Technical error
• Created by mistake
• Other
• No clear reason given

This single field tells you whether someone left because of money, because they lost trust, because they switched to a different payment channel, or because they made a mistake. Each of those situations calls for a different message.

Group 2. Failed recurring plans

Failed plans are a separate segment. These supporters did not choose to leave — their payment method stopped working, and the system exhausted its retry attempts. They are often the easiest group to recover because their intent never changed.

1. Same process: Exports > New export > Create new export file > Failed recurring plans > File columns.
2. Click Clear all, then add these fields:
   • Supporter Email
   • Supporter First Name
   • Supporter Last Name
   • Recurring Amount
   • Recurring Frequency
   • Recurring Began
   • Payment Method
   • Failed Date
   • Campaign Name
   • Campaign ID
   • General Consent
   • Customized Consent For Email

   Recurring Began tells you how long the supporter was giving before the payment failed — useful for prioritizing who gets personal outreach versus an automated email.

3. Download the file.

Group 3. One-time lapsed supporters

Supporters who gave once and never returned are a different kind of lapsed. To find them:

1. Create an export with Successful donations as the data type.
2. In General settings, set Frequencies to One time.
3. Switch to the File columns tab, click Clear all, then add these fields:
   • Supporter Email
   • Supporter First Name
   • Supporter Last Name
   • Donation Amount — set to Amount only in the Format column
   • Donation Currency
   • Donation Date
   • Campaign Name
   • Campaign ID
   • Designation Name
   • Designation ID
   • General Consent
   • Customized Consent For Email

   The campaign and designation fields are important — they tell you what the supporter cared about, which drives the relevance of your recovery outreach.

4. Set the date range to 6–18 months ago (adjust based on your organization's giving cycle — seasonal organizations may want to extend to 18 or even 24 months).
5. Download the file but do not close the export tab.

To identify who lapsed, you need a second export for comparison. Click Download again, but this time set the date range to the last 6 months (or whatever period you consider "active").

Open both CSVs. Copy the data from the recent export and paste it as a second sheet in the same workbook as the older export. Name the sheets — for example, rename the first tab to "Old" and the second tab to "Recent". The exact names don't matter, but the formula below must match whatever you name the second sheet.

Then, in the "Old" sheet:

1. Add a new column next to your data. Name it "Still active" or similar.
2. In the first empty cell of that column (the cell in the same row as your first data row — not the header row), enter: =IF(COUNTIF(Recent!A:A,A2)=0,"Lapsed","") — where A2 is the email in the same row as this formula, and Recent is the exact name of your second sheet tab. If you named that tab something else (like "New"), use that name instead: =IF(COUNTIF(New!A:A,A2)=0,"Lapsed","")
3. Drag the formula down to cover all rows.
4. Rows that show "Lapsed" are supporters who gave 6–18 months ago and have not given since. Filter by that column to get your list.

This works the same way in both Excel and Google Sheets.

If you work in a CRM, you can skip this manual comparison entirely and filter contacts by last donation date directly.

Group 4. Abandoned donations

Abandoned donations capture supporters who started checkout but did not complete it. They are not "lapsed" in the traditional sense — they never gave — but they showed high intent, and recovering them is often the fastest return on your outreach time.

1. Create an export with Abandoned donations as the data type.
2. Switch to the File columns tab, click Clear all, then add these fields:
   • Supporter Email
   • Supporter First Name
   • Supporter Last Name
   • Campaign Name
   • Campaign ID
   • General Consent
3. Download the file.

You can also view abandoned donations directly in the Dashboard. Go to the Supporters tab and toggle the Abandoned donation filter.

Check your lists before moving on

With your group files ready, do a quick pass before you start building outreach.

• Check for pending transactions. Go to Exports and create one more file: a New donations export for the last 2–4 weeks. Add Donation Status to the columns and download it. Filter for pending or scheduled rows, then remove matching email addresses from your group files. These supporters may already be in the middle of a transaction.
• Check consent. In each group file, look at the General Consent and Customized Consent For Email columns. Filter for rows where either field is explicitly No for the channel you plan to use for outreach, and remove them.

