GC Outreach: Using the New Email Editor – GiveCampus University

The new email editor makes creating great-looking emails faster and easier. It’s built around blocks—text, images, buttons, columns, and more—that you insert, arrange, and style visually. No HTML required.

This guide walks through everything you need to build your first email, from creating an Outreach to styling every block type.

Getting started

Creating an email with the new editor

From the Outreach page, click New Outreach.
Name your Outreach. Email is selected by default.
Leave Create with new editor checked. (It’s checked by default for all new emails. Uncheck the box to create with the legacy editor. )
Choose to start from scratch, from a template, or generate with AI.

Starting from a template

With Create with new editor checked, you’ll see all of your templates including those built in the new editor as well as those built in the legacy editor.

If you select a template created with the legacy editor, we’ll convert it for use with the new editor automatically. The conversion applies only to that email; your original template stays exactly as it is.

Conversions may not be exact. Depending on how customized the template was, you may need to make a few adjustments or use it as a chance to rebuild it even better with the new tools. Please report any issues you encounter with conversions so we can continue to improve the process.

generating with AI

When you create a new email with the new editor, the start panel displays three cards: Start from Scratch, Start from a Template, and Generate Email with AI. Selecting Generate Email with AI launches an AI flow that drafts a subject line and email body for you to customize.

Enabled state:
- The card is active when you’re creating an email outreach and when your school has enabled Generative AI.
- Clicking it opens the editor pre-populated with generated content.
Disabled state:
- For text-message outreach, the AI option is not available.
- If your school hasn’t enabled Generative AI, the card appears greyed out. Hovering reveals the tooltip: "Contact your school admin to enable Generative AI for your institution."

Quick tips:

There’s no need to switch to the legacy editor; AI generation works directly in the new editor.
Use the generated draft as a starting point and adjust the content to match your brand and audience.
Remember that the AI feature is exclusive to email outreach; if creating a text-message outreach, switch to email mode to access this function.

A quick tour of the editor

Insert button (top left): Add content blocks to your email.
Toolbar (top): Text formatting—fonts, sizes, colors, alignment, lists, links, merge tags, and emojis.
Block settings panel (right): Settings for whichever block you have selected.
Email settings panel (right): Styles that apply to the whole email.
Undo and redo: Every change saves automatically, and you can undo as far back as you need.
Full Screen mode (top right: Click the full screen icon to expand the editor. This gives you the whole screen to work with—especially handy on a laptop or once your email gets long.
Desktop/Mobile Preview (top right): Click the mobile preview icon to preview how your email will look on a mobile device. Switch back to desktop view to continue editing.

Email settings: set your styles once

Open Email settings in the right panel. It’s split into two groups:

Document settings

These control the outer frame of your email:

Background color: The area surrounding your email body.
Padding: Space around the white content body. We recommend setting the margin to auto to keep your email centered.

Content settings

These control the content body where your blocks live:

Default button color: Every button you add picks this up automatically. You can always select an individual button and change it. Changing an individual button will override changes made to the default button color.
Background color: The color of the content body itself.
Text color: The default color for all text in the email.
Link color: The default color for all text links in the email.
Padding: Adds padding to the entire content body. Each block also has its own padding, so you have two levels of control—email-wide and per-block.
Border: Adds a border around the whole body.
Border radius: Rounds the corners of your email.

Setting these once at the email level keeps your design consistent and saves you from styling every block individually.

Working with blocks

Click Insert to add a block. New blocks are always added directly below the currently selected block or at the bottom of the email if none is selected.

Select any block to reveal its block controls menu:

Move up / move down: Reposition the block one step at a time.
Duplicate: Create a duplicate of the selected block directly below it.
Save content: Save the block for reuse in future emails (see Saved content below).
Delete: Deletes the block from the email.
Drag handle: Appears at the top left of the selected block. Click and drag to move the block to a new location.

Block types

Text

Click into any text block and edit inline. The toolbar gives you:

Paragraph and heading levels
Fonts (web-safe fonts, which display reliably in every inbox—most email inboxes don’t support custom fonts, so we stick to fonts that render everywhere)
Text size, bold, italic, underline
Text color and line height
Alignment
Bulleted and numbered lists
Links
merge tokens
emojis

Bulleted list and numbered list blocks are also available in the Insert menu as shortcuts—they’re text blocks with the list formatting already applied.

Merge tags

Insert a merge tag from the toolbar to personalize your email (first name, class year, and more). Merge tags display as labeled tokens in the editor so they’re easy to spot. When your email sends, they render as regular text in whatever style you’ve set.

