This guide is intended for those who will assist with setting up all automated Emails in Benevity Grants (NGE) – your new Community Investment platform. It should be reviewed by the Program Administrators below to ensure preparation for and completion of the implementation activities.
What is Benevity Grants?
Benevity Grants is a community investment browser-based SaaS platform that will streamline your processes to make program management more efficient, more impactful and better aligned with your strategic goals. That means your program runs smoothly while your administrative load gets lighter. Configuration is divided into two parts: Applicant/External facing (forms, surveys, emails) & Admin facing (Management Interface).
Overview
There are two types of notifications that trigger from Grants – emails that are sent directly to the Cause that has applied for funding (submitted an application form), and notifications that are sent to the admins when something is assigned to them within the Management Interface. The admin notifications are not customizable and are automatically generated from Benevity Grants.
Objectives
Throughout the Grants implementation, we will develop email templates that will:
- Trigger to send to the applicant based on when an application moves to a different status
- Keep the applicant informed regularly, without piling on administrative work on the client team
- Let the applicant know the final decision related to their application
Technical Details
There are several technical requirements for the emails and notifications that will be required during your implementation:
- All text associated with the below emails are generally required as part of a typical implementation:
- Application submission confirmation
- Application resubmission request (if required)
- Application resubmission confirmation (if required)
- Application Approval email
- Application Decline email
- Note: you can have different decline email text based on a chosen “Decline Reason” if you would like.
- Survey email template (if applicable)
- Survey submission confirmation (if applicable)
- Timing delays associated with each email
- A “reply to” email to be used if the cause replies directly to an email that is sent to them.
Recommendations
We find that our clients have the best post-launch experience when they consider Benevity’s best practices and recommendations. Here are some related to emails and notifications:
- Now is a great time to review the information you communicate to causes! Should any of it be updated?
- After an application form has been submitted Causes can feel like they enter a “black hole” until they receive an email indicating a final decision. Depending on your funding cycle, this could take months. We recommend triggering emails based on status changes so that even if the text is the same, the applicant receives some indication that their application is being reviewed.
- Be as transparent as possible with the information in your email. Communicate general timelines where appropriate.
- When it comes to signatures or company emails referenced in the templates – always go the route of providing a community or general inbox over a personal name or email address. Things change, and we want to make sure your emails are still correct.
- Leverage decline reasons to be more specific when declining an application.
- For example, an email that was declined due to “Funding exceeded for fiscal year” may have different text (“please apply early next year to be considered in our next funding cycle!”) compared to “Does not align with focus area” (“our organization is primarily focused on funding hunger relief efforts primarily, and as such have allocated funding to other initiatives. Thank you for all you do in our communities!”)
Next Steps
Get a head start! Review the Technical Details above and start work on gathering the technical requirements prior to kicking off your implementation.
Items you should gather for your email notifications prior to implementation are:
- Gather all your existing email templates and make any text updates you know will be required
- “Reply to” email address
- If applicable, a list of typical decline reasons that you may wish to create different decline email templates for