NationBuilder

View engagement metrics over time with the Growth trends dashboard

Jay Godfrey

Lauren Rowse

Josh Stuart

Global management of your nations is handled in the Settings section. Connect payment processors, configure a custom domain, create memberships, and customize user permission sets.

Settings

The first skill necessary to become a NationBuilder superstar is to log in to your control panel.

Log in to your control panel

An organization's mission should be broken down into measurable goals. These goals can be tracked within a nation.

Understanding goals

A control panel user is a person with permission to access the people database, create webpages, send mass communication, etc.

Manage control panel users

Permission sets are used to grant customized access to the information your control panel users can access.

Create, edit or delete a permission set

Notification emails are sent automatically when someone takes action.

Notification emails

Your billing info, where your invoice receipts are sent and more!

Information about your account

There are two methods for canceling your account from your control panel. You can either pause or shut down your nation.

Pause or shut down your nation

NationBuilder collects sales tax for customers in certain states. If you are an exempt entity, you can file an exemption certificate.

Request tax exemption

Your account

Your NationBuilder control panel is where you manage your nation.

The control panel

Every time you send an email blast from your nation, it includes a link that allows the recipient to unsubscribe from email communication.

How to use the unsubscribe page

We use a lot of cool browser shortcuts to save us time and keystrokes. Below are a few of our favorites.

Using browser shortcuts

Robust campaign tools are built into your nation. To take full advantage of these features, you'll want to first set up your election.

Set up your election

Learn how to change the name of your nation and understand the limitations associated with changing your slug.

Change the name of your nation

Membership is a way to organize supporters and provide additional benefits based on actions they’ve taken or money donated.

Set up memberships

Familiarize yourself with a variety of NationBuilder terms.

Glossary

Configure self-serve donation and membership management for your supporters

Setting up the supporter portal

Set up your nation

You'll find activity streams throughout NationBuilder. These are real-time logs of all activities happening in your nation.

How activity streams work

In this HOWTO, you'll find instructions on creating a multiple choice custom field to track gender-identity

HOWTO: Track Gender-Identity in your Nation

Virtual currency (aka social capital) can be used to measure the effort a supporter devotes to achieving your goals.

Understanding virtual currency

Social capital allows you to create a gamified economy around the activities required to accomplish your goals.

Currency in profiles and filters

You can backup your nation by taking a snapshot of your entire database.

How to backup your nation

This HOWTO will teach you how to open a NationBuilder snapshot on your Mac, so that you can work with your data outside of NationBuilder.

How to open your NationBuilder snapshot on a Mac

You can use this text on your own website.

Model privacy policy

Custom fields support the collection of key data points not available in standard NationBuilder fields.

Create custom people fields

Custom donation fields support the collection of key data points not available in standard NationBuilder fields.

Create custom donation fields

Integrating Single sign-on (SSO) in NB allows you to give team members one account to sign into all of the systems your organization uses.

Integrate single sign-on (SSO)

To use SAML-based SSO with a nation, the connection needs to be set up. This HOWTO provides step-by-step instructions on the integration.

Configure your SAML Identity Provider to integrate with NationBuilder

A precinct is a geographical unit of a city or town. You must enable voter features in order to view precincts.

Creating and viewing political precincts

Using advanced privacy tools, you have the ability to apply consents and manage how you build relationships with your supporters.

How to run a re-permissioning campaign

NationBuilder has advanced privacy tools so you can ensure you've gained the consent you need to build relationships with your supporters.

Advanced privacy tools

Consents are what specific kinds of data processing and communication you'd like your supporters to opt into.

Set up consent subjects

Once you've decided what information you want to collect from people, you need to create a form to collect that information.

Create a consent form

You have the ability to bypass English defaults to allow users to click yes/no answer options in your language.

Change consent answers to a different language

This will guide you through the process of setting up an analytics/cookie consent banner if you're using analytics tools on your site.

Set up an analytics consent banner for your website

This provides a comprehensive workflow on how to use advanced privacy to better target your supporters.