Add an appeal mailing

1. From Marketing and Communications, select Appeal mailings.

2. Under Appeal mailings, select Add. For information about the items on this screen, see Add an Appeal Mailing Screen.

3. Under General information, enter a unique name and description to help identify the mailing.

4. In the Mail date field, select the date you plan to send the mailing to its recipients.

5. When you add a mailing from the Appeal Mailings page, the Appeal field appears. Search for and select the appeal that the mailing supports, or add the appeal if necessary.

6. In the Processing options field, select the address processing option to use with the constituent addresses included in the mailing.

7. In the Name format field, select the option to use to determine the addressees and salutations to use with the constituents included in the mailing.

8. Under Household options, select whether to send only one letter to a household with multiple recipients or to send a letter to each applicable member of the household.

9. Select Next. The Create your letters options appear.

10. Select whether to use a new or existing letter with the mailing.

• To create a new letter, enter a unique name to help identify the letter.

• To use an existing letter, select Use previous letter and search for and select the letter to use.

11. Under Letter recipients, the selections of constituents to receive the selected letter appear. For a new letter, select Add and select its recipients. To adjust the recipients for an existing letter, select Edit. For information about how to select recipients for a letter, see Select Recipients for a Communication.

12. Altru automatically excludes deceased constituents from the mailing. Select whether to include inactive constituents, such as to engage with lapsed donors.

13. Under Exclude constituents based on the following, the default communication exclusions for your organization appear. Edit the exclusion criteria for the letter as necessary.

Note: When you edit the exclusion criteria, you edit the exclusions for the appeal mailing letter only. For information about how to edit the communication exclusions for your organization, see Default Communication Exclusions.

• To edit the criteria of the recipients excluded based on communication and revenue activity, select Edit for Recent activity. For information about how to edit exclusions based on recent activity, see Edit Recent Activity Exclusions.

• To edit the criteria of the recipients excluded based on solicit codes or constituent selection, select Edit for Solicit codes and selections. For information about how to edit exclusions based on solicit codes or selections, see Edit Solicit Code and Selection Exclusions.

14. Scroll down to view the Letter content options.

15. Select whether to merge the mailing's recipient information with a letter or export the recipient information as a comma-separated values (*.CSV) file.

• If you print your letters in-house, select Merge recipient information with a letter. When you select this option, Altru merges the recipients you selected for the letter with the letter content you create in the HTML Content Editor, such as to fill the merge fields used in the letter with information about each constituent. After you run the mailing, a Microsoft Word document is created that contains the letter content for each recipient that you can then print and send through mail. If your mailing contains multiple letters, a .ZIP file is created that contains a Microsoft Word document for each letter.

When you select this option, Altru also generates a (*.CSV) file of recipient information along with your merged content.

• If you use a mail house for the mailing, or want to write your letters with another program such as Microsoft Word, select Export a .CSV file of the recipient information. When you select this option, Altru generates a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file of your recipient information, merge fields, and ask ladder that you can then send to a mail house to create the mailing, or manually export to Microsoft Word to create the mailing yourself.

16. If you select Merge recipient information with a letter, select whether to send the letter through the mail, email, or both.

If you select Mail and Email, recipients receive the letter through a channel based on their communication preferences. Select the channel to use for constituents with no selected communication preference.

17. Under Select recipient information to use to personalize your letter, select the merge fields and ask ladder to use with the letter.

Note: By default, the mailing uses merge fields commonly used for appeal mailings. To view a list of the merge fields included in the export definition, select Preview. To edit the merge fields included in the export definition, select Edit. When you edit merge fields, you cannot remove a merge field from the export definition that is being used in another letter. To remove the merge field, you must first remove it from the letter in which it is used.

Tip: When you start the mailing, Altru automatically generates finder numbers for its recipients. To quickly identify constituents and the communication, include the finder number as a merge field in your letter content. For example, your content can include an ask for a donation and a return device that includes the finder number. When a constituent includes the return device with a donation and you enter the finder number when you add the payment, Altru automatically associates the donation with the constituent and the communication.

18. If you select Merge recipient information with a letter, select Add under Write your letter’s content.The Add content screen appears so you can define the letter content to use for the selected channels. For information about how to define letter content, see Letter Content.

Tip: To view how content appears as mail output, select Preview to download a sample of the content as a Microsoft Office open XML document (*.docx) file. With this file, you can preview the content in a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. You cannot save changes made to the preview. If necessary, edit the content through the appeal mailing letter. To edit the content, select Edit on the Add communication letter screen. To remove the content entirely, such as to re-write it, select Remove.

To create another letter to use with the mailing, such as to target different recipients with specific content, select Add another letter.

Tip: The letters included in a mailing appears on the left side of the Create your letters tab. When you include multiple letters, arrange them in the order in which to generate them for the mailing. For example, arrange the letters so Altru generates letters for constituents with large average gift amounts before it generates the letter used for all other constituents. To remove a letter from the mailing, select its red X.

19. After you add all letters to use with the mailing, select Next. The Finish up options appear.

20. Under Summary, the general information and processing options entered for the mailing appear. To edit information or an option, select Edit.

21. Under Letters, all letters selected for use with the mailing appear. If you add multiple letters, arrange them in the order in which to generate them for the mailing. For example, arrange the letters so Altru generates letters for board members or constituents with large average gift amounts before the letter used for all other constituents. To adjust a letter’s position in the order, select it in the grid and select the up or down arrow as necessary.

22. Under Results, select whether to create a constituent selection of the mailing’s recipients. If you select Create selection from results, enter a name to help identify the selection and select whether overwrite an existing selection with the same name.

23. Select Finish and close. The record of the mailing appears. For information about the items on this record, see Appeal Mailing Record.