Image

Add an image block, then:

Upload by clicking to browse your files, or drag and drop directly onto the block. You can also drag and drop a new image to replace an existing one.
Add alt text in the side panel to keep your emails accessible.
Add a link so the image is clickable (see Adding links below).
Size: Choose small, medium, large (percentages of the available width), or full. Want a precise size? Open the size controls and set an exact pixel width, and the image holds that size.
Style it: Background color, border, border radius, padding, and left/center/right alignment.

Full-width images do not override block or content padding — set the block and content padding to none for a true edge-to-edge look.

Button

Add a button block, then:

Text: Edit inline, and format it with the toolbar (you’ll see a streamlined set of text options for buttons).
Colors: Button color, text color, button border color, and block background color—all in the block settings side panel.
Link: Buttons have built-in link controls with every GiveCampus link type (see Adding links below).
Spacing and padding: Use the presets, or expand the custom controls for exact values.

GC Video

The GC Video block connects your email to your GC Video pages. Select a video, and the block adds a thumbnail from that video with a play button, automatically linked to your video page.

Section

Sections group blocks together so you can style and move them as one unit. Add a section, hover over it, and click the tab at the top to select the whole section.

With the section selected you can:

Set a shared background color for everything inside
Add a border around the group
Control spacing for the whole section at once
Save the section to your saved content library for future use

Build a section with a heading, image, text, and button, and it all moves and styles together—no need to match settings block by block.

Columns

Columns give you side-by-side layouts without any workarounds:

Insert a Columns block.
Click the tab at the top of the block to open column settings.
Choose a preset—two columns, three columns, or uneven splits—or click custom layout to build your own with up to eight columns and as many rows as you need.

A few things to know:

Each column starts with a text block. Want just an image in a column? Add the image block, then delete the text block.
Cell padding applies evenly to every cell. Set it to none to remove it entirely.
Background color applies to the whole columns block (individual cells share the block’s background).

columns on mobile and desktop — understanding and controlling stacking behavior

Columns automatically stack when an email is viewed in a narrow window or on a mobile device. The responsive breakpoint that triggers stacking is built into the editor and cannot be changed at the account or email level. This means that certain desktop email clients—such as Gmail in a browser on a Mac—or narrow browser windows may display a stacked layout even if your design is intended to show columns side‑by‑side.

If you need the columns to remain side by side across all devices and window sizes, update the Columns block settings as follows:

Select the Columns block in the editor by clicking the tab at the top of the block to open its settings.
In the Block settings panel on the right, choose side by side.
Adjust the content within each column to match the set widths so that images and text reflow as needed.

Notes:

The default stacking behavior is controlled by the editor’s internal responsive logic. There is no account- or email-level setting to alter this.
Even if the Desktop preview appears correct, a recipient’s email client or browser size may still trigger stacking. Use the side by side option to ensure a consistent multi‑column presentation.
After switching to side by side, send a test email on various clients (for example, Gmail in a browser, Outlook, and a mobile device) to verify the layout renders as intended.

Divider

Add a horizontal line between content. You can style the divider color, the background color behind it, the thickness, and the padding around it.

Spacer

Spacers add clean vertical breathing room between blocks—no more empty text lines or padding tweaks just to create space. Choose a preset height or set an exact size, and match the spacer’s background color to the blocks around it.

Saved content

Built something you’ll want again—a styled header, a footer with social icons, a signature section? Select the block or section, click the star in the block controls, and give it a name. It’s saved.

Next time, open Insert → Saved content and drop it right in.

If you created snippets in the legacy editor, they’ll appear here too, and we’ll convert them for the new editor automatically when you use them.

Adding links

The same link selector appears everywhere you can add a link—text, images, and buttons—so you only have to learn it once. Choose from:

Campaign: Link to any of your GC campaigns.
Giving Form: Link to a GC giving form.
Event: Link to a GC event.
Website: Link to any URL.
Email: Open a pre-addressed email.
Phone Number: Start a call with a tap.

GC Video: Link directly to one of your GC Video pages. This option appears when your school has enabled GC Video.

Link options

Campaign and form links come additional configuration options:

Link type: Choose a standard link or an advocacy link (Unique, Advocate Page, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, or Invite). Note: Advocate Page is available only for campaigns with advocate pages enabled.

Tracking link: For standard links, attach a unique tracking link you’ve created in the campaign to measure exactly what your email drives.
Prefill: Choose how the giving form fills in for each recipient:
- None: The form starts blank.
- Personalization: The form prefills using each recipient’s personalized tokens.
- Custom (formerly Autofill): You choose exactly which values prefill in the form.

