Donately + Mailchimp
Connect Donately and Mailchimp to Turn Donors into Lifelong Supporters
Automate donor communication so every gift gets the right message at the right time.
Why integrate Donately and Mailchimp?
Donately and Mailchimp are an obvious pairing for nonprofits and fundraising teams who want to get off manual data entry and build real, automated donor relationships. When a supporter makes a gift in Donately, that moment deserves an immediate, personal response — something nearly impossible to scale by hand. Connecting Donately to Mailchimp through tray.ai lets organizations automatically sync donor records, segment audiences by giving behavior, and trigger email journeys that acknowledge, nurture, and re-engage donors throughout the giving lifecycle.
Automate & integrate Donately & Mailchimp
Use case
Instant Thank-You Emails After Every Donation
When a donor completes a gift in Donately, tray.ai immediately pushes their information to Mailchimp and triggers a personalized thank-you email sequence. The message can include the exact donation amount, campaign name, and a tax receipt reminder — so every donor feels acknowledged rather than processed. This replaces delayed, generic acknowledgment emails with timely communication that actually builds trust.
Use case
Segment Donors by Giving Level in Mailchimp
As donors give through Donately, tray.ai automatically applies Mailchimp tags or moves contacts into audience segments based on cumulative giving — first-time, mid-level, major donors, and so on. Every email campaign reaches the right donor tier with messaging and ask amounts that fit. Organizations can run distinct email journeys for each segment without touching a list manually.
Use case
Recurring Donor Nurture Sequences
When a donor sets up a recurring gift in Donately, tray.ai tags them in Mailchimp as a sustainer and enrolls them in a nurture series that reinforces the impact of their ongoing support. These automated sequences can include impact updates, behind-the-scenes stories, and exclusive content. Sustainers who feel like insiders churn far less than those who just see a monthly charge.
Use case
Lapsed Donor Re-Engagement Campaigns
tray.ai monitors donation activity in Donately and automatically flags donors who haven't given within a defined window, then updates their Mailchimp tags to trigger a re-engagement email series. These win-back campaigns can include personalized impact summaries, soft asks, and campaign appeals timed to giving season. Reactivating a lapsed donor costs far less than finding a new one.
Use case
Campaign-Specific Audience Building
When donors give to a specific Donately campaign, tray.ai automatically adds them to a corresponding Mailchimp audience or tags them for campaign-specific follow-up. Organizations can then send targeted updates, milestones, and impact reports to supporters of that particular initiative. Campaign donors get a coherent story instead of a generic newsletter.
Use case
New Donor Welcome Series Enrollment
First-time donors in Donately are automatically added to a Mailchimp welcome journey via tray.ai, introducing them to your organization's mission, impact, and community over a series of timed emails. This onboarding sequence dramatically improves the odds that a first gift becomes a second. Welcome series contacts can also be tagged to exclude them from general fundraising asks until the journey completes.
Use case
Fundraising Event Registrant Follow-Up
When donors register for or give through an event-linked Donately campaign, tray.ai syncs their data to Mailchimp with event-specific tags, enabling automated pre-event reminders, post-event thank-you messages, and follow-up donation appeals. Staff don't have to manually manage attendee lists across both platforms. Event-linked giving then feeds into future segmentation and audience targeting.
Get started with Donately & Mailchimp integration today
Donately & Mailchimp Challenges
What challenges are there when working with Donately & Mailchimp and how will using Tray.ai help?
Challenge
Keeping Donor Records Consistent Across Both Platforms
Donor information — name, email address, giving history — gets fragmented fast when Donately and Mailchimp are managed separately. Manual sync processes create duplicate contacts, stale email addresses, and mismatched records that quietly wreck campaign targeting and deliverability.
How Tray.ai Can Help:
tray.ai checks Mailchimp for an existing contact before creating anything new, merging or updating records to prevent duplicates. Custom field mapping ensures donation-specific data from Donately lands accurately in Mailchimp merge fields and tags, so both systems stay in agreement.
Challenge
Delayed or Missed Post-Donation Communication
When donation acknowledgment emails go out manually or on a batch schedule, there's always a gap between when a donor gives and when they hear back. That delay is one of the main reasons donors don't give again.
How Tray.ai Can Help:
tray.ai processes Donately donation webhooks in real time, triggering Mailchimp automations within seconds of a gift being recorded. No batch delays, no manual exports, and no donors slipping through during high-volume periods like year-end campaigns.
Challenge
Managing Unsubscribes and Compliance Across Systems
If a donor unsubscribes from Mailchimp, that preference has to hold in all future communications. Without integration, an unsubscribed donor can get re-imported from Donately in the next manual sync — creating real compliance exposure under CAN-SPAM and GDPR.
