Creating Donor History Letters and Campaign Letters

This process shows you how to set up & print Donor History Letters and Campaign Letters for your supporters. 

Donor History Letters are different to receipts because besides showing how much a person has donated, they allow you to manage specific text you would like to send your donors and displays in a letter format, instead of the standard receipt. 

In addition, they allow you to send your supporters a single document that gives them a statement of their total donations for the entire year, or for whatever date range they require. 

To set up a Donor History Letter:

1. From the Welcome/Search page, click the Receipts link in the orange left-hand menu.
2. From the Receipts menu, click on the link Maintain Letter Templates
3. You will see a list of any existing letter templates
4. Search for an existing template by placing your cursor into the field marked Search and begin typing the title.
   • This field does not auto-suggest, but similar to the partial search on the main search pages, it will find anything that contains the characters you have typed in the order you typed them.
   • Click the Search button to activate the search. 
5. Click on the Title of an existing template to view it, and/or click the Edit button (visible at the end of the row or from the view template page) to change the existing text. 
   • You can also view the text of a template by clicking the Show more link beneath it.
   • The row will display the full text of the template and the link will change to Show less.
   • Click the Show less link to return to the original view. 
6. If an existing template is no longer required, simply click the Deactivate button at the end of the row or from the view template page. 
   • You can view deactivated templates at any time by clicking to apply the Show Inactive Templates box. 
   • Inactive templates can be re-activated by clicking the Activate button. 
7. Click the button +Create Letter Template to add a new template to the list. 
   • Title: Enter the title of the template here. This should be something that refers to its purpose (e.g. if linked to a campaign). It may be helpful to include a date the template is created, or a date range it is intended to be active for. 
   • Template Body: this is a free text field you can use the type the body of your letter template. It has some basic tools available to it but isn't an advanced word processing system. 
     • You won't need to add the salutations: the letters pull that from the Salutations tab on the Person Details page.
     • You will need to include a sign-off at the end
   • When the text is complete, click the +Save button to create the template. You will receive a confirmation banner across the top of the page to confirm the save was successful. 
     • Click the Cancel button instead to navigate back to the list without saving. 
8. Your letter template is now complete and ready to be used. 
9. If you would like this to be your Donor History Letter, (as opposed to a campaign letter), contact [e-mail] to have it hardcoded for this purpose.

To Print Donor History Letters:

1. Click the Reports link in the orange left-hand menu
2. Search for:
   • 230 - this is the report number. Simply entering these digits will take you straight to the report.
   • Donor History Letter - this is the title of the report. Entering all or part of this title will also find the report for you. 
3. Alternately, click the link for the Fundraising group of reports on the right, beneath the search box, and scroll through the list to find Donor History Letter alphabetically in the list of available Fundraising reports. 
4. This report allows you to filter your donors on the following criteria: 
   • Date Range: the date the receipts were created
   • Person ID: you can enter single or multiple Person ID's here to print a statement for your supporters on request if required (one ID number per line)
   • Account: limits the return only to receipt amounts assigned to this account
   • Campaigns: limits the return only to receipt amounts assigned to the selected campaign(s)
   • Last Name Range: if you have a lot of supporters to print, you can speed things up by limiting the return alphabetically. This range offers 3 letters at a time (e.g. A to C)
   • There are various additional show/hide fields that allow you to control other information that may appear on the final letters. 

Campaign Letters

NOTE: Campaign Letters will only print from the report options, they will not print a letter from the standard receipt procedure. 

To create Campaign Letters:

1. Set up a letter template as for the Donor History Letter (Receipts > Maintain Letter Templates). 
2. Set up a Campaign by clicking the Fundraising link in the orange left-hand menu and selecting the Campaign Management option from the menu. 
   • For more detailed information on how to create a new campaign, click here
3. On the Add New Campaign page select your template from the Default Receipt Type drop-down. 
4. Save your changes. 
5. Create receipts as required and assign this campaign to allocated amounts. 
6. To print a receipt displaying the letter:
   • Click the Reports link in the orange left-hand menu
   • Search for either 306  or Reprint Receipts* OR
   • Search for either 363 or Print Campaign Receipts*
   • Select the parameters required (date ranges will refer to the date from the receipts)
   • Generate the report
7. Campaign receipts will default to generic receipt style when viewed from the receipt page on the screen. They MUST go through a report to re-format in the letter style. 

* Different sites will have either 306 Reprint Receipts or 363 Print Campaign Receipts. Both reports will print the receipts in letter format, but both may not be available on all sites.