Recently, ActBlue chose to turn off their API which connects Salsa pages to their payment (donation) processor. This news was unexpected and unfortunate.

In an effort to minimize disruption for Salsa clients, we took proactive steps and replaced ActBlue with DemocracyEngine.

Your Salsa donation pages are now processing donations through DemocracyEngine, in what was a seamless transition.

You will begin to receive checks for online donations from DemocracyEngine. Their processing fees are comparable to ActBlue and are 4% plus $0.30 per transaction. Their checks are cut weekly and they will be sent directly to your campaign.

DemocracyEngine will be moving to an ACH transfer system over the next few months. To facilitate this move, you will need to fill out a payment acceptance form.  Over time, this process will be entirely electronic. To be clear, you are set up to collect funds and the payment acceptance form is NOT required, but it will be helpful for the future in order to help the process of data and money transfers as their system is moved. This move is expected in the first quarter of 2011.

If you have not changed your donation settings in the past week:
You don't have to do anything. The change has been made and your donations are now processing through DemocracyEngine.
If you have changed your donation settings in the past week:
You will want to contact Scott Thorpe (contact info below).

While we believe DemocracyEngine is a fantastic product for campaigns, we want you to be aware there are options. Here is a list of available merchant gateways if you would like to switch to another one.

If you have contacted ActBlue directly to update your billing contact or are unsure whether or not we have the most up to date billing information, please contact Scott so we can be sure DemocracyEngine is sending checks to the correct address.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Scott Thorpe at sthorpe@salsalabs.com.