How Tray.ai Can Help:
tray.ai checks a contact's Mailchimp subscription status before making any updates, so unsubscribed contacts are never re-subscribed through automated donor syncs. Organizations can also configure workflows to write unsubscribe events back to Donately donor records for a complete audit trail.
Challenge
Scaling Personalization Without Increasing Staff Workload
As a donor database grows, personalizing email communication based on giving history, campaign affiliation, and donor tier gets complicated fast. Manually maintaining segmentation logic in Mailchimp to reflect live Donately data isn't feasible once you're past a few hundred contacts.
How Tray.ai Can Help:
tray.ai automates all segmentation logic between Donately and Mailchimp, evaluating each donation event against configurable rules and applying the right tags, audience assignments, and merge field updates automatically. Organizations can scale to tens of thousands of donors without adding headcount to manage list hygiene.
Challenge
Handling Failed Recurring Donations Without Losing Donors
When a recurring donation fails in Donately due to an expired card or insufficient funds, that donor is at immediate risk of churning. If staff don't catch the failed payment quickly, the donor may disengage before anyone reaches out.
How Tray.ai Can Help:
tray.ai monitors Donately for failed recurring donation events and immediately triggers a targeted Mailchimp email sequence prompting the donor to update their payment information. That proactive outreach minimizes involuntary churn and keeps sustainer revenue from quietly disappearing.
Start using our pre-built Donately & Mailchimp templates today
Start from scratch or use one of our pre-built Donately & Mailchimp templates to quickly solve your most common use cases.
Donately & Mailchimp Templates
Find pre-built Donately & Mailchimp solutions for common use cases
Template
New Donately Donor to Mailchimp Welcome Series
Automatically adds first-time Donately donors to a designated Mailchimp audience and enrolls them in a welcome email series, with personalized merge tags pulled from the donation record.
Steps:
- Trigger fires when a new donation is recorded in Donately with no prior giving history
- tray.ai checks Mailchimp to determine if the contact already exists and creates or updates the record accordingly
- Contact is added to the welcome audience and tagged as 'first-time-donor' to trigger the Mailchimp welcome journey
Connectors Used: Donately, Mailchimp
Template
Sync Donately Donation Data to Mailchimp Contact Tags
Keeps Mailchimp contact tags in sync with real-time donation activity in Donately, automatically applying tags for donation amount ranges, campaign affiliations, and donor frequency.
Steps:
- Trigger fires on every completed donation event in Donately
- tray.ai evaluates the donation amount, campaign, and donor history to determine appropriate tags
- Mailchimp contact is updated with new tags, and existing tags are preserved or revised based on the latest giving data
Connectors Used: Donately, Mailchimp
Template
Lapsed Donor Re-Engagement Trigger
Runs on a schedule to identify donors in Donately who haven't given within a configurable number of days and updates their Mailchimp profile to trigger a re-engagement campaign.
Steps:
- Scheduled workflow queries Donately for all donors whose last donation date exceeds the defined lapse threshold
- tray.ai cross-references each donor with their Mailchimp record and applies a 'lapsed-donor' tag
- Mailchimp automation detects the new tag and enrolls the contact in the re-engagement email series
Connectors Used: Donately, Mailchimp
Template
Recurring Donor Sustainer Tag and Journey Enrollment
Detects when a recurring gift is created in Donately and automatically updates the corresponding Mailchimp contact to reflect sustainer status, enrolling them in a dedicated donor loyalty sequence.
Steps:
- Trigger fires when a new recurring donation plan is activated in Donately
- tray.ai locates or creates the contact in Mailchimp and applies the 'sustainer' and 'recurring-donor' tags
- Contact is moved into the sustainer audience segment, activating the Mailchimp loyalty nurture journey
Connectors Used: Donately, Mailchimp
Template
Campaign Donor Segment Builder
Automatically segments Mailchimp contacts by the specific Donately campaign they donated to, enabling targeted campaign update emails and personalized impact reporting for each donor group.
Steps:
- Trigger fires on every donation completed within a specific Donately campaign
- tray.ai maps the Donately campaign name to a corresponding Mailchimp tag or group
- Mailchimp contact is updated with the campaign-specific tag, making them eligible for campaign-targeted email sequences
Connectors Used: Donately, Mailchimp
Template
Donately Donation Milestone Notification to Mailchimp
Monitors cumulative giving totals in Donately and automatically moves donors to new audience segments in Mailchimp when they cross predefined giving milestones, such as lifetime giving thresholds.
Steps:
- Trigger fires after each donation in Donately, prompting tray.ai to retrieve the donor's cumulative giving total
- tray.ai evaluates the total against configured milestone thresholds (e.g., $500, $1,000, $5,000 lifetime)
- Mailchimp contact is updated with the appropriate donor tier tag and moved into the corresponding audience segment for milestone-appropriate communication
Connectors Used: Donately, Mailchimp