Creating Email Templates in GC Gift Officer

You write the same emails more often than you think — the warm intro, the visit ask, the gift thank-you, the “just checking in.” Templates let you build those once, polish them, and pull them up in two clicks whenever you need them. You still personalize before you send; you just skip the blank page.

This guide walks you through creating an email template in GC GO from start to finish: where to build it, how to set it up, how to make it feel personal with merge tokens, and how to save it so your whole team can use it — or keep it just for you.

Why templates are worth the ten minutes

A good template does more than save keystrokes:

• Consistency. Your best thank-you reads the same whether you send it Monday morning or Friday at 5.
• Speed. Pull up a saved message, swap in the specifics, and send — no rebuilding formatting every time.
• Personalization at scale. Merge tokens fill in each constituent’s name, class year, or last gift automatically, so a reusable email still feels one-to-one.
• A shared playbook. Share a template with your team and everyone starts from your strongest version instead of reinventing it.

Create your template

1. Go to Communications > Email Templates and choose to create a new template
2. Give it a Name — make it something you’ll recognize in a list six months from now. “Post-visit thank you” beats “Template 3.”
3. Add a Description — a short line about when to use it. Future you will thank you
4. Choose a type:
   • General Outreach — one-off emails you send by hand from a task
   • Cadences — steps in a multi-touch cadence, sent as part of a sequence
5. Write a Subject Line and build your message in the editor
6. Click Save Email Template

Build the message

The template editor is the same rich-text editor you send from, so you get the full toolbar:

• Text styling — bold, italic, underline, font family, size, and color
• Layout — alignment, spacing, bulleted and numbered lists, dividers, and spacers
• Structure — columns and tables when you need them.
• Calls to action — a button that stands out beats a link buried in a sentence
• Images and video — embed a photo or, if your school has GC Video, drop in a video

Personalize with merge tokens

Merge tokens are the reason a saved template doesn’t feel canned. Each one fills in a detail about the specific constituent when you send. Insert them from the editor — no need to type the syntax by hand.

Available tokens include:

• $PREFERRED_FIRST_NAME$ — preferred first name (falls back to first name)
• $FIRST_NAME$ — first name
• $SPOUSE_FIRST_NAME$ — spouse’s first name
• $DISPLAY_NAME$ — display name
• $CLASS_YEAR$ — class year
• $LAST_GIFT_DATE$ — date of their most recent gift
• $LAST_GIFT_DESIGNATION$ — the fund or area their last gift supported
• $LAST_GIFT_AMOUNT$ — amount of their last gift
• $CITY$ / $STATE$ — the constituent's city and state

Because a template is reused across many people, lean on tokens for anything that changes person to person. When you start an email from the template, GC GO fills each token in — and if a token has no data for a given constituent, it flags a Merge Tokens Missing Data message before the email goes out so you can fix it.

Add links, images, and attachments

• Personalized links. Insert a link to one of your school’s campaigns, events, or giving forms, and GC GO builds the right URL for whoever you’re emailing
• Images. Upload and embed a photo — an event shot, a campaign graphic, a handwritten thank-you
• Video. Add a video from your library. It’s one of the most personal touches you can send
• Attachments. Attach files to the email

Using your template later

Once a template is saved, it shows up when you compose an email and choose start from a template, pick yours, and it loads with all your formatting, tokens, and links in place. From there you can edit anything before you send — the template is a starting point, not a straitjacket.