Creating an Email Template for your Volunteers

Make it easier than ever for your volunteers to send emails to their assignments by providing email templates.

Creating email templates for your volunteers is a great way to provide them with suggested language and make their work even more seamless. Following the below steps you'll be able to create an email template and share it with select roles or class years. 

Steps to creating an email template

1. Click into "Resources for Volunteers" section in the navigation menu on the left side of the page, and then into “Email Templates”

2. Click “Create new Template”

3. Give the Template a Name,  Description and Subject Line.

4. Decide who should see this email template - All Volunteers or a sub-set.

• If "All Volunteers" then check the box that says "Let all volunteers see this email template".
• If you'd like to make the email template visible to a group of your volunteers, use the query builder to define exactly who should see this email template based on role, class year, and affiliation. 

5. Enter the Subject and Body content for the email, including any Email Tokens (i.e. merge fields) you wish to use

Note: As a best practice, do not copy/paste Email Tokens from other templates or attempt to manually enter them (e.g., by typing the name of the Token).  The system will only recognize Email Tokens that are inserted into the Template by clicking the Email Token buttons.

6. Select the "Template Format". A "Formal Template" will feature your school's logo at the top of the email and feel more institutional. A "Plain Text Template" will not contain a logo and will be appear as an email sent from your typical inbox with white background and black text. 

7. If the Template includes a solicitation, check the box to “Default as Gift Conversation” (this ensures that GiveCampus Volunteer Management logs all emails sent using the Template as Gift Conversations). If the Template is meant to serve as a "Thank You", check the box to "Default as a Thank You Note" (this ensures that the VMS logs all emails sent using the Template as a Thank You).

8. Click “Create Email Template”

Hyperlinked Campaign Advocate Merge Tokens 

Partners using both GC VM and the Social Fundraising Platform (SFP) can add Advocate Merge Tokens into email templates to automatically credit GC VM volunteers on an SFP campaign page for the clicks, donors and dollars they generate. The volunteer's GC VM email will populate the volunteer's unique advocate link. 

For example, clicking “Give Now!” in the example below would direct a constituent to the campaign page and include any gift in count of advocacy for the volunteer.

Troubleshooting – A template appears as "Volunteer-Created" instead of Admin-Created

GiveCampus categorizes an email template as either Admin-Created or Volunteer-Created based on the account used when the template is saved. If the account is also registered as a volunteer in your VMS, any template created with that account will be labeled (Volunteer-created) in the Email Templates list.

This issue typically occurs when a staff member uses the same account for both administrator and volunteer roles. As a result, any templates saved while signed in to that account are treated as volunteer-created.

Restrictions on volunteer-created templates:

• The Archive Email Template button is unavailable. Only admin-created templates can be archived or unarchived.
• Volunteer selection and activation settings cannot be modified by administrators.

Preventing this issue in the future:

Staff members with both administrator and volunteer records should use separate GiveCampus accounts (with different email addresses) for each role. Templates created while signed in to an account that is not linked to a volunteer record will be classified as admin-created and fully manageable by administrators.

Identifying affected templates:

In the Email Templates section of your VMS admin, use the Volunteer-Created Templates filter to view all templates labeled as volunteer-created. The template names will display (Volunteer-created) next to them.

FAQ — file uploads in volunteer email templates

Q: Why does a file insert show as a link rather than an attachment?

A: When you use the file insert tool, the file is uploaded to GiveCampus-hosted storage and a clickable link is inserted at the cursor position. The system does not support traditional email attachments, so files are always delivered as links. This behavior is the same whether an admin or a volunteer uses the editor.

Q: A recipient sees a URL starting with file:///C:/Users/... — what happened?

A: That URL indicates that a local file path was manually typed or pasted into the email. Recipients cannot access a file on the sender’s computer. To share a file, use the file insert tool so that the file is uploaded and a proper hosted link is provided.

Q: What file types can I insert?

A: The file insert tool supports PDF, Word (doc, docx), Excel (xls, xlsx), RTF, and plain text (txt) files.

Q: How are images handled?

A: Use the editor’s image insert tool to embed images directly. This tool uploads images and displays them inline, unlike the file insert tool which creates a link.

Q: Any tips for making file links clear?

• The file name appears as link text after insertion. You can edit this text to be more descriptive.
• If the file requires login credentials to access, mention this in your email so recipients know what to expect.

Fixing misclassified templates:

1. Recreate the template using an admin account:

   • Have a staff member whose account is not linked to any volunteer record open the affected template, copy its content, and create a new template using that content. The new template will be classified as admin-created, allowing administrators to manage it fully. Note that the original volunteer-created template will remain unarchivable.

2. Request assistance from GiveCampus:

   • If you need to separate the volunteer record from the admin account for a staff member, contact your GiveCampus representative to request the change. This adjustment ensures that future templates created using the admin account are correctly classified.