Letters using mailing Lists

To use a mailing list it's easiest to just give you some examples:

There are three types of mailing lists (contact, donation and pledge).

Example #1: Setup a contact mail list called "Monthly Newsletter Mail List" and use it to send a monthly newsletter
To setup the mail list:
- goto the letters screen (shown above)
- click add new mail list
- enter the type: "contact"
- enter the name: "Monthly Newsletter mail List"
enter the description: "This mail list is used for contacts that should get the monthly newsletter."
- click ok to save the mail list

Now we goto various contacts during a three week period and click the "Add to Mailing List..." button and add them to this mailing list.

So after three weeks we added (let's say 25) contacts to the mailing list.

Now we are ready to generate the monthly newsletter by doing the following:
- goto the letters screen (shown above)
- select the mail list (it should show there are currently 25 recipients, the bottom of the screen will show that they were first added three weeks ago)
- click the "create letters for mail list receipients" button
- this will launch the normal word merge process (described in the previous topic in this manual)

Note: remember the "Record Correspondence Yes/No" will determine if correspondence history is recorded.

After closing the Word merge screen it will ask if you "Ok to clear the recipient list for this mailing list?"
You would choose to clear the recipients if you are done with this mailing list and don't want to do anything else with this list of 25 people.
Example: if you wanted to send a letter and email, you would not clear the list after making the letter and then clear the list after making an email.
Example: some mailing lists you might never clear the recipient list, some you clear after every use.

 

Example #2: Setup a mailing list for donation acknowledgments and use it every week to send donation acknowledgments

- Setup the mail list (very similar steps to above, except type equals "Donation" and name/description appropriate for donation acknowledgment mail list)

- Now we add donations throughout the week and on each donation we click the "Add to mailing list.." button and add it to this mailing list.

- After the week is over we added (lets say 20) donations to the mailing list

- Now we are ready to generate the donation acknowledgment letters for each of the 20 contacts/donations. Follow the similar process as above except choose our "donation acknowledgement" mail list and create the letters for each of these unique donations.