Year End Mailing: Designing Your Template

There are a few standard Document layouts that you can use to get started.  I’ve listed a few that I find really helpful:

• Simple Business Letter – Great for thanking someone for a single donation or a total amount.
• Letter W/ Gift List – This layout contains the Entry List Widget which can list out multiple transactions from that individual/household within the letter.  This is helpful if you want the constituent to be able to review each donation they gave over the year.
• Receipt W/ Stub (Bottom) – This layout is nice if you want to let the donor rip off a receipt stub to send to their tax person without sending the whole letter.  Usually used for just an overall summary and not for listing every transaction.

Our help section has an article on Creating Templates, but I’ve also put together some steps that should help.  In the steps I’ll be using the Letter W/ Gift List layout, but you can use another layout depending on what information you want to provide in the letter.

1. Click Communications on the menu bar
2. Click a category to build your template in
3. Click New Email Or Document Template under the Task Menu
4. Name the template Year End Mailing Template
5. Fill in a Subject line if you plan to email the letters to constituents
6. Click Next to go to step 2: Layout
7. Click Documents at the top of the page
8. Click the Letter W/ Gift List layout (or one of the other predefined layouts if you like)
9. Edit the template
10. Click Step 4: Save And

The "Edit the template" step is a little vague.  That’s because each organization has their own idea for what they want to say in the letter, how they want it to look, etc.  Even if there was a standard letter to send out, you’d still want to insert your own logos, possibly some links, as well as a few other items specific to your organization.  So step 9 is really your time to have fun and be creative.  If you need help with inserting images, links, etc., be sure to check out the HTML Editor help document.

For those of you in Canada, or anyone that uses the eReceipt module, you’re going to want to generate a receipt number for your transactions in the end.  The only way you can generate a receipt number is to include the Generated Receipt Number merge tag within your template. When inserting merge tags, you’ll find the Generated Receipt Number under the Journal Fields category.  If you used the Letter W/ Gift List template, like I did in the steps above, you’ll want to insert the Generated Receipt Number into the Entry List widget. Here is a help document to assist you with Editing The Entry List Widget.

If you are not using the Entry List widget, then I’d recommend you type out some text in your template that says “Receipt Number:”  Then you can insert the Generated Receipt Number merge tag next to the text.  This way your constituents will know what the number is for.  

For more information about merge tags and widgets, you’ll want to look to the HTML Editor help document.

Go Back To: Year End Mailing: Querying
Next To: Year End Mailing: Creating Documents

Additional Resources
Video Creating Year End Mailing Template