RescueGroups.org

On November 22, 2011, RescueGroups.org will be releasing a set of updates to our Online Forms feature, which is available as part of our Website service.

The Online Forms improvements will include:

• Improved visual appearance to the online forms
• New field types: radio, comment, email, phone
• Default assignee for each form
• Improved method of adding drop downs, checkboxes
• Answer validation for email, phone field types
• Customizable "from" address on contact
• Email alert address per online form
• Require specific contact fields per online form
• Managing online forms from the Website interface now uses the Manage interface

If you have any questions or experience any issues after the updates please contact RescueGroups.org support.

The Campaigns feature (built into our Data Management and Website services) was designed to help you organize various types of campaigns, including email, direct mail, and online.  The simple capability of sending emails was added to the feature, but never intended for heavy use.

Sending large quantities of email is a very expensive and laborious task -- it can cause a lot of administrative headaches, specifically related to spam, mailing list management and legal ramifications.

That's exactly why we created the Email Marketing Campaigns (EMC) service.  There are plenty of legal and administrative reasons for us to provide the community a more effective tool for sending emails to their mailing lists.

Here's the important part:

If your organization is actively using the current Campaigns feature to send you, you should start using the EMC service to send your emails instead.

We will be removing the email capabilities of the Campaigns feature at the end of this month (August, 2011), in favor of the new EMC service.

We are providing a free level of service (up to 500 email messages per month) specifically to help our users migrate over to the new service without additional cost.

If you need help getting your mailing list and/or email campaigns setup in the new service please let us know.  We would be glad to help.

You can sign-up for the free level of service by going to: Services > Sign up for Email Marketing service from the Manage website:

https://manage.rescuegroups.org

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Since April of 2010 we have approved over 100 service grants for our Website, Data Management, Email and Domain Name services.  Most of those grants have been extended to a total of 2 years.

We have been very happy to provide service grants to so many organizations, but the funds are limited.

August 31, 2011 will be the last day that we will accept service grant applications or the submission of supporting documentation.  All submissions and paperwork must be received by the 31st in order to be processed.

We hope to be able to offer service grants again in the near future.  We are continually searching for ways to make that happen.

Our service pricing is not changing and our free services will remain completely free, including the Pet Adoption Portal, Pet Adoption Toolkit, Pet Adoption Kiosk and the Facebook Adoption iframe.

So far, 99 organizations have been approved for the RescueGroups.org Service Grant.  We're really excited about how many organizations we've been able to help with the grants!

We've decided to extend the existing approved grants for a second year -- meaning the organizations that have an approved grant will receive a second year of free Website, Data Management, Domain Name and Email Services!

There's still time to submit your organization's grant application.  For more information please see this page:

https://www.rescuegroups.org/servicegrants

New Website or Site Redo...Step back and plan on paper first.

Did you sign up for a RescueGroups.org Website?
Are you thinking about redoing your existing RescueGroups.org website?
Not sure where to start?

Here are some tips that may help make the process go a little more smoothly, and maybe even fun!

Where to start...

• Tip: Get to know the functionality of the website service (Quick Start Guide, User Guide, Training)
• Be the user! Your site should make it easy for your user to find the information they need.
• Take a step back before diving right in; do a little pre-planning.

Big Picture

• What is the main purpose of this site?
• How do I focus the users attention to this purpose?
• What is the secondary, tertiary purpose of the site?
• What is the first thing I want someone to see when they visit my site?

Layout

• How do I want to present this information?
• Which of the built-in layouts looks like this will work best for my groups needs in presenting this information.

Tip: Don't be afraid to start with one layout and then change later if needed. None of your content will be deleted if you change the layout.
Tip: Leave the colors for now and come back to this later.

Creating Your Site Navigation

• Pre-Plan -- Create a word doc!
• Start with a list with a hierarchy or all items at level 1
  • Level 1 main items, Level 2 are child Items, like a numbered list or bulleted list

After you have your word doc with navigation:

• Determine which pages come standard with the service and what pages you will need to create.
• Any pages that say "built-in" come standard.

Tip: You can also rename these pages on your site navigation if you do not like the built-in name.

Need Advice?

If you have any questions, please feel free to open support ticket and ask us!  We can also help provide guidance and assistance on editing the size of fonts, colors, etc.
https://www.rescuegroups.org/support

We have scheduled our system upgrade for Monday February 21st starting at midnight (eastern).  You can check for the latest information regarding the status of the upgrade before, during and immediately after:

https://www.rescuegroups.org/system-upgrade-status

If you need any assistance after the upgrade is complete, please contact support from our Contact page.

Thank you!