Wildlife and nature

Animal shelters and rescues

Theater and dance

Rivers, parks and trails

Hunger and food

Schools and learning

Housing and homelessness

Community health

Mental health

Mentoring and foster care

Legal help and rights

Jobs and money help

Atlanta

The Triangle

Everywhere

The Collective Workshop

Royal Animal Refuge

Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta

Georgia Advancing Communities Together

Atlanta Writers Club

Cobb Collaborative

Bosleys Place

Jewish Fertility Foundation

Murphy Cline-Snider

About

Start here! 🏁 These posts are written to demystify what it takes to successfully build, refine, and hit the ground running on Collective.

Launching on Collective

A few months into posting regularly, every organization hits the same wall: the feed works, but it's just one long scroll.

Somewhere in that scroll is everything a new donor would need to understand your gala. Somewhere else is your whole Instagram history from the tutoring program you ran last spring. A visitor would have to scroll past a year of posts to find either one.

Collections are how you pull a themed set out of the scroll and give it its own page.

Here's how to build the first one.



Create the collection

In Library, open the Collections tab. If this is your first one, you'll see an empty slate with a single button: Create your first collection.

Give it a name. Keep it short: forty characters, about the length of a good headline, is the limit. Winter Fundraiser 2026 works better than All Our Fundraising Events From This Past Winter.

An emoji and a short description are optional but worth adding. The description is what a visitor reads at the top of the page, so a sentence about what's inside earns its place.



Add posts, one at a time or a dozen at once

There are two ways to fill a collection, and which one you use depends on whether the posts already exist.

If you're building from scratch, open the collection you just created and switch to the Manage Posts tab. You'll see every post in your library split into two sections: what's already in the collection, and what's available to add. Click to toggle any post in or out.

If you already know which posts belong together, go the other direction. From the Posts tab, select the posts you want (five, twenty, however many), and choose Add to collections. You'll see every collection you've made, with a checkbox for each. A post already in some of your selection but not all of it shows as partially checked, so you always know what you're changing before you save.

Either way works.

The second is faster once you have more than one collection to keep sorted.

Skip the cover photo if you don't have one ready

A cover photo is optional. If you don't set one, Collective uses the most recent post's media as the cover automatically, so the collection still looks finished the moment it has posts in it.

You can always come back and set a different cover later.

Nothing breaks if you do it now versus next month.



Put them in the order visitors will see them

Once you have more than one collection, a Reorder option appears above the grid. Click it, and small arrows appear on each card so you can move things up or down.

Put the collection you want people to find first, first. For most organizations that's whatever is active right now: this quarter's campaign, not the archive from two years ago.

We especially love this function for processes or chronological steps, like a donated furniture rehabilitation process or eight steps to equitable and affordable housing.



What a visitor actually finds

Open any collection and you land on a page built around what's inside it: a cover image, the collection's name and description, and if there's a recent post, a preview of it laid right into the header so it's the first thing anyone sees.

Below that, visitors can filter by post type (video, image, link, text), sort by newest, oldest, or most liked, and search within just that collection. They can switch between a grid and a list view depending on how they like to browse. None of this is configuration you do ahead of time. It's just there, working, because the posts are.



A collection is a folder with a face. The Winter Fundraiser posts stop being buried in a scroll and become their own small, browsable page, one you can point a new donor to directly instead of asking them to scroll and hope.

The first one takes ten minutes to set up. The next one is mostly just deciding what belongs.

Curating your Collections

(We realize that it's pretty meta to write a post about writing a post... what better way to show proof of concept?!)

Your Space is set up. Your contacts are imported. There's a New post button at the top of your left sidebar.

This is the moment that matters.

Most organizations sit with it for a minute before clicking. Here's what to do when you do.



Set up before you write

When you open a new post, a settings panel loads on the right side of the editor. Two decisions live there that shape everything before you type a word.

Post to profile controls where the post appears:





Toggled on: the post appears on your Space and in feeds, visible to anyone who visits



Toggled off: email only — delivered to your contacts' inboxes, not posted publicly

Audience controls who receives it:





Everyone: sent to all your contacts



Select program(s): sent only to contacts associated with specific programs

These two settings together determine what you're actually making. A public post to everyone is an announcement to your whole community. An email-only post to a specific program is a direct note to the people most invested in that work.

