I thought I made a one-time contribution but it’s recurring. What happened, and how can I stop it?

ActBlue processes donations exactly how the contribution form is filled out when a supporter clicks the donate button. Each organization or campaign creates its own contribution forms, and some use pre-set recurring forms, which have the recurring option pre-selected. This can result in signing up for unintended recurring contributions if the “No, donate once” option is not manually selected.

If you do not want to make a recurring contribution, make sure the recurring button is not selected before submitting your contribution. A checkmark will appear on the button that is selected: In the image above, “No, donate once” is selected, so the user will make a one-time donation. 

All groups that use pre-set recurring forms must follow ActBlue’s policy and explicitly and clearly ask donors for recurring contributions immediately before the donor clicks the link to give in an email or text or on a website. For instance, in the below email, clicking any of the “Express Donate” buttons will automatically process a recurring donation if you have an ActBlue Express account.

When your donation is processed, the pop-up will specify whether your contribution will recur.

If you receive a pop-up after you give that asks you to increase your donation, the amount you choose to increase your impact by will only apply to the contribution you made that day. So if you give a recurring contribution of $5, and then choose to increase your donation by $1 in the pop-up, your first charge will be for $6. But the future recurrences of your donation will be $5!

Our Customer Service Team is always available at info@actblue.com to help rectify an unintended recurring contribution, or you can follow these directions.

If you have any concerns about the way a particular contribution form has been set up, you can always reach out directly to the organization or campaign that created it.