Request: Member email preference management from LCR

[lajackson]

members CANNOT unsubscribe from emails sent from ward leaders.

That is correct. If a member feels emails are excessive, they may discuss their concern with their leaders. Otherwise, the only option for a member is not to give their email to the Church.

[bibbyboy85]

There is an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of each LCR system generated email. Members can click it and update their individual email subscription preferences.

However it appears there is still no way for a clerk to update it for a member... correct? They must do through their own account.

[caillines]

However it appears there is still no way for a clerk to update it for a member... correct? They must do through their own account.

Correct. They'll need to log into their own account and re-tick the box.

[FiferED]

I'm a ward clerk searching for a solution in 2024 and found this thread. Less active member wants to unsubscribe from ward newsletter and other emails. My choices appear to be (1) walk them through the process of changing settings to their Church account themself (which at this time in their life they're not going to be super receptive to), (2) deleting their email address from their membership record (which seems overkill), and (3) ignoring them (which seems unkind). As others have said, I suggest giving the clerk the means to do change privacy or visibility settings on behalf of members who are unable or unwilling to do them themselves. In the meantime, it looks like I will, regrettably, be deleting someone's email address from their record.

[davesudweeks]

I'm a ward clerk searching for a solution in 2024 and found this thread. Less active member wants to unsubscribe from ward newsletter and other emails. My choices appear to be (1) walk them through the process of changing settings to their Church account themself (which at this time in their life they're not going to be super receptive to), (2) deleting their email address from their membership record (which seems overkill), and (3) ignoring them (which seems unkind). As others have said, I suggest giving the clerk the means to do change privacy or visibility settings on behalf of members who are unable or unwilling to do them themselves. In the meantime, it looks like I will, regrettably, be deleting someone's email address from their record.

With all due respect, you forgot option 4 (which was the only option available before the unsubscribe process was developed): Communicate their wishes to ward and stake Leaders who should manually uncheck their name from email blasts to the ward/stake before hitting the send button. And yes, it does require them to take a few minutes in their busy schedule to be kind and uncheck a few people from the list.

I know some will disagree, but in my opinion, the sender has an obligation to honor privacy wishes of recipients who don't want communication, especially communication they did not request. I believe that people have a right to be left alone without having to cancel their church membership. I know someone from a prior ward who wanted to remain a member but communication from the church made it very difficult for them due to an antagonistic nonmember spouse. In that ward, we had to consider their individual situation when communicating and ministering, but isn't that what the Savior would do? When I would send out email blasts, I would uncheck the names of a few individuals I knew disliked communication before hitting the send button - it is neither difficult nor time consuming. It also helps avoid causing disaffected members to mark the emails as spam.

I suspect the church is already aware of this, but there are 2 ways to get your suggestion into the hands of those who direct the developer's priorities:
1. Provide feedback from the Send a Message page (or any church webpage, for that matter). You can provide the link to your forum post if you don't want to retype the reasoning for the request.
2. Ask your stake president to bring the problem up in the correlation council he is a member of (with his general authority).

[BrianEdwards]

My choices appear to be (1) walk them through the process of changing settings to their Church account themself (which at this time in their life they're not going to be super receptive to)

I would hope that if a ward clerk offers to sit with the member and do the process together, most members would be grateful for this. I don't think there's any issues if a clerk sits with the member, and the clerk does everything with the member present and watching, except enter the password to log into the account. And then the member watches as the clerk logs out of their Church account. In any ward there will be a limited number of members in this situation, and it's a one-time effort to help each member get their settings updated with what they prefer.

If the member isn't receptive to changing their settings themselves, and would be okay if the Church had a process where the clerk could just do it for them, then the above suggestion seems to effectively accomplish that. Not as efficient as one might want, but perhaps sufficient for the member in question. There's always situations where a member comes to a leader with their Tools app and says "help, I can't figure something out", and the leader gets onto the members phone and with a couple of clicks gets it fixed. And if a home visit is needed to resolve something, then that's a great ministering opportunity.

[mevans]

Some of the less-active church members may not even have a Church account or if they do have one, may not remember the credentials and going through the recovery process with them might not be fun. Clerks might receive email addresses for people from organization leaders and update records without those individuals ever having created a Church account. It would be nice if a very limited set of individuals (such as Bishop, Stake President and maybe Ward Clerk and Stake Clerk) could update a member's communication preferences. Or, if the church is concerned about errant enrollment in communications by these individuals, let these individuals call the global service desk and let the service desk people make the changes. Then, at least a trained person is asking the leader why the change is being made.

[BrianEdwards]

Some of the less-active church members may not even have a Church account or if they do have one, may not remember the credentials and going through the recovery process with them might not be fun. Clerks might receive email addresses for people from organization leaders and update records without those individuals ever having created a Church account. It would be nice if a very limited set of individuals (such as Bishop, Stake President and maybe Ward Clerk and Stake Clerk) could update a member's communication preferences. Or, if the church is concerned about errant enrollment in communications by these individuals, let these individuals call the global service desk and let the service desk people make the changes. Then, at least a trained person is asking the leader why the change is being made.

Agreed! Hopefully feedback helps push something like that along, while in the meantime we continue with our workarounds.

[eblood66]

I'm a ward clerk searching for a solution in 2024 and found this thread. Less active member wants to unsubscribe from ward newsletter and other emails. My choices appear to be (1) walk them through the process of changing settings to their Church account themself (which at this time in their life they're not going to be super receptive to), (2) deleting their email address from their membership record (which seems overkill), and (3) ignoring them (which seems unkind). As others have said, I suggest giving the clerk the means to do change privacy or visibility settings on behalf of members who are unable or unwilling to do them themselves. In the meantime, it looks like I will, regrettably, be deleting someone's email address from their record.

If the member receives an email sent through LCR, there is an Unsubscribe link at the bottom which they can click and then unselect which categories of email they don't want to receive (Local Leader Email for ward level messages). It takes like 3 clicks and shouldn't be hard to tell them how to do it.