Decide these two things before you write, as they might change the context of what you post.



Write a subject line that earns the open

Whether your post is public or email-only, it gets a subject line. This is what lands in inboxes and decides whether anyone opens it.

Two patterns that work:





A specific moment: "We hit our spring fundraising goal yesterday." "The new garden plot is ready."



A direct claim: "We're changing how we measure impact." "What the last cohort taught us."

A good rule of thumb: if you can't say what the post is about in eight words, the post probably isn't ready.

We believe a subject line isn't just a title. It's the invitation to open.

Make the first paragraph the whole story in miniature

Most supporters will read the first 80 words. Some will keep going. Write the post assuming the first paragraph is the only paragraph that gets read.

State what happened and why it matters. Trust the reader to do the rest.

Keep it short & spruce it up

For a first post, shorter is better.

The risk of a long first post isn't that people won't read it-- it's that you'll spend so long writing it that you never send it.

A post that can send out and teaches you something about your list is more valuable than a polished post sitting in drafts.

Add in in-line visuals to add interest to the post. You can embed videos that you upload or link from YouTube. You can also add in a linked button or upload an attachment for readers to download.



Save drafts and come back

If you're not ready to send, click Save draft in the top right of the editor. The post saves automatically as you write, and you can get back to it anytime from Library in the left sidebar. Select the Drafts tab to find everything in progress.

Nothing goes out until you click Publish.



Send it, then watch the results roll in

When your post is ready, click Publish in the top right of the editor. If your post is public, it appears on your Space immediately. If it's email-only, it goes straight to inboxes.

A few hours later, open Insights in your left sidebar and select the Content tab. You'll see who opened, who clicked, and who replied. Here's something to look forward to: the first post almost always teaches you something about your list you didn't know before you sent it!

Each post on Collective will feel easier and easier. Next time, you’ll know something about your content, audience, or yourself that you didn’t know before.

Writing your first Post

The first time you set up Collective, the thing that surprises most organizations is how little there is to do.

You don't build your page. You import it.

Most of what you need already exists somewhere: a website, an Instagram account, a contact list, a team. Setup is mostly Collective reading those things and putting them where they belong.

To get started, go to the getcollective.org and choose "Get Started" in the top banner.



Find your organization

The wizard opens with a search field. Type your organization's name or EIN and Collective searches public records to give you a head start: your registered name, address, and basic details already filled in.





Type your organization's name or EIN in the Search for your nonprofit field.



Select your org from the results and click Continue.



If Collective can't find you, choose Can't find it? Enter details manually and fill in the fields yourself.

This step takes under a minute for most organizations. If your EIN doesn't return a result, try searching your full legal name.

Starting from public records means you're correcting details, not typing from scratch.



Drop in your website URL

The next step is where the real shortcut happens.





Enter your website URL in the Website URL field.



Click Analyze Website.



Collective reads your site and pulls your mission, programs, team, and photos.

Most sites get reasonable defaults in about 30 seconds. You'll still want to review what came through: swap a hero photo, reword the mission paragraph, confirm program names are right. The structural work, the part that usually takes an afternoon of copy-pasting, is done.

If your site doesn't parse cleanly, select Skip and fill in the fields manually. Either way, you're correcting, not starting from scratch.

Your website has already written most of your Space. This step just moves it over.



Connect Instagram

If your organization has been posting to Instagram for years, this is where that library lands on your Space.

Connect your account, choose your import window (all posts, the last year, or a manual selection), and confirm. Your posts come in with captions, photos, carousels, and videos intact.

Once imported, new posts you publish to Instagram will sync to your Space automatically and appear in your Recent Posts section. They won't be placed into specific Collections or program blocks on their own: that's a manual step. If you want posts curated into a particular Collection or program, open the post after it syncs and assign it from the post settings. Posts written natively in Collective can be assigned to a Collection or program block before they go live.



