Use FutureFund to communicate with your parents. Some examples include:

• Contacting volunteers for upcoming events.
• Informing members of elections and PTA meetings.
• Notifying parents/guardians where to pick up yearbooks.

Three Tabs Under Messaging

Messaging lives in the Admin under Channels > Messaging and offers three tabs:

Email and Text Messaging are the two channels you compose and send yourself. Both can be sent right away or scheduled to go out later. See Sending Messages for full details on audiences, scheduling, and messaging rules.

Email Messages

Compose emails in the Admin under Messaging > Email.

• Write with a rich text editor, including headings, lists, links, and images.
• Attach files (up to 15 MB total per email) such as flyers, order forms, and permission slips.
• Choose a Sender Profile so the email carries your organization’s name, logo, colors, and reply-to address.
• Save an email as a draft, send yourself a test copy, then send or schedule it.
• After sending, review the results for that email: delivered, opens, clicks, bounces, spam complaints, and unsubscribes.

Message Audiences

FutureFund allows admins to email their parents based on various audience criteria allowing for targeted and relevant communications. Send messages based on:

• Purchase history
• Corporate matching program status
• Parents with or without access to the directory
• Members of selected membership campaigns
• Volunteers by volunteer position

FutureFund also supports filtering audiences by:

• Parents with students in selected grades
• Parents with students in selected teachers’ classes
• Parents on a selected First Step page

Admins can also send emails to all parents.

Text Messages

Send text messages in the Admin under Messaging > Text Messaging.

• Messages are limited to 250 characters.
• Every message begins with your organization’s text prefix and ends with “Reply STOP to opt out”. The prefix is set in Account Settings > Messaging. See Messaging Setup.
• Send immediately, or set a Send At date and time to schedule the message.
• Links are only allowed to futurefund.com addresses.

Text Message Audiences

• All Parents: every registered parent who has opted in to text messages and has a mobile number on file.
• A phone number question on a custom form: message everyone who answered that question, for example the coaches or room parents who signed up through a form.

Opting In

Text messages are opt-in. Parents agree to receive them by checking “I agree to receive text messages” when they enter their contact information during First Step, or later from My Account. An admin can also set this on the parent record in the Admin.

System Emails

Beyond the emails and texts you send yourself, FutureFund automatically sends a number of emails to your families on its own, things like a First Step registration reminder, a directory invitation, a “you’ve been outbid” notice during an auction, or a past-due order reminder. The System Emails tab under Messaging lets you see every one of these for yourself.

Emails are organized by category in a sidebar: First Step, Directory, Pledge Campaigns, Auctions, and Store. Click any email in the list to open a preview showing exactly what a family receives, your school’s name, the header and body, any buttons or tables, and the footer, filled in with sample names, dates, and amounts so it reads naturally. Use the arrows in the preview to step through the rest of the list without closing it. Each preview also notes what triggers the email and who receives it, for example, “Daily, while an order has a past due payment.”

Turning Off Optional Reminders

Most of these emails always send, since they are receipts, confirmations, or other messages your families need to receive, and you can’t turn them off. A handful are optional reminders, though, and you get to decide whether your organization sends them:

• The First Step registration reminder, sent to families with an incomplete First Step registration.
• The pledge participant reminder, sent to the parents of the participant in a Pledge campaign.
• The pledge supporter reminder, sent to invited supporters who haven’t donated yet.
• The store “Payment Needed” reminder, sent to purchasers with a past due balance.

To manage them, click Manage Reminders at the top of the System Emails tab. This opens a checklist of the four reminders above, grouped by category. Uncheck any reminder you’d rather not send and save. Every reminder starts on, so nothing changes for your organization unless you turn one off, and any reminder you do switch off shows an Off badge next to it in the System Emails list, so you can always see at a glance what’s currently sending. The change takes effect right away, including for reminders already scheduled to go out to someone in a few days.