  Leave blank values in place. A blank can mean two things:

  • The supporter wasn't asked for consent at that specific checkout — for example, because a particular campaign had consent collection turned off, or because they gave before your organization enabled it.
  • Your campaigns are set to No consent mode, in which case both columns will be blank for every row and these fields won't help you filter.

  If both columns are blank across your entire export, your organization's consent settings determine the legal basis for contact. See Marketing consent if you want to configure consent collection in your campaigns.

  For SMS, phone, or direct mail outreach, use the corresponding field instead of (or alongside) Customized Consent For Email: Customized Consent For SMS, Customized Consent For Phone calls, or Customized Consent For Postal mail.

If your organization uses one of Fundraise Up's native CRM integrations, your donation and recurring plan data already syncs automatically — every new plan, every cancellation, every failure flows into your CRM in real time.

The approach is the same regardless of which CRM you use:

1. Make sure the fields you need for lapsed identification are mapped in your integration settings. At minimum, you need last donation date (or a close equivalent like gift date or transaction date) and recurring plan status (so you can filter by active, cancelled, or failed). Check your integration's Mapping rules tab at Settings > Integrations > [Your CRM] to verify these fields are syncing.
2. For more precise recovery outreach later, also map campaign, designation, donation amount, and supporter contact fields. The more you map, the better you can tailor your messages to what each supporter originally cared about.
3. Build two saved reports or segments in your CRM: one for recurring lapsed (filter by recurring plan status = cancelled or failed), and one for one-time lapsed (filter by last donation date older than your threshold — 12 months is a common starting point).

Each CRM structures donation and recurring plan data differently — some use Opportunities and custom objects, others use Deals and Subscriptions, others use Gift Transactions and Constituents. See your specific integration documentation for details on which objects hold which data.

If your CRM or email marketing platform is not on the list above, the Zapier integration can bridge the gap. See the Automate the cycle section below for how to set up Zapier workflows that push lapse events into external tools.

With your four groups in hand, it can help to sub-segment further before you start reaching out. Three dimensions tend to make the biggest difference:

• Last gift amount. A supporter who gave $500 monthly is a different conversation than a $10 one-time supporter — the outreach channel, the level of personalization, and the ask should all reflect that.
• Last campaign or designation. If someone supported your clean water program, a recovery email about clean water will resonate more than a generic appeal.
• Recency. A supporter who lapsed 13 months ago is much closer to recovery than one who lapsed 30 months ago. Prioritize accordingly.

Each of the four groups from the previous section responds to different outreach. Here's a quick reference for what each group typically needs before the detailed walkthroughs below.

Work these groups in priority order. Group 2 (failed plans) comes first: the supporter wanted to keep giving. Group 4 (abandoned donations) is also time-sensitive — intent is freshest in the first week. Groups 1 and 3 are win-back efforts and can run on a monthly cadence.

These supporters wanted to keep giving, but their payment method stopped working. The key is to get the supporter into Donor Portal, where they can update their payment method and reactivate their plan themselves. Find your Donor Portal URL at Settings > Donor Portal.

Send a short, direct email with the Donor Portal link. Something along the lines of: "Your recurring plan needs a payment update. Click here to review your giving and make any changes." The supporter updates their payment method in Donor Portal and the plan restarts.

Donor Portal with the option to edit payment details

If a supporter calls in and provides their new card details, your team can update the payment method directly from the Dashboard instead of asking them to go to Donor Portal:

1. Go to the Recurring tab and filter the plans by Status → Failed
2. Open the failed plan.
3. Click Edit payment details in the upper right.
4. Select New credit card under Payment method and enter the card information the supporter provided.
5. Optionally, check Process a payment now to charge the new card immediately rather than waiting for the next scheduled installment. This is useful for recovery — it restarts the giving relationship right away instead of leaving a gap.
6. Click Save changes.

These supporters were already in checkout. Something interrupted them — a phone call, a slow connection, a moment of hesitation. They showed intent and are often the fastest group to recover.

For abandoned donations that your built-in email reminders (covered in the Prevent future lapse section below) don't recover, work the list manually each week. Use the Abandoned donation filter on the Supporters tab in your Dashboard. Reach out with a Donate Link to the same campaign the supporter originally started on.