Add your team

The Team step is quick. Add the people who'll use Collective alongside you:





A display profile for a board member or team member you want shown on your page, without login access



An email invite for a staffer who'll log in and use the admin panel



A link to someone who already has a Collective account

Most organizations add one or two people here and come back for the rest later, which can be accessed on your Collective Space once it's created.



Set your colors

The Colors step shows you options pulled from your website scan, with a hex field for manual input and a Detect from logo option if you'd prefer Collective to read your brand color directly. Pick the one that matches your existing identity.

Your Space uses this color for buttons, accents, and highlights across your page. Get it right here and you won't need to think about it again.

One color choice shapes everything your supporters see.





And that's it! Ten minutes in, you have a Space with your mission, your content history, your audience, and your team.

That's the actual setup.

The next step is bringing in your audience.

Your Collective Space, in 10 minutes

When designing our Programs feature, it was important to us to make it easy to show off an element of an org’s larger mission and allow supporters to specifically subscribe to that plank. Programs are the lifeblood of what a nonprofit actually does, and we wanted to create spaces that facilitate not only program-specific communication, but funding, too.

For example: a literacy nonprofit might run an after-school tutoring program, a summer reading camp, and a volunteer training pipeline. Three programs, three audiences, three sets of impact, potentially three diverse funding needs.

Initially, we designed Programs to outline that smaller element of an organization and really be a vehicle for senior staff to add a note about the program, directly to supporters. Then, we took a step back and asked, well, what is possible? We redesigned this feature to have editable and movable blocks, along with systems blocks populated with your content from other areas of your Space.

What should you choose as your first program? Here’s what we recommend:

Start with the program you already talk about

The program to set up first is the one you already describe in grant applications, in donor emails, in conversations with board members. The one your monthly donors know by name.



Start from a draft or type in a URL

When you create a new program, you have two ways in.

If Collective found programs on your website during setup, you'll see draft programs already waiting. Pick one and most of the fields will be prefilled: name, mission, sometimes a cover photo.

If you're starting fresh, paste in a URL and Collective pulls what it can from that page.

Either way, you're editing, not filling out a blank form.

Collective Goes to Work

You'll move through eight steps:





Import from website. Collective reads a URL and prefills the name, mission, and any photos it finds. You confirm or adjust.



Name and URL slug. What the program is called, and what the URL ends in. Short names work better than long ones.



Mission. Two or three sentences about what the program does and who it serves.



Add staff. Which team members run or are associated with this program.



Link existing posts. Tag posts you've already published so they appear on the program page immediately.



Connect a contact group. The supporters, members, or families connected to this Program. Connect an existing group or choose “Skip” for a new group to be created and aligned with this Program.



Set up donations. Optional. If this program has its own fundraising goal, set it here. Supporters see the progress in real time.



Create program. Review everything and publish.



How the page is built

Once the program is created, you can customize it from Layout & Blocks. There are two kinds of blocks.

System blocks pull in content automatically. Latest Post, Recent Posts, Staff, Members, and Impact Statements are all system blocks: they stay current without extra work. Publish a post and it shows up. Add a staff member and they appear. You can show or hide any of them depending on what makes sense for this program.

Impact Statements are a system block too. Collective drafts them from your program description, and you can edit the cards directly from the block editor.

Content blocks are things you add yourself: a Link, a Media Gallery, Rich Text, an Embed, or a File Download. These are for anything specific to this program that doesn't live somewhere else in your Space already.

Both types can be reordered by dragging.



What your Program comes with

When the Program goes live, it has its own page on your Space: a dedicated URL, a feed of tagged posts, a connected contact group, and a fundraising goal if you set one.

Every post you tag to the Program shows up there. Every donation gets attributed to it. Every new member who joins gets added to the contact group.

It updates as you work.

A few things worth knowing





Programs are about people-- cover photos with real humans perform better than those without.



An achievable monthly fundraising goal builds more momentum than one set for the year.



You can come back and edit any of this! None of it is set in stone once the program is live.

That's the first program. The second one is already faster.

Your first Program

Get the most out of Collective by seeing what's new and noteworthy as we are building it!

Collective

Collections

Account

Launching on Collective

More collections