This is a problem I have had with NationBuilder for several years. A good chunk of people who donate to my campaigns are then opted out of receiving emails. My guess is that the overwhelming majority of these people are doing so by accident. They may want less email but not to be completely removed from getting any email at all from the campaign.
Why would someone donate to a campaign and then asked to be completely removed from contact with that campaign? It doesn't make sense. I guarantee my campaigns have lost money and volunteers from this, because people do it accidentally.
I batch update all of our donors when I remember to do so, to re-opt everyone back in. It would really make more sense just to have an unsubscribe on the website but not on the donate page.. It's a really frustrating glitch. I think it needs to be fixed.
Thanks for reading.
completed
Update 7/28 - we just completed some work to make sure this doesn't happen anymore. If you see it again please let us know.
Update again! - Sorry folks - looks like this is working when the user is _logged_in_ but not working in other cases. We will let you know when there are updates.
Update - please see below for an update from Brian.
Update - we are seeing this issue pop up again. The default uncheck box is not working as expected. We will continue to monitor and update here with any changes.
Noah - this is fixed on all new NationBuilder themes and has been for a few months - it is possible that you have a custom theme that is preventing the fix from going through. Can you please email help@nationbuilder.com with the link to the page where you are having the issue? We can take a deeper look at your theme.
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So, assuming it is currently working the way that we believe it is, the only way that someone might accidentally opt-out is if you have the checkboxes checked by default and they consciously uncheck it. This might happen if the user thinks that the box means that they will get additional emails on top of what they are already getting. In the changes that we made, we didn’t change the text at all, but you are welcome to change the text in your theme. You may want to change it to something like “Send me email updates about [Organization Name]. Unchecking this will unsubscribe you from all email communications.”
Let me know if you have additional questions about this!
Apologies I hadn’t seen your response earlier – I thought I would be alerted to replies, but I didn’t receive any messages that you had posted.
All the best.
Chris
I saw that you changed the text on your check box I really like how you framed it – although I know that’s not a solution.
If I have any updates I will post them here as soon as I do!
http://nationbuilder.com/alexsm/send_email_updates_checkbox_feature_change
“I have a few “Send email updates checkbox”‘s that I want to disable the opt-out feature. Right now, I have those two boxes on my donation pages and I have people who are accidently opting out of email updates. I made the box default to be checked, but there are still people unchecking the box. I would like to have them stay opt’d in even if that box is unchecked. Thanks!"
-If the user is already opted in in the database but submits a form with the box unchecked, it won’t opt them out.
-But, if it’s default unchecked and they are a new signup, they will be opted out.
-Or, if it’s default checked and they uncheck it, they will also be opted out.
It is possible that a few donors who were not in the database unchecked the checkbox while donating. This could have been because they thought that it was referring to emails about fundraising efforts, but it it is also possible that they truly do not want to receive any emails from the campaign.
I recommend changing the label of the checkbox on your donation page so that it is more clear that the box relates to all emails about your campaign and not just fundraising emails.