Colors that follow you

When you pick a color anywhere in the editor, save it with one click and it appears in your saved colors everywhere else—block backgrounds, buttons, dividers, text. Pick your school’s purple once, and it’s ready every time.

HTML mode

Click the HTML icon in the toolbar to view and edit the HTML for a text block. This is great for minor tweaks and style adjustments.

A note on pasting HTML from other sources: the editor restructures pasted HTML to match its own format so everything stays editable in the visual editor, so the result will differ from your original code. The editor is designed to give you everything you need to build beautiful emails without touching HTML at all—and we’d love to hear from you if there’s something you can only accomplish in code.

Frequently asked questions

What happens to my existing templates?
They’re all still there and untouched. When you use a legacy-editor template in the new editor, we create a converted copy just for that email—the original is preserved.

Can I still use the legacy editor?
Yes. Uncheck Create with new editor when creating a new Outreach. With the box unchecked, the template picker shows only your legacy-editor templates.

Do my snippets carry over?
Yes—snippets from the legacy editor appear under Insert → Saved content and convert automatically when you use them.

Why don’t I see my school’s custom font?
The editor uses web-safe fonts because many email inboxes don’t support custom fonts. Web-safe fonts help ensure your selected fonts are displayed consistently for each recipient.

Does my work save automatically?
Yes. Changes made to your email content saves as you go, and undo/redo lets you step backward and forward through your edits. Changes to the Subject and sender details do not save automatically. Use the Save Draft button to save these.

Can I edit in mobile preview?
Mobile preview is view-only—switch back to the desktop view to make changes.

FAQ — My legacy-editor email renders oddly in Outlook (missing paragraph spacing, rearranged blocks, or other layout issues)

Outlook often renders HTML emails differently than modern clients like Gmail or Apple Mail. Different Outlook versions and individual recipient settings (such as zoom level, reading pane width, or font scaling) can affect email appearance. Legacy-editor emails use an older HTML structure that may result in missing spacing or misplaced content blocks.

How the new editor improves rendering

The new editor generates cleaner, Outlook-friendly HTML with explicit inline padding and spacing for each block.
Blocks control their own layouts, reducing reliance on global HTML that some Outlook versions ignore.

Recommended solution: rebuild your email in the new editor

If Outlook displays persistent issues with a legacy-editor email, rebuild the message using the new editor. Converting to the block-based format resolves most common rendering problems.

From the Outreach page, click New Outreach.
Name your outreach and ensure Create with new editor is checked.
Choose Start from Scratch or Start from a Template. Selecting a legacy template will trigger an automatic conversion (note that minor adjustments may be needed).
Recreate your content using the editor's tools (Text, Image, Button, Columns, Section). Use spacers or per-block padding instead of blank lines for vertical spacing.
Save your draft and send a test email to an Outlook client.

Tip: cloning and converting legacy emails

To start with an existing legacy message, click the clone icon on the Outreach drafts list. When prompted, choose Convert to generate a new-editor copy.
Review snippets and saved content after conversion, as they may need spacing adjustments.

After conversion or rebuild, verify the following:

Test in Outlook (both desktop and web) to confirm proper paragraph spacing, header order, and block alignment.
For multi-column layouts, use the Columns block’s side by side option and retest the layout.
Ensure buttons, linked images, and tracking links function as expected.

When to continue using the legacy editor

If necessary, uncheck Create with new editor when creating an outreach. However, this may increase the risk of Outlook rendering issues.

Rebuilding emails in the new editor is the most reliable way to address Outlook-specific display problems by applying explicit inline styles and handling layout with Outlook in mind.

FAQ — How do I change the number of columns or delete the entire Columns block?

Change the number of columns

Click the Columns tab at the top of the block to select the entire Columns container (not an inner cell).
In the Block settings panel on the right, scroll to the Column Layout area.
Select a preset layout or click the horizontal dots (⋯) to access custom controls. In custom mode, use the + and − steppers to set the number of columns (up to eight) and rows.

Delete the entire Columns block

Select the Columns container by clicking the Columns tab.
Click the Delete (trash) icon in the block controls to remove the entire Columns block.

Common issues

Selecting inner cell content: Clicking inside a column’s text or image selects only that inner block. To adjust the layout or delete the block, ensure you select the entire Columns container by clicking its Columns tab.
Default text block: Each new column cell starts with a default text block that can be deleted without affecting the Columns container.
Block controls apply to the selected block: Options like Move up / Move down, Duplicate, Save content, and Delete will only affect the block that is currently selected. Make sure you select the Columns container to apply actions to the entire block.

GC Video: Link to one of your GC Video pages.