How to configure your domain to allow RescueGroups.org to send emails on your behalf

In order for RescueGroups.org to send emails on your behalf using your custom domain name, certain steps must be taken to help ensure these emails are received by your intended recipient instead of being marked as spam. Make sure to complete each section below if you would like to send emails from your RescueGroups.org using your custom domain name.

What emails are we talking about?

There are many types of emails that RescueGroups.org sends on your behalf. If you choose to use your own custom domain name email address to send any of the emails described below, then you will want to configure an SPF record to allow RescueGroups.org to send these notifications on your behalf. Otherwise, these emails may be blocked by other email servers.  

1. The primary email address in your RescueGroups.org account is used to send system notifications regarding information in your RescueGroups.org account. Some examples include Journal Alerts and Online Form alerts. This way, your volunteers and applicants will see your organization's contact email address as the 'FROM' address on emails. Please note, this email address is replaced with our own email address (info@rescuegroups.org) for certain third party domains, such as AOL, Yahoo, Gmail due to their specific email sending policies. 
2. Campaigns that you send through our Email Marketing service
3. 'Contact Applicant' emails that your team makes on specific submitted forms.

Configure an SPF record on your domain to send RescueGroups.org emails from your domain

If you choose to use your own custom domain email address to send emails through RescueGroups.org, then you will want to configure an SPF record to allow RescueGroups.org to send these notifications on your behalf. Otherwise, these notifications may be blocked by other email servers. 

If you don't have an SPF record, there is no requirement to create one although that will decrease the success of email deliverability from our server. If your domain publishes an SPF record, we strongly recommend including RescueGroups.org servers.

Edit your domain's existing SPF record

If your domain already has an SPF record, you can include our email server easily by adding the following to your existing DNS text (TXT) record that defines your domain's SPF record:

ip4:54.173.36.224

The following is an example of what this may look like if you use Outlook as your primary mail service:

v=spf1 ip4:54.173.36.224 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all

Setup a new SPF record

If you do not have an SPF record, we would suggest creating one on your domain and be sure to include all services that may send email on your behalf, such as MailChimp or Constant Contact. You can reach out to the other services to find out what information they recommend you add to your domain's SPF record.  

Here's an example TXT record if RescueGroups.org is the only service sending email on your behalf:

  v=spf1 ip4:54.173.36.224 ~all

Configure the existing DMARC policy on your domain

If your domain has an existing DMARC policy, you may need to adjust the settings to allow RescueGroups.org emails to reach your intended recipients. If you do not have a DMARC policy on your domain, you do not currently need to add one just for our emails.

If you discover that emails from RescueGroups.org are not being received even after you have configured your SPF record as described above, you may want to alter your existing DMARC record to set the policy from p=reject to p=none.