Emails — audience, trigger, testing and publishing

Create an email sequence for your organisation or a club, choose when it sends and who receives it, test it, and send it.

An email in Supporter Club is an email sequence: one or more emails, plus optional waits and checks, sent to an audience you choose. You can send one once, by hand, or have it sent every time something happens, such as a supporter joining. This page covers creating an email, choosing its trigger and audience, testing it, sending it, and removing it.

For automated actions that are not about a fixed audience, such as receipts and membership emails, see Workflows and their steps.

Where emails live

Organisation emails: select Emails in the admin sidebar.
A club's emails: open the club, then select Emails in the club's sidebar.

The list has two tabs:

Manual emails: "Send a sequence of emails to a selected audience. You choose when to send and who receives it."
Automated emails: "Automatically send emails in response to key events like donations, activations, and renewals. Set up once, runs on autopilot." Emails here are grouped under the event that sends them.

The columns are Name, Audience and Status. On the Automated emails tab, the organisation list adds Clubs (how many clubs the email is enabled for), and a club's list adds Level (Club or Organisation).

A club's list shows the club's own emails, and the organisation emails that have been set up for that club, whether they are switched on or off for it.

Status shows Not enabled when the email is switched off. Otherwise it shows:

Draft: never sent.
Scheduled: sent, but it hasn't run for anyone yet.
Error, Aborted, Running or Complete: these describe only the most recent time the email ran, its latest batch (see Runs and batches). Tests don't count, and problems in earlier batches don't show here. The status is Error if any run in that batch failed; otherwise Aborted if any run stopped early, for example because a check step didn't pass, or was cancelled; otherwise Running if any run is still in progress; otherwise Complete.
Deleting: the email is being deleted.

Create an email

On the Emails list (organisation or club), select New email. The Create a new email sequence screen opens.
Name: under "What should this email sequence be called?", enter a Name and, if you like, a Description. Select Continue.
Trigger: choose how it's sent (see Choose a trigger). Select Continue.
Audience: choose who receives it (see Choose an audience). Select Continue. For a manual organisation email this is the last step, and the button reads Finish.
Enablements (organisation emails with an event trigger only): under "Which clubs would you like to enable this email sequence for?", tick the clubs. Filter clubs... narrows the list and Select all ticks every club shown. Only published clubs are listed. Select Finish.

The email's page opens as a draft, with one email step, named Send the first email, ready to design. Nothing is sent until you send it.

To leave the wizard without creating anything, select Cancel. This deletes the unfinished email.

Start an email from a club's Members list

You can also start a club email from the club's Members list:

Open the club and select Members.
Select Send email to and choose All active ambassadors or All active ambassadors and supporters. There is no option for supporters only here.

This creates a manual club email straight away, named after the group and the date, for example "Email to all active ambassadors, 7 October 2026". Its page opens with its email step, Send the first email, open and ready to design. Only active memberships are included, so inactive ambassadors are not emailed. You still need to send it.

Choose a trigger

"How should this email sequence be triggered?"

When a specific event occurs: pick the event from the list. The email runs every time that event happens.
Manually: you send it once, now or at a time you choose.

The events that send emails are:

Event	When it happens
When an ambassador is created	You add an ambassador in the admin.
When an ambassador is activated	An ambassador membership becomes active, for example when you add an ambassador. Reactivating an inactive ambassador doesn't count.
When a supporter is created	Someone joins a club through the join form, a new supporter membership is created for them, and an ambassador referred them. Without a referring ambassador, this event doesn't happen.
When a supporter is activated	A supporter membership becomes active, for example when their first payment succeeds or you record a donation for them.
When a membership is created	A new membership is created through the join form, or you add an ambassador in the admin.
When a membership is activated	Any membership becomes active. Reactivating an inactive ambassador doesn't count.
When a membership is updated	A membership is edited in the admin.
When a membership subscription is activated	A supporter's payment succeeds and it is their first payment, or their first since their recurring donation ended. A recurring donation ends when it is cancelled (see When a membership subscription is cancelled below), or when PayWay or Payfast stops taking its scheduled payments. A month or year of membership coming to an end doesn't count. A payment on an ambassador membership never triggers it.
When a membership subscription is renewed	Any other successful payment by a supporter, such as the next scheduled payment of a recurring donation. A payment after a one-off donation always counts as a renewal, however long ago the one-off donation was. A payment on an ambassador membership never triggers it.
When a membership subscription is cancelled	A supporter stops their recurring donation on their membership page. For donations paid through PayWay, it also happens when the supporter removes their stored payment details at their bank, or a scheduled payment is refused because those details are gone. A recurring donation through Payfast or Stripe that ends for any other reason doesn't trigger this event.
When a referral is completed	Someone fills in a club's join form, before they have paid. This happens every time, including when the person already has a membership in that club, whatever its status.
When a club is published	A club goes live.
When a club is updated	A club's details are edited in the admin.
When a contact is created	You add a donor in the admin, or someone with no donor record yet fills in a club's join form. Importing donors doesn't trigger it.
When a contact is updated	A donor record is edited in the admin.
When a donation completes successfully	A donation made online succeeds. An email on this event reaches nobody: see Event emails.
When a donation is recorded by hand	You record a donation in the admin.

The event list may offer other events. An email set to an event that isn't in this table won't be sent.

A membership created when you record a donation by hand for a new supporter doesn't trigger When a supporter is created or When a membership is created. It can still trigger the activated events when it becomes active.

Which clubs an event email runs for

A club email runs only for events in its own club.
An organisation email runs for an event in a club only if the email is enabled for that club. See Organisation automations and enablements.
Donation and contact events don't belong to a club. An email triggered by When a donation completes successfully, When a donation is recorded by hand, When a contact is created or When a contact is updated runs for every such event in your organisation, whatever club it relates to. Club enablements don't apply. This is true even for an email you created inside a club.

When you create a new club, every organisation email is switched on for it.

Choose an audience

What you can choose depends on the trigger.

Event emails. "Which contacts should this email sequence target?" Pick a group tied to the event, from Select a contacts group:

For ambassador, supporter and membership events: The member, The referring ambassador, All other active ambassadors, All other active supporters, All referred members, All active ambassadors, All active supporters, or All active ambassadors and supporters.
For When a referral is completed: The member, The referring ambassador, All active ambassadors, All active supporters, or All active ambassadors and supporters.
For club events: All active ambassadors, All active supporters, or All active ambassadors and supporters.
For donation and contact events: The event contact, the donor the event is about.

The club groups mean the active memberships in the club the event happened in. Two of the groups above reach more people than their names suggest:

All other active supporters includes every supporter in the club whatever their membership status, including pending and inactive supporters. Only the member the event is about is left out.
The referring ambassador is sent to whatever the status of that ambassador's membership, including an inactive ambassador.

When a donation completes successfully reaches nobody. Its only audience is The event contact, and this event doesn't carry the donor's details, so the audience is empty every time and no email is sent. A test of such an email still sends, because a test runs for the donor you choose. Nothing in Supporter Club emails a donor when an online donation succeeds; for the membership emails that do go out after a payment, see Workflows and their steps.

Manual club emails. "Which club contacts would you like to send to?" Choose All active ambassadors, All active supporters, or All active ambassadors and supporters.

Manual organisation emails. "Which contacts would you like to run this email sequence for?"

Segment contacts: choose one of your segments. See Tags and segments.
Organisation contacts: choose All club managers, which is your organisation's administrators.

You can also tick Group contacts by club, if applicable. Learn more explains it:

If a donor belongs to two clubs and contacts are grouped by club, the email runs twice for them, once for each club. Without grouping, it runs once.
When grouped, the email's merge tags can use each donor's club and membership.
When grouped, the email does not run for any donor who doesn't belong to a club.

