Hello,

I've been reviewing this idea, and it looks like this is not technically possible without changing the timing of when the acknowledgement goes out. Currently, the acknowledgement email goes out immediately after the donor is charged. Donor is charged, acknowledgement email is sent, we send the transaction for matching or new record creation, then the record is sent to gift batch. Because of this, only fields that the donor enters on the form are available to merge into the acknowledgement email.

The only way we would know what the preferred name to use is if we waited to match first, then sent the confirmation. This introduces risk to the process in times of high demand, and there is the potential that the email to the donor is delayed to the point that it no longer is an "auto-response." Industry standards for both donation forms and e-commerce in general have set expectations that the acknowledgement should be received immediately.

My question to voters is this: is it important enough to include preferred name on the email for matched donors to delay the email in getting to your donor?

Thanks!

ALso, if preferred name field is blank, use first name field

Or--allow the "Salutation" merge field to be used.