These supporters made a deliberate choice to stop. They need a reason to reconsider, and that reason depends on why they left (which you know from the Cancellation reason field in your export).

Step 1. Set up a dedicated recovery campaign

Create a campaign specifically for recovery outreach. This lets you track all recovered donations separately from the regular campaigns and measure how your efforts perform over time.

1. Go to Campaigns > New campaign.
2. Select New campaign with default settings, fill the Name field and click Create campaign.
3. Go to the Campaign Page tab and click Enable Campaign Page.
4. Customize the page with content relevant to what your lapsed supporters funded and click Save changes.

Step 2. Create Donate Links

Create a Donate Link Element tied to your recovery campaign:

1. Go to Elements > New element.
2. Select Donate Link.
3. Fill the Element name field.
4. From the Open campaign dropdown, select the recovery campaign you’ve just created.
5. Click Create element.
6. Copy the generated URL.

Add this link into email campaigns, SMS messages, or newsletters. When a supporter clicks it, they go straight to checkout.

Optional: build personalized links with URL API

For outreach at scale, our URL API lets you build donation links with pre-filled information. You add parameters to any donation URL to set the suggested amount, frequency, designation, and tracking codes.

For example, to create a link for a supporter who previously gave $50/month to your "Clean Water" designation:

https://example.com?form=CAMPAIGNID&amount=40&currency=USD&recurring=monthly&designationId=DESIGNATIONID

This opens checkout with $40/month pre-selected for the Clean Water designation. Setting the amount slightly below their previous gift can reduce friction.

Key parameters for recovery outreach:

If your email platform supports merge tags or personalization fields (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, and most others do), you can build this URL directly in the email template body instead — no spreadsheet needed. The URL API parameters work the same way: replace static values with your platform's merge tag syntax for donation amount, campaign, and designation.

See the full URL API documentation for all available parameters and implementation examples.

Optional: Virtual Terminal for phone outreach

For high-value supporters who warrant a personal call, Virtual Terminal lets your donor care team process a donation during the conversation. This works well when the supporter is ready to give again but prefers to handle it over the phone rather than clicking a link.

These supporters gave once (or a few times) and haven't returned in 12+ months. Recovery here depends on relevance — the outreach should connect back to what they originally funded, not ask them for money out of the blue.

Donate Links and URL API

The same tools from Group 1 apply here. Create a Donate Link to your recovery campaign. For personalized outreach, use URL API to build links that pre-fill a suggested amount tied to the supporter's prior giving level and the designation they originally supported.

A structured email sequence can work well for this group — for example, an impact update first (tied to what the supporter funded), then a specific ask with a Donate Link or URL API link to your recovery Campaign Page, then a "choose your impact" message if your organization runs multiple programs.

QR Codes for print outreach

For supporters who don't respond to email — or for high-value supporters worth a physical mailing — create a QR Code Element:

1. Go to Elements > New element.
2. Select QR Code.
3. Fill the Element name field.
4. From the Open campaign dropdown, select your recovery campaign.
5. Click Create element.
6. Download the QR Code image.
7. Place it in printed letters, postcards, or event materials.

When scanned, the QR Code opens checkout for your recovery campaign. This pairs well with a personal letter or an impact report.

QR Codes are useful across all lapsed groups, not just one-time supporters. They work well for any segment where a physical touchpoint makes sense — long-dormant supporters, older demographics, or anyone whose email outreach hasn't landed.

Virtual Terminal for personal calls

Same as Group 1 — for your highest-value one-time lapsed supporters, a phone call combined with Virtual Terminal lets your team process the gift during the conversation. The supporter's existing information pre-fills (if enabled) when you search for them, so the call stays focused on the conversation rather than data entry.

For supporters who prefer not to donate online at all, this removes the friction of web forms entirely.

Recovery is reactive. Prevention runs in the background — but only if the right emails are turned on. Go to Settings > Emails and verify the status of each email listed below.

