> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.wegive.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Troubleshooting Tribute Notification Emails

> What to do when the notification email for a tribute (in honor of / in memory of) donation is not being received by the intended honoree — how to check and fix the trigger configuration, and how to send notifications for past tribute gifts.

When a donor makes a tribute gift (in honor of or in memory of someone),
WeGive can send a notification email to the honoree letting them know a
gift was made in their name. If those notification emails aren't going
out, here's how to diagnose and fix the issue.

## Step 1: Check if your Tribute Made trigger message is Live

Tribute notification emails for one-time gifts, pledge installments,
and donor-portal tribute additions only send when you have a **Tribute
Made** triggered message set up and its status is **Live**. This is the
most common reason tribute notifications aren't sending — the trigger
was never created or is still in Draft status.

To check:

1. From the Dashboard, go to **Triggers**.
2. Find the **Tribute Made** trigger.
3. Look at the messages attached to it:
   * **No messages exist?** Create one — see step 2 below.
   * **A message exists but shows Draft?** Open it and change its
     status to **Live**.
   * **A message is Live?** Move on to the filter checks in step 3.

## Step 2: Set up the Tribute Made trigger message

If no Tribute Made message exists yet:

1. Go to **Triggers** and click into **Tribute Made**.
2. Click **Create Message**.
3. Choose **Email** as the delivery method.
4. Select your verified send-from email address.
5. Write the subject line and message body. Use personalization
   variables (such as the donor's name, gift amount, and tribute name)
   to make the notification feel personal.
6. Set the status to **Live**.
7. Save the message.

Once live, any new tribute gift with a tribute email address will
automatically trigger a notification to the honoree.

## Step 3: Check your trigger and audience filters

If the message is Live but still not sending, the trigger or audience
filters may be too narrow. Open the message and review:

* **Trigger conditions** — these control which tribute events qualify.
  If any condition doesn't match your actual tribute gifts, the message
  won't fire.
* **Audience conditions** — checked separately from trigger conditions.
  Both have to pass for the message to send.

If you have more than one message on the Tribute Made trigger, only one
message fires per event based on its position in the hierarchy order.
A message higher in the order that matches first will prevent messages
lower in the order from sending. See
[Why Your Triggered Message Isn't Sending](/external/support/communications/why-your-triggered-message-isnt-sending.md)
for the full troubleshooting checklist.

## Step 4: Send notifications for past tribute gifts

Once your Tribute Made message is Live, it only fires for new gifts
going forward. For tribute donations that already happened before the
trigger was enabled, you can use the **Retrigger** feature to send
those missed notifications:

1. Go to **Triggers → Trigger History**.
2. Filter by the **Tribute Made** event to see only tribute-related
   entries.
3. Select the entries for past tribute payments that should have sent
   a notification.
4. Click the **Retrigger** bulk action.

Retriggering creates a fresh copy of each selected event and processes
it through the now-live trigger message, sending the notification email
to the honoree. The retriggered send uses the current data on the
transaction, so if a tribute email address was corrected after the
original gift, the notification goes to the updated address.

You can also retrigger a single event from the **Trigger History**
section on an individual supporter's record or transaction detail page.

## A note on recurring donations with tribute details

Recurring donation plan installments that include tribute information
send their honoree notification through a separate, automatic system
that does not depend on your Tribute Made trigger message configuration.
If a recurring tribute notification is missing, the issue is not related
to the trigger setup described above — contact the WeGive support team
for help with that specific case.

## Quick checklist

1. Does a Tribute Made triggered message exist for your account?
2. Is its status set to **Live** (not Draft)?
3. Is a verified send-from email address selected?
4. Are the trigger and audience filters matching your actual tribute
   gifts?
5. For past gifts: have you used Retrigger on the missed Trigger
   History entries?

***

*Need help? Reach out to the WeGive support team and we'll walk through
it with you.*


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