Run an appeal from audience to follow-up

An appeal is one specific request within a campaign, such as a year-end letter or a spring email. Relae keeps the audience, ask amounts, sends, results, and follow-up together. It does not send the message for you.

Start with the audience

1. 1Open Appeals from Explore All to find appeals across campaigns, or start in a campaign's Appeals area. Create a draft with a name, campaign and optional goal; configure asks now, later, or choose no ask amounts. No one is contacted.
2. 2Build inclusion and exclusion segments, or import saved segment sets. In the new audience policy, exclusions apply first; uncertain exclusion evidence holds someone for review. Inclusion order then decides which segment owns each recipient. Find a donor searches household member names and people outside the included audience too. Existing appeals retain their old policy until you review and adopt the comparison.
3. 3Select recipients and choose Set asks for selected. Base the ladder on overall giving history or the latest received payment allocated to selected campaigns. Set an independent calculation anchor, rounding and optional tiers, then review the authoritative calculation before applying. You can supply fallback amounts for people with no matching history; unavailable evidence still needs review.

The ask table can group giving sizes and flag unusually large gifts. Filter and sort to find the people who need judgment. You can edit one row, step through a focused review, or select rows and preview a bulk change. Bulk changes leave manual asks alone unless you explicitly choose to replace them, and never change frozen asks. Save ask edits before preparing a send.

Saved strategies persist for their selected recipients. Expand a row or open focused review to see the strategy basis and gift date. Manual amounts stay protected unless explicitly replaced. Use output groups and codes to label export batches without changing who belongs in the audience. Saved segment sets copy rules into a draft; later edits do not change other appeals.

Prepare and send

Preparing a wave saves a snapshot of its recipients and ask amounts. Download the recipient file, then compose and send in your email service or mail process. Optional HTTPS donation links can insert the letter ask and appeal, segment or output-group values into query parameters; the prepared wave preserves the resolved links and group labels. A download is not proof that a message was sent.

For mail, leave Exclude recipients missing a usable mailing address checked to prepare only mailing-ready recipients. Uncheck it to keep people who still need an address: the download places them on a separate Address collection sheet, outside Recipients, and Record sent leaves them unsent. Collect their addresses and prepare a fresh wave for them; saved waves keep their original contact details. Opt-outs and current restricted addresses stay excluded. Email waves always require an eligible email address.

Bring the evidence back

For an email wave, an organization administrator can connect Mailchimp. After sending there, choose the sent campaign for the wave and sync its report. Sync again when you need newer activity. Relae matches uniquely identifiable recipients and shows uncertain or shared addresses for review. A completed send report can record sent dates for matched recipients.

A connection is optional. Collect updates accepts a CSV or spreadsheet report, or rows pasted from another service. Confirm its columns and resolve rows it cannot match. For a mailed wave, record the actual sent date after mailing.

Close the loop

Use Results to review response matches and missing source updates. You can assign a person and due date for collection; reminders appear in Relae. Use Follow-up to open the appeal thank-you queue in Welcome & thanks after gifts arrive. Filter to an appeal, select its gifts, and assign a person and due date together. These are the same thank-you tasks used elsewhere in Relae.