You can email one person or a whole segment, using a template so the message is consistent and personalized. Here's how.
1. Build (or open) a segment of the people you want to reach, for example "first-time donors this year."
2. Use the segment's Email action.
3. Pick a template (or start from a blank one). See Email & Document Templates.
4. Fill in anything the template asks for at send time, such as a date range.
5. Preview: CoolFocus shows how many people will receive it and lets you check a sample.
6. Click Send test email to send a fully rendered copy to your own staff address first. It uses a real record from the segment and the date range you entered, so you can check the actual content before anyone in the segment sees it. It doesn't count against the segment or create correspondence on any record.
7. Send. The email goes out to everyone in the segment who has a valid email address.
Open the donor or contact's record and use the Email action there. Same flow, pick a template, preview, send, just for that one person.
• Each recipient's email is personalized from the template's merge fields (their name, giving totals, and so on).
• People without a valid email are skipped automatically, so you don't get errors for missing addresses.
• Every send is recorded as correspondence on the person's record, and you can review the batch, who it went to and the delivery status, from its history.
• Email is delivered from your organization's verified sending email if one is set up; otherwise a default address is used. Replies can route back to your organization.
Some teams also send text messages to a segment. That works similarly from the segment's actions where enabled. For day-to-day one-to-one texting, use the Inbox instead.
CoolFocus does not have an email opt-out switch on donor, volunteer, or client records. If someone asks not to receive email from your organization, do the following instead:
Remove their email address from the record. With no address on file, they're automatically skipped from every future segment send.
If you build segments for email sends, filter out or manually exclude the person so they don't get added back if the email address is entered again later.
Add a note to their record saying they opted out of email, and when. This keeps the request visible to anyone who works with the record later.
If you still need to keep their email address on file for other reasons, the note and segment exclusion are your safeguards, since removing the address is the only thing that blocks a send automatically.
• Email & Document Templates
• Giving Statements
• Communications Overview
