Getting Started: Email Blocklist and Unsubscribes

This article provides an overview of the email blocklist functionality and what happens when a donor unsubscribes from the matching gift communication.

Blocklist Management Overview

Frequently Asked Questions

Training Video: Blocklist Management

Blocklist Management Overview

Within your Double the Donation Matching account, navigate to "Blocklist Management," which can be found under "Settings." The blocklist represents email addresses and phone numbers that will not be contacted by Double the Donation. If you would like to prevent a donor from receiving emails from Double the Donation, you can add their email address to the blocklist.

To do so, navigate to the Blocklist Management tab. Navigate to "Email Blocklist" or "Phone Blocklist" and select "Add Entries" (shown in the image above). If you'd like to add more than one entry, put each entry on a new line separate them with commas, or import a CSV of email/phone records.

The Notes column indicates how an entry was added to the blocklist. It can take the following values:

Donor has no matching gift opportunity - blocklisted for X more days: The donor is not eligible (the donor has identified this in the matching gift emails) and therefore their email is blocklisted for X days. Our recommendation is 180 days and the default is saved as this. To learn more about how long donors are added to the blocklist, view this article.
Donor has no matching gift opportunity: The donor is not eligible and is permanently blocklisted. This typically occurs when donors indicate that they are retired.
Donor unsubscribed from emails: For email addresses, the donor pressed the "unsubscribe" link in the matching gift email; this donor's email is permanently blocklisted.
Donor marked as spam: The donor marked the email as spam; this donor's email is permanently blocklisted.
Email address bounced: The email bounced and was not deliverable; this donor's email is permanently blocklisted.
Blocklisted by an admin user: When you manually add an email address to the blocklist; this donor is permanently blocklisted.
Double the Donation user manually unsubscribed donor: A Double the Donation admin manually unsubscribed a donor from the Donations table or the donor was blocklisted in bulk via a CSV import. To learn more about blocklisting donors in bulk, view this article.
Imported from CRM: For customers that have a direct CRM integration with Double the Donation Matching; they are permanently blocklisted.
Blocklisted via an API call: The add_phone_blocklist or add_email_blocklist Double the Donation REST endpoints were used; this donor is permanently blocklisted.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What happens when I add a donor to the blocklist?

A: Manually adding a donor to the blocklist permanently prevents them from receiving emails from Double the Donation. If there are donors that you never want to receive emails from Double the Donation, we recommend proactively adding their email addresses to the blocklist.

Q: Double the Donation automatically blocklists email addresses for six months if the donor is determined to be not eligible for a matching gift. What happens if the donor presses the "unsubscribe" link in their email after Double the Donation blocklisted the address temporarily?

A: The email address will be blocklisted permanently.

Q: Suppose an email address is added to the blocklist. What happens if that same email address is added to the blocklist again in the future?

A: Double the Donation Matching trims leading and trailing spaces, then lowercase the email address to determine if it's unique. If an email address is already on the blocklist, the timestamp on that blocklist entry will be updated (Date Added column in the image above). The source (Notes column in the image above) will also be updated.

Q: What happens if an email hard bounces or gets marked as Spam?

A: If an email sent from Double the Donation Matching hard bounces or the recipient marks it as Spam, then our system automatically moves that email address to the organization's email blocklist account. Future donation records that flow into the matching module will be marked as "Blocklisted" and will have the B (blocklisted) icon on it. Double the Donation won't send additional matching gift emails to these email addresses.