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How to Exclude Specific Donors from a General Email Send

When you’re creating a regular (non-triggered) message in WeGive, you may need to exclude certain donors from the audience — for example, donors who have a specific tag, belong to a particular communication list, or match certain profile criteria. WeGive handles this through Audience Rule Groups using negative comparators.

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Where to Set Exclusions

In the message wizard, the Audience step is where you define who receives your message. There isn’t a separate “exclusion” field — instead, you use the same Audience Rule Groups that define your audience, but with negative comparators to filter donors out.

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How to Exclude Donors

  1. Go to Communications → Messages and create a new regular message (or edit a draft).
  2. On the Audience step, scroll to the Audience Rule Groups section.
  3. Click Add Group to create a new rule group.
  4. Select the attribute you want to exclude by — for example, Tags.
  5. Choose a negative comparator:
    • For tags: doesn’t have (excludes donors who have a specific tag)
    • For communication lists: is not in list or is not subscribed to list
    • For text or search fields: is not or does not contain
  6. Select or type the value you want to exclude (e.g., the specific tag name or list).
The audience preview count below the rule groups will update to reflect the exclusion, so you can verify the reduced audience before sending.

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Combining Inclusions and Exclusions

You can mix inclusion and exclusion rules in the same audience definition:
  • Within a single group: rules are combined with AND logic by default. For example, “has tag ‘Annual Donor’ AND doesn’t have tag ‘Already Thanked’” targets annual donors who haven’t been thanked yet.
  • Across groups: use the group operator (AND or OR) to combine multiple groups. For example, one group targeting a communication list AND another group excluding a specific tag.

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Example: Excluding Donors During a Deployment Email

If you have a tag with 2,742 contacts but your communication list contains 52,000+ contacts (because lists accumulate members independently of tag changes), you can:
  1. Select the communication list as your audience source.
  2. Add an audience rule group with a tag exclusion: choose the tag field, select doesn’t have, and pick the tag you want to exclude.
  3. Preview the audience count to confirm the result matches your expectations before sending.

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Tips

  • Tags and communication lists are independent. Removing a contact from a tag does not automatically remove them from a communication list. See Creating a Communication List for more on how lists work.
  • The audience preview shows you exactly how many supporters match your current rules. Always check this before sending.
  • Multiple exclusion rules can be stacked — add as many rule groups as needed to refine your audience precisely.
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Last modified on October 20, 2026