With Aplos WebBuilder being phased out, we want to ensure you have all the tools and information you need to smoothly transition your website, should you choose to move to Raisely. This guide will walk you through the key areas in Raisely and how they correspond to the WebBuilder experience you're used to in Aplos.

Raisely: More Than Just a Website Builder

It's important to understand upfront that Raisely is primarily a fundraising platform. Its website building capabilities are deeply intertwined with its online giving features. If your organization is looking to streamline both its website presence and its online fundraising, Raisely offers a seamless solution. You can connect a PayPal or Stripe account directly within Raisely to manage donations, and then integrate this financial data effortlessly with Aplos through their existing integration.

However, if your primary goal is solely to leverage Raisely for its website building capabilities, you can certainly do that as well, even if you continue to manage online giving through other channels.

Setting Up Your Raisely Campaign (Your New Website)

Upon logging into Raisely, you'll encounter the "campaign" screen. In Raisely's context, "campaigns" are typically geared toward specific fundraising initiatives. While the language might suggest multiple fundraisers at different times, for the purpose of creating your main website, you'll likely set up a single, overarching campaign to serve as your entire site.

We recommend utilizing the General Appeal option when creating your campaign. You'll be prompted to enter:

• Campaign Name: This will be the internal name for your website.
• URL (Subdomain): Choose a subdomain for your Raisely site (e.g., yourorg.raisely.com).
• Campaign Currency: Because of Raisely's fundraising functionalities, you'll need to select a currency.
• Fundraising Goal: Similarly, you'll be asked for a fundraising goal. If you're not using it for fundraising, simply input an arbitrary amount to proceed.

Once these details are entered, you can agree to the terms and create your campaign. For the purpose of building your website, you can initially skip any further fundraising setup.

Designing Your Site: The Equivalent of Aplos Site Settings

After creating your campaign (your website), the first place you'll want to navigate is the Design tab. Think of this as the equivalent of the "Site Settings" area you're familiar with in Aplos, but with significantly more functionality. Here, you'll establish your website's overall look and feel:

• Logos and Brand Name: Upload your organization's primary logo and enter your brand name. You can also include secondary colors if needed.
• Favicon: Upload a favicon, which is the small icon that appears in the browser tab for your website.
• Campaign Image/Profile Image: You can likely leave these blank if you're using Raisely solely for your general website.
• Fonts and Buttons: Select the typefaces you want for your headings and body text, and customize the appearance of buttons across your website. It's crucial to get these settings configured first, as they will then apply automatically to all your pages, making the design process much simpler.
• Image Uploads: You can download all your existing images from your Aplos website and upload them directly here. This makes it easy to incorporate them into the pages you'll create later.

Getting your design elements established first will ensure a seamless and consistent look as you begin building out your individual pages.

Crafting Your Pages: Header, Footer, and Content

Once your design is set, navigate to the Pages tab. This section serves two primary purposes:

1. Header and Footer Sections: In Aplos, header and footer editing options were found within "Site Settings." In Raisely, you'll find the ability to edit your header and footer directly on the Pages tab. These are crucial for consistent navigation and branding across your site.

2. Individual Website Pages: This is where you'll recreate all the content pages you had in Aplos WebBuilder. Raisely offers both pre-built page templates (often tied to fundraising elements) and the ability to create entirely custom pages. You can copy and paste content directly from your old Aplos pages or build new sections from scratch.

   • Sections (Rows): In Raisely, your content is organized into "rows." You can add new rows and customize their content, including defining columns and width.
   • Templates: If you design a particular row layout you like, you can save it as a template for reuse across different pages.
   • Content Blocks: Raisely provides a wide array of content blocks to add to your pages. Most commonly used blocks will be found in the "common blocks" section, but you can explore others. These include:
     • Text, images, and HTML (if you used custom HTML in Aplos).
     • Buttons with links (e.g., to your donation forms, whether within Raisely or an external platform).
     • Icons, image tiles.
     • Donation forms (directly linked to Raisely's fundraising features).
     • Ticketing forms.
     • Embed options (for videos, maps, or other external content).
     • Various layout options.

   You can easily click into text fields to edit wording. To edit the actual sizing and other element-specific properties, you'll click the settings gear icon located to the left of each section.

Check out Raisely's resource on the page builder here.

Managing Your Website Menu

One key difference from Aplos' "Pages and Menu" screen is how menus are managed. If you want to create navigation menu options for your Raisely website (similar to what you had in Aplos), you'll need to go to Settings and then select Menu. This is where you can define all the different menu items that will appear in your website's header section. You'll enter the desired text for each button and paste the link from the corresponding page you've created. Check out Raisely's resource on this process to learn more.

Custom Domains

If you were utilizing a custom domain with Aplos (e.g., yourorganization.org), you'll need to remove that custom domain from the domain settings within Aplos first. Then, in Raisely, you'll go to Settings and choose Domains. Here, you'll be provided with new DNS records from Raisely. You'll need to update your domain provider's settings to reflect these new records, pointing your custom domain to your Raisely website. To learn more about setting up your domain in Raisely click here.

Responsive Design: A Major Advantage

A significant improvement Raisely offers over Aplos WebBuilder is its built-in responsive website design capabilities. On the Advanced tab for any section you're editing, you can see and adjust the view of your website for different devices: desktop, tablet, or mobile. This is incredibly useful as it allows you to make specific design tweaks for each device size, ensuring an optimal and professional viewing experience for all your visitors, regardless of the device they're using.

Getting Support During Your Transition

As you embark on this transition to Raisely, remember that their team is available to assist you with any questions related to setting up and customizing your new website. If you need to extract specific information or content from your Aplos account to facilitate the move, don't hesitate to reach out to the Aplos Customer Care team – they will be glad to help you with that.

For questions about entering information into Raisely or specific functionalities within their platform, please reach out to the Raisely support team. They have a fantastic team ready to help you get up and running. Additionally, we highly recommend utilizing Raisely's AI Answers tool, accessible via the question mark bubble. You can send a message and then navigate to the "AI answers" option to ask the AI anything. It pulls accurate information from their extensive article base to quickly answer basic questions. For more complex inquiries, you can always send a direct message to their support team.

We hope this guide provides a clear path for transitioning your website!