Grouping also changes who receives the email, in a way Learn more doesn't say. When you tick it, the audience is no longer the donors your choice picks out. Instead, the email runs for every donor with a membership in each of a set of clubs, whatever their membership status, including pending and inactive members:

Segment contacts: the clubs are the ones ticked under the segment's Scope. Every member of those clubs receives the email, whether or not they match the segment's filters. A segment of All organisation contacts has no clubs, so a grouped email to it reaches nobody.
All club managers: the clubs are any clubs in which one of your administrators holds a membership. Every member of those clubs receives the email, not only your administrators. If none of your administrators holds a membership, it reaches nobody.

Leave Group contacts by club, if applicable unticked unless you mean to email every member of those clubs.

Design the email

On the email's page, the Emails panel shows the Trigger, the Audience and the steps below them. While the email is a draft:

Select the Trigger to pick a different event. A manual email stays manual: you can't switch it to an event, or an event email to manual, after creating it.
Select the Audience to change it.
Select a step to open it. Use Add a step to add one at the end.

An email can use these steps: Send an email, Wait a while, Generate an asset and Perform an engagement check. Each one is explained in Workflows and their steps.

In an email, Perform an engagement check works only with the triggers When a contact is created, When a contact is updated and When a donation is recorded by hand, and checks the donor the event is about. With any other trigger, and in a manual email, the step can't tell whose engagement to check. With On Error set to Stop the automation, every run stops there with an error. With Ignore the error and continue, every run carries on to the next step, whatever the Behaviour says, so the follow-up email goes to everyone.

In an email's Send an email step there is no Recipients field: each run sends to one person in the audience. Set the Subject and Preview, add Attachments, and select Design to open the email in the email builder. Merge tags work in the subject and the preview. See Merge tags.

Emails sent from Emails are marketing emails. A donor whose email consent is Revoked doesn't receive them. See Contacts.

Test an email

Test before you send. Testing never emails your donors.

On the email's page, select More, then Test email.
Checks: if every step is set up correctly you see Cleared for test. If not, you see No-go for test with each step's errors. Select Fix errors to go back, or Continue.
Trigger: for an event email, enter values for the event's details (for example, which membership) so the test behaves like a real event. A manual email has none.
Contact: enter the details of the donor the test should act as. The email normally runs once for each person in the audience; a test runs once, for the donor you choose.
Result: the steps run while you watch. Select Test again or Finish.

What a test does:

Every email it sends goes to the email address of your own user account, never to a donor.
It uses the latest design of each email, including draft changes you haven't sent yet.
Each Wait a while step waits 15 seconds, whatever you set.

Tests appear on the email's dashboard under Runs, on the Test tab.

Send an email

On the draft's page, select Send.
Checks: you see Cleared to send, or No-go to send with the errors to fix (Fix errors). Select Continue.
The next step depends on the trigger:
- Schedule (manual emails): under "When would you like to start this email?", choose Now or At a later date and pick a date and time. A date in the past is refused with "Date must be in the future".
- Trigger (event emails): shows the event. Nothing to choose.
Confirm: "Are you sure?" Select Send.

What happens next:

Now: the email starts running for everyone in the audience at that moment.
At a later date: the email starts within about ten minutes after the time you chose.
Event emails: the email runs every time the event happens from now on, for the clubs it applies to.

Sending also publishes the email's design. The design goes live with the email, not before.

Change an email after sending

Event emails: select Edit on the email's page. This creates a new draft version. Make your changes, then Send it. The new version replaces the old one.
Manual emails: once sent, a manual email can't be edited. Create a new email instead.

Discard removes the current draft version. It appears only on a draft that has an earlier version. "You will lose any changes you've made, and this action can't be undone." Select Continue to confirm.

Switch an email off, or delete it

From More on the email's page:

Disable email / Enable email: see Organisation automations and enablements, which explains exactly what switching off does.
Delete email: asks "Are you sure you want to delete this email?" Select Delete email to confirm. While it is being deleted, the page shows "This email is in the process of being deleted."
View dashboard: the email's settings, enablements, versions and runs. See Organisation automations and enablements.

If you open an organisation email from inside a club, you can't change it there. The page says "This is an organisation email. You can view and make changes to it at organisation level." with a link, and offers only Enable or Disable for that club.

Emails — audience, trigger, testing and publishing

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