MPDX and Partner Essentials have support for appeals built in, and normally have you use the Status field to decide who will receive the appeal. We recommend that you use the Newsletter field instead, since you should only be sending appeals to people who are regularly receiving ministry updates from you, whether by print or email.
Create a tag
We'll start by creating a new tag for everyone who receives your prayer letters.
In MPDX or Partner Essentials, go to your Contacts list and choose Filters.
Under Newsletter Recipients, choose "All".
Next to Status, click the icon (Reverse Filter) and choose "Never Ask" to exclude people who have this status.
Click the Select button, and choose "Select all ### contacts".
Click the Actions button, and choose "Add Tags".
Give the tag a memorable name, including the year. For instance, for an end-of-year appeal, call the tag "eoy2024".
Create an appeal
You're now ready to add this group of contacts to a new appeal.
In the Tools section, choose "Appeals".
Name your appeal. For an end-of-year appeal, we suggest calling it "EOY 2024".
Enter your goal, if you have one. We recommend leaving the "Letter Cost" set to zero, since in most cases the appeal is replacing your regular prayer letter for a given month, and is therefore already included in your budget.
Look for the Add contacts with the following tag(s) box, and type or select the name of your new tag.
Click the Add Appeal button.
Review your list
Now that you have a master list, you'll want to remove people who shouldn't receive your appeal (e.g. people who just joined your team, or who recently gave a large gift).
Everyone you just added will be in the "Asked" section. Look through this list, and click the trash can icon next to anyone who should be excluded from the appeal.
Delete the tag
We recommend that you delete the tag after creating the appeal so that there isn't any confusion when you remove people from the appeal but leave them with the tag, or vice versa.
Go back to the Contacts screen.
In the sidebar, click the "x" next to the tag you want to delete.
Send us your appeal list
You'll need to export your list to a file in order to send it to us.
In the Tools section of MPDX or Partner Essentials, choose "Appeals".
Select the appeal you've created for this mailing.
Click the Select All button at the top.
Click the Export button, and choose CSV for Mail Merge.
When you place your order on our site, upload this file when we ask for your Mailing List.
These procedures were last updated in September 2022. If these instructions no longer work, please let us know.