Online Help

Sending Email from Your Participant Center

Maximizing your fundraising potential by sending email from your Participant Center is quick and easy. And, your Participant Center keeps track of who you send to and if you receive responses, such as donations or sign-ups to your team.

Although you can create your own content, templates are available with suggested message content for most of the emails to help you get started. You can start a message and leave it in Draft form to finish and send later. You can also save your messages as templates for future use.

You can select your recipients from your personal Contacts List maintained in the Participant Center. Besides manually entering the email address of a contact into the Contacts List, you can import contacts you have in an external address book (like in Yahoo Mail! or Microsoft Outlook) to add the people you want to contact. The system automatically adds anyone that you manually enter, anyone who donates to you, and certain groups of contacts such as your teammates or people you have sent an appeal for support but have not yet heard from. You can also organize contacts in your list into groups for easy selection.

Sometimes we even provide stationery options that define different layouts for your email to change the look.

Note: When you send an email from a Participant Center, the reply-to name and email address displayed to recipients are the logged in user's name and email address.

Step 1. Display the Compose Message Page

After accessing your Participant Center Home page, click Send Email from the navigation on the right side of the page

To access this page from the:

  • Top navigation of any Participant Center page, click EMAIL.
  • Contacts list in your address book, click the checkboxes next to the names of the intended recipients (or, click select All in the upper right) and then click Compose Message. Note that you do not have to click any recipients if you want to enter different names.
  • List of saved message drafts that have not yet been sent, click Drafts and then click the name of the message (which is typically the subject line).
  • List of messages that you have already sent:
  1. Click Sent. The Sent messages list page displays.
  2. Click the name of the message (which is typically the subject line). The details of the message display.
  3. Click Forward.

Step 2. Identify the Email Recipients

You can compose but not send this email at this time so you do not have to enter recipients now.

To specify the recipients who should receive this email by:

  • Typing them in manually:
  1. Start entering the first few characters of the name or email address of the recipient
  2. If an existing contact displays in a popup before you finish typing, click it to automatically fill it in.
  3. Continue entering names or email addresses.
  • Pasting them in from a copied source, position your cursor in the To field and press the Ctrl + V keys on your keyboard.
  • Selecting them from the Contacts list:
    (You can work with the contacts on one page at a time, which means that if you select a contact and then go to the next page, the selection is lost. To display a specific set of similar contacts, use the Search field. Change the show more contacts on each page, use the Contacts/Page drop-down list below the list.)
  1. Click the choose from your contacts list link.
  2. Locate the first set of contacts on the page displayed and click the checkboxes next to their names.
  3. Click the Compose Message option near the top of the page.
  4. To add more contacts from other pages, click the choose from your contacts list link again and click the next page arrow (located below the list).
  5. Click the checkboxes next to the contacts on this page and click the Compose Message option again.
  6. Repeat these steps until all of your recipients are in the To field on the Compose Message page.
  • Selecting a group of contacts:
  1. Click the choose from your contacts list link.
  2. Click the TeamRaiser PC2 Individuals/Groups Toggle (Individuals/Groups) toggle.
  3. Click the checkbox next to the name of the group and click the Compose Message option from along the top of the page.

Step 3. Enter the Subject of this Email Message

Click into the Subject area and type in the phrase that you want recipients to see when they view their email message list.

It is important to use details that will not be considered SPAM by the popular email services. For example, entering the phrase "I am participating in this great fundraiser" may not trigger SPAM filters while "Open This" will often trigger them.

Tip: A compelling subject line may increase the likelihood that recipients may open and act on this email.

Step 4. Add the Name of the Recipient to the Message

Click the Add Personalized Greeting checkbox. The first name of each recipient (the default greeting) will be added to the salutation. (Note that sometimes the greeting maybe changed to the word Friend or the salutation "Dear" may also be replaced. You will see this when you Preview your message.

Step 5. Compose the Content of the Message

To add content:

  • From a templated message with suggested content (either one you saved or one provided by us):
  1. Click Use a Template (below the Subject area).
  2. From the Types displayed, click a type or Other.
  3. If more than one template is available, click the preferred template.
    Note: The message content from the first template of the type selected displays in the Content Editor, and as you click a template, the suggested message content from that message displays.
  • By pasting it in from another resource (for example, from the Sample Appeal sent to you when you registered), press the Ctrl + V keys on your keyboard.
    Important: Some word processing programs use proprietary coding that may make your copied content paste in incorrectly. You may have to try saving your original content file as a Rich Text Formatted (RTF) file and then copy the content.
  • By manually typing it in, click into the Content Editor and enter your message text.

Notes About the Content Editor:

  • The Content Editor expands and displays scroll bars as you create or paste in your content.
  • If the Content Editor has toolbars and formatting tools, you can add colors, change the font styling and so on. Refer to Using the Rich Text Editor.
  • Although you cannot add links in the Rich Text Editor, a link to your Personal Page will be automatically added to the bottom of your message.

Step 6. Run Spell Checker on Your Email Content

Click the Spell Checker tool and make any necessary changes as suggested.

Step 7. Select Your Stationery

If stationery options are displayed, click the one you prefer. (Note that stationery defines certain elements to display in the margins around the content.)

Step 8. Preview Your Message

  1. Click Preview. The message displays similar to how it will look to a recipient.
  2. When you are finished, click Edit to display the Compose page again unless you are ready to send it as is.

Step 9. Send Your Email or Save It

If you want to:

  • Send your email now, click Send. The success message displays along the top of the page and the fields on this Compose page are cleared so you can send another one.
  • Save this message and work on it or send it later, click Save as draft. The success message displays along the top of the field.
  • Save this message as a template before you send it, so you can reuse the content, click Save as template. The Subject line is saved as the title of your template and the template will display in the Template list.

Step 10. Save the Sent Email as a Template

If you have already sent the email:

  1. Click Sent (from the options on the right). A list of sent email messages displays.
  2. Click the name of the message. The Compose Message page displays with the Subject and content of the original message.
  3. Click Save as template. The Subject line is saved as the title of your template and the template will display in the Template list.