Outreach Forms Overview 💜

Outreach Forms allow your organization to collect information from supporters without requiring payment. They can be used for newsletter signups, volunteer interest forms, program applications, RSVP forms, and other situations where you want someone to provide information that should be linked back to DonorDock.

When someone submits an Outreach Form, DonorDock can create a new Contact or update an existing Contact, save information collected through the form, add the Contact to Marketing Lists or apply Badges, and create a Form Response that records what was submitted.

Outreach Forms were previously referred to as Signup Forms. Throughout the Help Center, we use Outreach Forms to distinguish these forms from Online Giving Forms, which are designed to collect payments and create Gifts.

Outreach Forms vs. Online Giving Forms

Both form types can collect information from your supporters, but they serve different purposes.

Create and Update Contacts

Outreach Forms can collect standard Contact information such as a person's name, email address, phone number, mailing address, and other available Contact fields.

When a form is submitted, DonorDock uses the information provided to create or update the corresponding Contact record. This makes information collected through the form part of the Contact's ongoing record, rather than keeping it separate from the rest of your donor and supporter data.

For example, a newsletter signup could collect a person's name and email address, while a volunteer interest form could also collect their phone number, address, or other information your organization wants to maintain on their Contact record.

Collect Custom Field Information

Outreach Forms can include both Contact Custom Fields and Form Response Custom Fields. The type of Custom Field you use determines where the submitted information is stored.

Contact Custom Fields

Use Contact Custom Fields for information you want to keep as part of the person's Contact record over time.

For example, you might use a Contact Custom Field to collect:

• Preferred communication method

• Areas of interest

• Volunteer skills

• Alumni year

• Program affiliation

When the form is submitted, the response is saved to that Custom Field on the Contact record. If the Contact submits another form later and provides a new value for the same field, the Contact's stored information can be updated.

Form Response Custom Fields

Use Form Response Custom Fields when the answer belongs specifically to that individual form submission rather than to the Contact permanently.

For example, you might use a Form Response Custom Field to ask:

• Will you attend this year's event?

• How many guests are attending?

• Which workshop would you like to attend?

• Do you have any dietary restrictions for this event?

• What would you like us to know about this request?

The answer is saved with that Form Response instead of replacing information on the Contact record.

This distinction is especially useful when the same Contact may submit the same form more than once or when their answer is specific to a particular event, registration, or request.

Add Contacts to Marketing Lists

An Outreach Form can automatically add people to one or more existing Marketing Lists when they submit the form.

This is useful when the form's purpose is tied to future communication. For example, a newsletter signup form could add the Contact to your Newsletter Marketing List, while a volunteer interest form could add them to a Volunteer Communications list.

Apply Badges Automatically

Outreach Forms can also automatically apply one or more Badges to Contacts when the form is submitted.

Badges can help you quickly identify how a Contact engaged with your organization. For example, you might apply a Volunteer Interest, 2026 Gala RSVP, or Program Inquiry Badge based on the form they completed.

The Badge becomes part of the Contact record and can then be used for filtering, reporting, segmentation, and other workflows within DonorDock.

Form Responses

Each Outreach Form submission creates a Form Response in DonorDock. The Form Response preserves the information associated with that individual submission, including any Form Response Custom Fields that were collected.

This gives your organization a record of the form submission, even when some of the collected information is also used to update the Contact.

You can review Form Responses through reporting, and the submission is also available from the Contact's timeline so you can see when the person submitted the form and review the information they provided.

Use Outreach Forms with Automations

Form Responses can also be used with DonorDock Automations.

An Automation can begin when a Form Response is created and then use information from the submission to determine what should happen next. This can be useful for workflows such as:

• Sending a follow-up email after someone expresses interest

• Creating a Task for a team member

• Starting an event or volunteer follow-up process

• Applying additional segmentation based on the response

• Beginning a communication series after a signup

This lets an Outreach Form do more than collect information. It can also become the starting point for the next steps in your organization's engagement process.

Share Outreach Forms

Once an Outreach Form is ready to use, you can share it directly with supporters or place it on your organization's website.

Depending on how you want people to access the form, you can use the direct form link in emails, social media, text messages, or other communications, or embed the form into a webpage.

Because the form stays connected to DonorDock, submissions continue creating or updating Contacts and recording Form Responses, no matter how the supporter accessed the form.