Mailings overview

Introduction

IMPORTANT NOTE: LGL Mailings are typically used for mail appeals and other similar types of mailings. Sending gift acknowledgments requires a different and separate process, which you can read about here.

In LGL, it is possible to generate mail-merged letters, labels, and envelopes that you can mail to your constituents.

All mailings created in LGL can be accessed and managed from the Mailings tab in your LGL account, on the Mailings page.

Add a new mailing

To add a new mailing, click the Send mail button from the Mailings tab.

You can also click the Send mail button on the Constituents tab to add a mailing from any constituent search. This allows you to create a mailing to those constituents.

Either of these actions will bring you into the mailing builder, a 4-step process that, when completed, yields a mailing that is ready to print and send.

Build your mailing list

If you begin your mailing from within the Mailings tab, your first step will be to search for the constituents in your database who will be the mailing's recipients.

You have three options for adding or removing constituents from a mailing:

You can search for these constituents using the search functionality, as shown here:

You can also add or remove individual constituents from the mailing using the Ind. Additions or Ind. Removals options shown below:

NOTE: You can see and manage your mailing's exclusions on the same tab where you create your mailing list.

Once you have searched for constituents to add to your mailing, you also have the option to search for individual constituents in the "Review constituents for mailing" area, in case there is someone specific you want to exclude. To do this, type the constituent name into the Search field, and if they were included in the mailing as a result of your search you would have the option to remove them:

Define your letter content, labels, and envelopes

Click the blue Next button to move to the next step, or click 2: Letter, labels & envelopes, to proceed to the next step of the mailing builder.

NOTE: Once you proceed to this step, you will be able to jump to any other step, either ahead or backward, without losing your changes.

Here you can define the letter content, labels, and envelopes for your mailing. This includes:

Composing your letter (if applicable)
Selecting your label and envelope preferences (if desired)

For more information on the details involved with these 4 steps, please refer to Create a mailing.

A note about exclusions

By default, all mailings exclude deceased constituents, constituents who are tagged "Do not mail", and any constituent without a valid mailing address in LGL. These counts are not necessarily mutually exclusive, so the total number of exclusions is often lower than the sum of the individual exclusions.

Clicking on the number of exclusions links to a page containing the excluded constituents as search results.

Because you can jump around to any step of the process as you are building your mailing, you can change your preferences for your exclusions at any time by clicking Step 1: Build mailing list, and selecting or de-selecting the relevant checkboxes. However, we don't recommend sending your mailing to those who are deceased, are marked as "Do not mail", or have an invalid mailing address:

Download and print mail-merged files

Once you are happy with the setup of your mailing, you can download and print the letters, labels, and/or envelopes by clicking the Download all button for the letters, in addition to the equivalent buttons for envelopes and/or labels if you are using them:

NOTES:

If your mailing is large, you may initially see a Generate all button instead of a Download all button. Clicking Generate all starts the file generation process. The page will then update automatically and display the Download all button when the file is ready to download.
If your mailing isn't fully downloading, a reload icon, shown below, may be present in the Download/Print section of the Review, download & print page. If this icon is present, click it to re-generate the mailing. All of your letters should then be present in your downloaded file.

You can also edit or open individual letters in the Recipients section of the mailing summary at any time.

Draft versus sent mailings

When you create a new mailing, it will automatically be in a Draft state and will be listed in the Draft Mailings tab.

You can mark a mailing as sent and move it into your "Sent" mailings by changing the status via the dropdown menu in the Status column. Your mailing will still be viewable in the Sent mailings tab as part of your mailings history.

Mailings history

Your mailings history, or your "Sent" mailings, is a complete history of all your mailings, available from the Sent Mailings tab. These mailings are locked, in the sense that the recipient list can never change (unless you alter the status back to "Draft").

Emailing

You can also send emails in LGL. For information on how to enable and use this feature in your account, please read Setting up your LGL account to send email.