Your Trail Blazer account comes with unlimited mass email campaigns.  Learn everything you need to know about designing emails, tracking analytics, creating trackable links, adding PDF attachments, and much more.

Video Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgwwHL9t2abRUvBVQpwjtaSSmZA1mNbDc

KB Articles: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=list&cat=17

Our offices will be closed on Monday, September 4th for Labor Day.

Attributes are one of the most useful features in your Trail Blazer database.  They allow you track a wide-range of items, such as volunteer roles, mailing segments, custom contact types, preferred contact methods, and much more.  Learn how to create custom attribute folders and attribute items: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=182&cat=0&qq=attribute

Example Attribute Tree

Learn how to mass update a list of contact records with an attribute (tag): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I30nQB4AzjA

If you ever need to increase the text size when reading a log note, you can do this by holding down the CTRL button on your keyboard, and using the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom in.  The images below show an example.

Check out some of the new dashboard widgets by logging into your Trail Blazer IQ workspace.

To launch Trail Blazer IQ from within the desktop CRM you will go to Voters / Donors > File > Reporting> Launch Trail Blazer IQ (Mapping).

Have you used our canvassing app for door-knocking?  If not, learn how Mobile Base Camp can save your volunteers time when canvassing neighborhoods: https://www.trailblz.com/Political-Campaign-Software/Mobile-Base-Camp

Download links: https://www.trailblz.com/Download

Our office will be closed Monday (July 3rd) and Tuesday (July 4th) for Independence Day. We will monitor emails and voicemails on Monday; please get in touch with tech support if you have an emergency.

Do you have new team members that need to get up to speed on the day-to-day use of Trail Blazer?
Register for free orientation training: https://www.trailblz.com/LearningResources/Events
This introduction class covers:

• ◉  Navigating the application
• ◉  Running search queries and saving a search favorite
• ◉  Building and saving customer formats (reports)
• ◉  Adding a new contact record and a new donation
• ◉  Creating and saving thank-you letter templates
• ◉  Utilizing the Knowledge Base and YouTube Channel

Summer is full of events.  Learn how to use the event features in Trail Blazer to sell tickets and products for your fundraisers.

Example golf tournament event: https://www.trailblz.info/DemoNonProfitMark/EventComplete.aspx?eventid=20&banner=0

Watch now: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgwwHL9t2abRXDWFeVhIvdAlOlvA_h-X5

Check out our latest KB tutorial to learn how to design mobile-friendly email templates with Stripo (for free), and how to export and save them in your Trail Blazer database.

Read now: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=1392&cat=0&qq=strip

Learn how to add the option for your donors and event attendees to optionally cover the payment processing fees: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=1378&cat=0&qq=fee

Check out our new help video to learn how to create beautiful mobile-friendly email templates with Stripo.  Stripo offers a free entry-level subscription, which would allow you to create a template that can then be saved inside of your Trail Blazer database.

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0oRATd_Gkg

Interested in acquiring updated cell phone numbers for the constituents in your database?  You can utilize our partnership with Melissa Data to refresh your data set.  Check out our additional services page to learn more: https://www.trailblz.com/Support/AdditionalServices

Spring is a great time to clean up data in your Trail Blazer database.  Whether that be mailing addresses, duplicate contact records, cell phone numbers, or something else.

If you would like to refresh a segment, or all of your address records, we provide this ala carte service.  Simply send in an email to tech support to receive a price quote: support@trailblz.com

Additional Services: https://www.trailblz.com/Support/AdditionalServices

A new mobile app update was released today. You can now add lawn sign records directly from a voter's contact record. Watch this short video to learn how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8HqkXTB7E4

We've released a variety of updates to our mobile app (Trail Blazer Base Camp) and our web app (Trail Blazer IQ).  These updates make it easier to track lawn signs while canvassing, and to view those lawn signs on an interactive map.



Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QRX1oOObAE

Article: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=1391&cat=0&qq=lawn

With the latest software release, you can now set your default Log Type.  This can be useful if you typically use a specific log type, such as "Phone".

To set this up, navigate to Logs > Log > Click the Log Type drop-down > select "<Set default>", and choose your default option.

Tip: you can right-click the Log Type drop-down and select [+ New] to quickly create a new option.

You can now use the email system to insert a table of contributions by date-range.  For instance, you can provide a breakdown of all donations someone made in 2022, with a total at the bottom.

Inserting the Merge Field


How the Merge Field Appears to the Recipient

It's that time of year again for nonprofits.  The resources below walk through the steps to generate and print your year-end tax statements.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUVSUTciwaU

Article 1: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=313&cat=0&qq=tax

Article 2: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=246&cat=0&qq=tax

For many organizations, 2023 means updating the cycle in your database.  Here's how: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=312&cat=0&qq=cycle

Happy New Year!  For this tip - we are going to talk about how to track if an email recipient is opening your emails or not.  First, open their record.  Then navigate to the "Logs" tab, and the Email Log sub-tab.  That is where you can view if someone has opened an email, when they did, and what links they clicked on.  Here's an example:

Our office will be closed on these dates to celebrate Christmas and the New Year:

• Friday, December 23
• Monday, December 26
• Friday afternoon, December 30
• Monday, January 2
  

Trail Blazer has a variety of forms that you can use to automatically collect data through your website.  They include:

• Donations
• Email sign-ups
  
• Volunteer sign-up
  
• General "contact us" forms

Check out these resources to learn how to import spreadsheets of contact or donation data into your Trail Blazer database.

• Video Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgwwHL9t2abS6dMshPmet7_N0xjNqLh5z
• Import Templates for Download: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=237&cat=0&qq=import
• Import Contributions (Article): https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=216&cat=0&qq=import
• Import Contact Data (Article): https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=321&cat=0&qq=import