Setting Up Email Settings

Send emails from your own domain to build trust with donors and improve deliverability. This guide walks through every setting on the Settings → Email page in your WeGive dashboard.

Overview

The Email settings page lets you manage three things:

1. Custom email domains — send from your own domain instead of a generic WeGive address.

2. Email addresses — create one or more sender addresses under each domain (e.g., support@yourorg.org, giving@yourorg.org).

3. Organization-level email preferences — control suppression headers and tracking globally.

Adding a Custom Email Domain

Step 1: Enter Your Domain

1. On the Email settings page, click to add a new domain.

2. Type just the domain name (e.g., yourorganization.org) — not a full email address.

3. Click Add.

WeGive registers the domain and generates the DNS records you'll need. Once added, the domain appears in your list with its current status.

Note: The domain mail.wegive.com cannot be added — it is reserved by WeGive.

Error handling: If the domain can't be added (for example, it's already registered), WeGive displays the specific error message returned by the server.

Step 2: Add DNS Records

Expand the Authentication section for your new domain. You'll see three DNS records to copy into your domain provider (e.g., GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap):

Copy each record exactly as shown and add it with your DNS provider.

Tip: DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours to propagate.

Step 3: Verify Your Domain

After adding the DNS records, click Verify next to your domain. WeGive checks your DNS provider to confirm the records are in place.

• Success: You'll see a confirmation message ("Domain verification refreshed") and the domain status updates to authenticated.

• Failure: A "Domain verification failed" message appears. Double-check that the records were entered correctly, wait for propagation, and try again.

WeGive determines your domain's overall authentication status using two checks: DNS must show as valid and SSL must show as issued. If either is still being processed, the status shows as "checking." Otherwise, it shows "unauthenticated" until both pass.

You can re-verify at any time — there's no limit on verification attempts.

Managing Email Addresses

Once your domain is authenticated, you can create sender addresses under it.

Adding an Address

1. Expand your domain, then open the Addresses section.

2. Click to add a new address.

3. Fill in the form:

Both Handle and Display Name are required — the save button won't work if either is blank.

Editing an Address

Click an existing address to edit it. The form pre-fills with the current handle, display name, and toggle states. Make your changes and save. WeGive confirms the update with an "Address updated" message.

Removing an Address

Click the delete option on any address. A confirmation dialog appears asking you to confirm removal of the specific address (e.g., "Remove support@yourorg.org?"). This action cannot be undone.

Email Tracking

Email tracking lets you see whether recipients open your emails and click links. Tracking is controlled at the domain level — enabling it turns on both open tracking and click tracking together.

How to Enable or Disable

Find the tracking toggle for your domain on the Email settings page and switch it on or off. WeGive updates the setting and confirms with "Email tracking enabled" or "Email tracking disabled."

How Tracking Works

• Open tracking embeds an invisible pixel in your emails. When the recipient's email client loads images, the open is recorded.

• Click tracking rewrites links in your emails to route through your tracking subdomain. Clicks are recorded before redirecting the recipient.

When you enable tracking, WeGive automatically issues a TLS certificate for your tracking subdomain to keep links secure.

Tracking Limitations

Tracking is not 100% accurate. Some email clients (Apple Mail with Privacy Protection, Outlook) block tracking pixels, meaning opens may be undercounted. Corporate firewalls can also strip tracking pixels. Click tracking depends on your CNAME record being properly configured.

Email Suppression Headers

Suppression headers tell recipient email clients not to send automatic replies (like out-of-office messages) in response to your emails. This is useful for bulk communications — newsletters, receipts, campaign updates — where auto-replies create noise.

When enabled, WeGive adds three headers to outgoing emails:

• Precedence: bulk

• X-Auto-Response-Suppress: All

• X-AutoReply-Flag: false

Two Levels of Control

Organization level (global override): There is a toggle on the Email settings page that applies to all outgoing emails from your organization. When this is on, suppression headers are added to every email regardless of individual address settings. Toggling it shows a confirmation: "Suppression headers setting updated."

Address level (per-address): When the organization-level setting is off, you can enable suppression headers on individual email addresses. This lets you be selective — for instance, enabling suppression on a newsletters@ address while leaving it off for support@ where you want to receive auto-replies.

The organization-level setting always takes priority. If it's on, address-level settings are overridden.

Removing a Custom Email Domain

If you need to remove a domain entirely:

1. Click the delete option for the domain.

2. A confirmation dialog appears with the warning: "Are you sure you want to remove the domain 'yourdomain.org' and all its custom addresses? This cannot be undone."

3. Confirm by clicking Remove domain.

This deletes the domain and all email addresses associated with it. The action is irreversible.

Troubleshooting

Domain verification keeps failing Confirm all three DNS records (2 TXT + 1 CNAME) are entered exactly as shown in WeGive. Check for typos, extra spaces, or missing periods. Use a tool like MXToolbox to verify your records are propagated before clicking Verify again.

Domain status stuck on "checking" This means either the DNS or SSL check is still processing. Wait a few minutes and re-verify. SSL certificate issuance can take a short time after DNS records propagate.

Emails landing in spam Make sure your domain is fully authenticated with all DNS records verified. Proper SPF and DKIM records significantly improve deliverability. Consider enabling suppression headers to reduce spam flags caused by bounced auto-replies.

Tracking links appear broken or insecure Verify your CNAME record is correctly configured. When tracking is first enabled, WeGive issues a TLS certificate — this may take a few minutes to take effect.

"Failed to add domain" error The error message from the server will display in a notification. Common causes include the domain already being registered by another organization, or a typo in the domain name. Check the specific error message for details.

Quick Reference