Sending a Message

WeGive's Messages feature lets you reach your supporters through email, SMS, physical mail, or in-platform messaging — all from one place. This article walks you through composing, targeting, testing, and sending a message.

Where to Start

You can begin a new message from a few different places in the dashboard:

• Engagement → Messages — the main hub. Click the blue + icon to create a new message.

• Donor Portal → Engagement — starts a communication from the donor portal context.

• Chat bubble (top-right) — for direct, one-on-one platform messages to an individual donor.

Most broadcast and campaign messages start from Engagement → Messages.

Step 1: Choose the Message Type

When you create a new message, you'll first pick the type:

• Regular Message — a one-time, standalone communication sent to a selected audience.

• Triggered Message — an automated message that fires when a donor takes a specific action (for example, completing a donation or signing up for an event).

• Supporter Journey — a multi-step sequence of messages. Choosing this will take you into the Journey editor instead of the message composer.

Next, choose the delivery method:

• Plain Text Email — a simple, text-only email.

• Email — a rich HTML email with templates, images, and styling.

• SMS — a text message to the donor's phone.

• Mail — an AI-generated handwritten letter delivered physically.

• In-Platform Message — a message that appears in the donor's portal, not sent externally.

Step 2: Pick a Template (Email Only)

If you chose a rich HTML email, you'll be prompted to select a template. You can pick an existing template from your organization's library or start from a blank template and build from scratch. The template's design and styling will load into the composer so you can customize from there.

Step 3: Compose Your Message

This is the main editor screen. It has three parts: audience, content, and delivery options.

Audience

You have three tools for deciding who receives the message, and they can be combined:

• Communication Lists — opt-in audiences that donors can subscribe to or unsubscribe from via their portal. Best for marketing-style messages where subscriber consent matters. Unsubscribe links and compliance headers are handled automatically.

• Rule Groups (Segments) — filter your audience based on donor attributes or behavior. You can filter by campaign participation, donation frequency, amount, payment method, donor name, tags, and more. Multiple rule groups can be combined using AND / OR operators.

• Campaign — associate the message with a specific campaign for tracking and attribution.

A common example: send to the "Monthly Donors" communication list AND filter to only those who have donated in the past 90 days.

Content

Depending on the delivery method, you'll see different fields:

• Subject Line — required for email and mail. For mail, subject lines are limited to 100 characters.

• Preheader Text — the preview text that appears in an email inbox (up to 100 characters).

• Message Body — rich text editor for emails, plain text for SMS, or short-form text for mail (limited to 450 characters).

• Merge Tags — personalize your message with donor data (first name, donation amount, etc.) by typing @ to insert a tag.

• Variable Fallbacks — set a default value to use when a merge tag has no data (for example, "Friend" if a donor's first name is missing).

Delivery Options

• Send From — choose which verified sending email address the message goes out from.

• Delivery Timing — you have three choices:

  • Immediate — send as soon as you click Send.

  • Delayed — wait a set number of minutes, hours, or days before sending.

  • Scheduled (custom) — pick a specific date and time. If you accidentally pick a time in the past, the system will send it about a minute from now.

For triggered messages, you'll also set the trigger event that causes the message to fire.

Step 4: Preview and Test

Before sending, always preview and test:

• Preview with a real donor — the preview pane renders your message with a selected donor's actual data, so you can verify merge tags and personalization work correctly.

• Send Test — send a copy to one or more email addresses (comma-separated). Test messages arrive with [TEST] prepended to the subject line. If a test recipient's email matches a donor in your organization, the test will use that donor's real data for merge tags; otherwise it falls back to a default donor's data.

Test email and SMS both work. If you're testing a saved draft, any file attachments will be included in the test.

Step 5: Send or Schedule

When you're ready, you have several options:

• Save as Draft — saves your progress without sending. You can come back and finish later.

• Send Now — immediate delivery. A confirmation dialog will show the estimated audience count before sending.

• Schedule — queues the message to go out at the date and time you set.

• Set Live — for triggered messages, this activates the trigger so the message fires when donors match the criteria.

A final confirmation dialog appears before broadcast messages go out, including the audience count and delivery estimate. Review and confirm to send.

After Sending

Once a regular message is sent, here's what you can do with it:

• View performance — the Message View page shows delivery status, opens, clicks, and other analytics.

• Resend — you can resend a non-triggered message to the same or a different audience.

• Duplicate — create a copy of the message (prefixed with "(Copy)") as a draft you can edit and send again.

• Convert to Template — turn any message into a reusable email template for your library.

• Send to Specific Supporters — target additional individual donors after the initial send.

• Archive — remove it from your active list via the More dropdown.

Regular messages can't be "paused" once sent because they're one-time broadcasts. However, triggered messages can be paused by setting their status back to Draft, which stops them from firing on new donor actions.

Editing a sent message is possible for some fields, but the version that went out to donors is preserved in history — edits won't change what was already delivered.

Things to Watch For

• Test Organizations — if your organization is flagged as a test account, SMS messages won't actually send unless Enable messaging on test accounts is turned on. Email and mail behave the same way.

• Recipient Address Resolution — for email, the "Send To" field decides which donor email is used: preferred, personal, work, alternate, or a custom address. Make sure the donors in your audience have the email type you're targeting, or they'll be skipped.

• Phone Number Requirements for SMS — SMS delivery uses the donor's preferred phone, mobile, or home number depending on your "Send To" choice. Donors without a valid number won't receive the SMS.

• Mailing Address Required for Mail — donors without a valid mailing or billing address on file will not receive handwritten mail.

• Character Limits — mail content maxes out at 450 characters; email preheaders at 100 characters. The composer will warn you if you exceed these.

• Unsubscribe Compliance — emails include a one-click unsubscribe header automatically, and communication list messages honor donor subscription preferences. You don't need to add these manually.

Troubleshooting

If a donor reports they didn't receive a message:

1. Check the Message View to see if delivery succeeded for that donor. Failed sends are logged with an error.

2. Confirm the donor wasn't unsubscribed from the communication list used.

3. Verify the donor has the correct email address or phone number type that matches your "Send To" setting.

4. For test accounts, confirm test messaging is enabled for the channel you used.

5. For triggered messages, confirm the status is Live, not Draft.