• Recurring plans > Installment failed — Sent on each failed charge attempt. Each installment may attempt to process up to five times. Includes a button for the supporter to update their payment details.
• Recurring plans > Plan failed — Sent when a recurring plan fails entirely after all retry attempts are exhausted. Includes a button to reactivate by updating payment info.
• Recurring plans > Plan cancelled — Sent when a recurring plan is cancelled from the Dashboard or Donor Portal. Includes a button to reactivate the donation.
• Other communication > Expiring card reminder — Sent three times before a card linked to a recurring plan expires. Includes a button to update payment details. Stripe automatically updates many expired cards through card network programs, but this does not work for all banks or card types. The reminder emails catch the rest.
• Other communication > Abandoned donation reminder — A sequence of 4 emails sent to supporters who started but didn't complete a donation: about 1 hour after abandonment, then at 1 day, 3 days, and 7 days. The sequence stops automatically if the supporter completes their donation or clicks "Unsubscribe from reminder emails."

Save your Cancelled recurring plans and Failed recurring plans export configurations as templates so you can reuse them:

1. Go to Exports > Templates > New template.
2. Configure the template with the same fields and filters from the Pull your lapsed data section.
3. In the Export schedule tab, check Create files on a schedule and select Monthly.
4. Check Send files to destinations and add an email destination — your donor care team lead's address, or a shared mailbox.
5. Click Save changes.

Your donor care team now gets a fresh lapsed supporter list delivered every month without anyone logging into the Dashboard.

The Zapier integration can turn lapse events into immediate, automated responses — instead of waiting for a monthly export, a supporter who cancels on Tuesday is in your recovery sequence by Wednesday.

Here's how to set up a Zap that adds cancelled supporters to a recovery email sequence:

1. In your Zapier account, click Create and select Zaps.
2. Click the Trigger section, search for and select Fundraise Up.
3. Choose Updated Recurring Donation as the trigger event.
4. Select your connected Fundraise Up account and click Continue.
5. Click the + between the trigger and action, then select Flow controls > Filter.
6. Set the filter to: Recurring Plan Status → (Text) Exactly matches → canceled. This limits the Zap to only fire when a plan is cancelled, not on every plan update.
7. Click the Action section and select your email marketing platform (Mailchimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, or whichever tool you use).
8. Choose the action — for example, Add/Update Subscriber in Mailchimp, or Add Contact to Automation in ActiveCampaign.
9. Map the Fundraise Up fields to your email platform's fields. At minimum, map Supporter Email, Supporter First Name, and Supporter Last Name. You can also map Recurring Base Donation Amount and Designation Name to personalize your recovery emails.
10. Test and publish the Zap.

To also catch failed plans, create a second Zap with the same structure but set the filter to Recurring Plan Status → failed.

You can build similar Zaps to notify your donor care team in Slack when a high-value plan cancels, add lapsed supporters to a specific CRM tag, or log cancellations to a Google Sheet for reporting.

Zapier supports up to 10 active Zaps per Fundraise Up connection. Zaps only process events that happen after they are activated — they do not retroactively process older cancellations or failures.

A lightweight rhythm that keeps recovery moving:

• Weekly: Work the Abandoned Donations list. These supporters showed intent within the last seven days — the fastest return on your outreach time.
• Month, week 1: Failed recurring plan recovery. Send Donor Portal links to supporters whose plans failed. They update their payment method and restart themselves.
• Month, week 2: Cancelled recurring plan win-back. Send Donate Links to your recovery Campaign Page. Use URL API links for personalized outreach at scale.
• Month, week 3: One-time lapsed reactivation. Send Donate Links or URL API links matched to each supporter's previous campaign and designation.
• Month, week 4: Personal outreach to your highest-value lapsed supporters — those with the largest prior gifts or longest tenure. Phone calls combined with Virtual Terminal. Direct mail with QR Codes for supporters who don't respond to email.

Migrations can recover a meaningful share of dormant plans. When recently lapsed plans (within the last three months of the old platform) are recreated in Fundraise Up, they gain retry logic and self-serve Donor Portal access — tools the old platform may not have had.

If you are mid-migration or recently completed one, bring this up with your Fundraise Up migrations contact. They can help identify affected recurring plans and walk through what recovery looks like in your specific case.