Celebrate the anniversary of your donors’ first donation. When donors reach this key milestone, you can automatically email them a special message to show your appreciation and continue growing the relationship.
Automate & Save Time
To celebrate donor anniversaries, create a simple automation and let Bloomerang do the work for you.
How It Works
Use Journey Automation to create a Donor Anniversary automation. Constituents automatically participate in this automation if they:
Are individual constituents (not organizations)
Have a first qualifying transaction, which must be a donation, soft credit on a donation, recurring donation payment, pledge payment, or membership payment.
Tip: The first qualifying transaction is the First Transaction date on a constituent’s Giving Summary, unless that transaction is a schedule or a soft credit on a schedule. A schedule or a soft credit on a schedule isn’t a qualifying transaction.Are current donors (donors who have transactions in the last 13 months)
Donors enter the automation each year on the anniversary of their first transaction. For example, Chris makes a first-ever donation on January 24. Chris enters this automation on January 24 every year, starting with the first anniversary, and receives your anniversary email.
The automation runs continuously unless you pause or archive it. For detailed information about how this automation works, read About Entry Sources in Automations.
Before You Begin
To save time, create a Happy Anniversary email template at Communications > Emails before you create the automation and email message. This is optional, but we recommend it. Read about how to do this.
Create a Donor Anniversary Automation
To create a Donor Anniversary automation, you can:
Start quickly: Edit the example automation, which is named Donorversary Celebration. This draft appears if your organization has never created a draft automation from the Donor Anniversary entry source. A guide also appears that walks you through how to set up a Donorversary Celebration. You can follow the guide or set up the automation how you’d like.
Start from scratch: Create a Donor Anniversary automation from scratch.
To create a donor anniversary automation:
Click Communications.
Click Journey Automation.
Do one of the following:
To start quickly:
In the Milestones > Donor Anniversary Automation section, click the Donorversary Celebration draft automation. If you don’t see this draft automation, start from scratch.
In the entry source, click the three vertical dots and then click Edit.
To start from scratch:
Click New Automation.
Name your automation and click Save.
In the settings for that automation, click Choose an Entry Source.
In the Milestones section, select Donor Anniversary.
Click Save. The automation saves as a draft.
Note: You can have only one running or paused Donor Anniversary automation. You can pause and edit a running Donor Anniversary automation. If you publish a new Donor Anniversary automation while an existing one is running or paused, the new automation replaces the existing automation, which will be archived.
Add an Email Action
Next, add an email action to your Donor Anniversary automation.
In the automation:
Click Add Step
. In the Actions section, click Send Email.
Click New Email.
To start with a prebuilt Bloomerang template, select a template on the Bloomerang Templates tab.
To start with a custom template that your organization already created, click the Saved Templates tab and select a template.
Enter an Email Name.
Click Next.
Enter the Subject, From Name, and From Email.
Select a Purpose. Read about email purposes.
From the Type list, select the email type, which must be Constituent or Transaction. The email type determines which merge fields you can insert in the message.
On the Design tab, edit the email design and text.
On the Recipients tab, select an email interest. (Applies only if you selected a marketing-type Purpose for your email.)
To save and finish setting up your automation, Click Save And and select Go to Journey Automation. The email is now part of your draft automation.
To edit, replace, or delete this email before you publish the automation, click the three vertical dots and select Edit or Delete.
Test the Automation
Before you publish the automation, send test emails from the automation. This optional step makes sure the automation works the way you want it to.
Publish the Automation
When you’re ready for donors to enter the automation, click Publish.
Next Steps: Manage the Automation
After you create and publish the automation, you can monitor participation, view emails sent by the automation, manage the automation, and more. Read Manage Automations.