Pushpage now sending emails as links to Gmail users?! - Need a new option for sending emails ASAP

Megan Plesea · September 5

Let me recap what happened to us this week:

Tuesday, 9/2: Email sent to everyone in our school community, displays as it should in all email platforms

Wednesday, 9/3: Email sent to everyone in our school community, displays as it should in most email platforms - Gmail users now only receive a link to view the issue (screenshot below).

Thursday, 9/4: After testing out a few different pushpage issues, I get the same result in Gmail so I reach out to Blackbaud support. Here's what they said:
Thank you for reaching out with your concern about Pushpages being delivered as links. I completely understand how this change may have impacted your experience, and I’d like to share some important updates.

In May 2025, Google introduced new email filtering rules that flagged our standard HTML Pushpages as potentially malicious—even though they are safe and secure. As a result, many Gmail users saw these messages land in their SPAM folders, often accompanied by a red warning banner.

To address this, we’ve implemented a semi-permanent fix as of September 2025:

Gmail users will now receive a text-only email that includes a link to view the Pushpage in Web format.
This change ensures the message is delivered directly to your inbox, without being flagged or blocked.
Users on other email platforms will continue to receive Pushpages in their usual HTML format.

This will not work for us. It looks like a spam/phishing email. I'm perplexed as to why we weren't warned of this change before it was put into place. We have a big school event this weekend, and we're hoping this doesn't impact attendance.

What's everyone else using to send emails other than Pushpage? Ideally, we'd want to use a platform that supports rostering via API so we can use our distribution lists and not have to constantly update them. Any interface will be better than Pushpage, so I'm just looking for something that we can integrate with Blackbaud…and fast.

Julia H. Cain · September 5

Seeking the same!

John Bozek · September 5

BB really threw us all a curve ball just here to join the seeking the same train

Laura Forshay · September 5

Agreed and thank you for flagging this!

Oona McKnight · September 5

Please vote on this idea to undo the "fix."

Julie Horvath · September 5

Our Parents are complaining.

I AGREE!! This will not work for us. It looks like a spam/phishing email.!!!

We did change our text message to at least start with our school name.

You can only update the first paragraph via Pushpage > Pushpage email settings > Send as Link . Our new message says:

[OUR SCHOOL NAME] Notification:
Due to enhanced Gmail security measures, please click on the following link to view this email.

Megan Plesea · September 5

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/306563#Comment_306563

Thanks for the suggestion to change the Pushpage settings! Hopefully our emails will look slightly less suspicious…😑

Joy Lopez · September 5

This was a poorly thought-out and executed 'fix'. This will absolutely not work and is causing us and our community undo stress. Remove the FIX…

Oona McKnight · September 5

Good news! Jessi Walters sent the following:

Hi everyone!

I wanted to provide an update as quickly as possible:

Today, a group of us from Software Engineering, Support, Customer Success, and Product Management met with members of our school community to better understand the issues you’ve faced with Pushpage deliverability, especially for Gmail recipients. Thanks to your feedback, we are currently working to roll back a change made to Pushpage on Tuesday. By 5:30pm today, Pushpage emails sent to Gmail recipients will no longer strip HTML formatting or force a link to the issue in the message body; they will appear as expected.

The team is working on a KB article with further detail, and within an hour, we’ll place an in-product message on the Core home page which links to the KB. Additional information will be forthcoming (probably next week) with more information and transparency. We know you need it, and we want you to have it.

Yours in partnership,

--

Jessi Walters

She/Her/Hers

Product Manager, Senior

Blackbaud Education Management

Megan Plesea · September 6

That’s great news! Hopefully they’ve learned something from this blunder.

John Bozek · September 8

Hello @BlackbaudTechnicians,

We had the below information sent from one of our parents that works at google in direct response to our community e-mail about the g-mail issue.

"Please use the two-step process below and our team will review and be in contact with you.

1. Submit headers through our bulk senders form: When experiencing issues with deliverability, please fill out the form and submit headers here. (https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new) If you need more information on how to pull and send headers, here (https://support.google.com/mail/answer/29436) is some background information.

2. Civics Outreach: After submitting the form, please email the Google Civics Outreach team to inform them that the form has been submitted, along with the domain. The Google Civics Outreach team alias is civics-outreach@google .com.

Jessi Walters · September 10

Hey everyone, thanks for speaking up. I wanted to address the changes you may have noticed to Pushpage emails between September 3-5, 2025. During this timeframe, we implemented a change to all Pushpage emails so that your school’s recipients with Gmail addresses would automatically receive a text-only email with a link to the Pushpage.

We made this decision after noticing a spike in Pushpage emails that were sent to Gmail users being incorrectly labeled as SPAM. At the time, we believed the problem was widespread and wanted to ensure that your students and families received all necessary communications while we continued to investigate the cause of the issue.

After hearing your thoughtful feedback and researching further, we determined the issue impacted a smaller subset of customers and rolled back this change on September 5, 2025.

All users will now have the same email experience they had prior to the change on September 3, 2025.

We continue to investigate changes to our email capabilities – to improve deliverability and modernize the interface, while also working with email providers to prevent recurrence of similar issues.

If your school’s Pushpage emails to Gmail recipients continue to incorrectly be marked as SPAM, please follow the instructions in this Knowledgebase Article

https://kb.blackbaud.com/knowledgebase/articles/Article/23573

We understand how critical seamless communication is for your school’s students and families, and we apologize for not notifying you sooner about this change to Pushpage emails. Moving forward, we will keep you updated ahead of implementing any changes.

Thank you for sharing your feedback — it enables us to better support the incredible work you do every day. If you have additional questions or concerns, please contact Support.

Yours in partnership,
Blackbaud Product Management

Pushpage now sending emails as links to Gmail users?! - Need a new option for sending emails ASAP

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