Types of Stories
A story is a page of content on your site. Before creating a new story, you must first decide what type of story you want to create. This is an important decision because a story's type determines what the page will look like and (for forms) how it will behave.
What story types are available are specific to your organization. The two most common story types are:
- Article. The simplest story type, articles most often contain text, images, and video clips.
- Subscribe Form. The simplest form story type, a subscribe form captures a user's email address and any other fields you want. Like any other form on your site, people who fill out a subscribe form are automatically opted in to your master list.
There are a lot of great story types to choose from, though! Common types include:
Basic (Non-Form) Content
- Homepage
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Because the homepage of your website is often more complex than interior pages, it gets a story type all of its own.
- Section Cover
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Because the landing pages for the main sections of your website are often more complex than pages deeper into the site, they get a story type all of their own.
- Archive
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An autogenerated landing page that lists links to all the content in a section of your site, such as your blog or news
- Article
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The most basic and common story type, articles most often contain headings, paragraphs of text, images, and video clips.
- News Clipping
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Want to highlight on your site news from other sources? A News Clipping lets you specify the source, author, a link to the full text, and whether a subscription is required to read the full text.
- Photo Gallery
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Displays a category of images as a simple slideshow
- Include
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Unlike other stories, an include is actually not a full page of content but a snippet of content that is used on another page of content. You probably won't ever need to create one of these on your own.
- Open Format Article
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A page of arbitrary HTML. You can use any HTML tags whatsoever on this page, but discretion is advised because it is possible to "break" the design of the page.
Fundraising Forms
- Contribution Form
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A one-page form that lets your supporters make a one-time or recurring contribution
- Contribution Form (Itemized)
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A two-page form that lets supporters make a contribution broken out among several different recipients. You can use these forms to let donors split their gift among different projects or candidates. You can also use this form to let people registering for an event purchase multiple tickets and sponsorship levels.
- Membership Form
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A two-page form that lets a supporter purchase a membership for himself or another person
- Community Contribution Dashboard & Community Contribution Form
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Lets your supporters create community fundraising pages — personal contribution forms on your site through which they will encourage their friends to donate to your organization.
The Dashboard lets you control the dashboard a person sees when setting up their own fundraising page.
The Form story is the basic contribution form that community fundraising participants will customize.
Advocacy Forms
- Subscribe Form
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The most basic and common form, a subscribe form captures a user's email address and any other fields you want. Like any other form on your site, people who fill out a subscribe form are automatically opted in to your master list.
Of course, you can use a subscribe form when you want people to sign up for breaking updates or your monthly newsletter — but you can also use a subscribe form in lots of other creative ways, like:
- "Show Your Support For..." or "I Pledge To..." campaigns
- "Tell Us Your Story" campaigns
- Surveys
- Petition Form
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While we call this a "petition" it doesn't have to be a formal petition addressed to an elected official. It simply lets people sign their names in a show of support — and it can be a very effective way to grow your list.
- Tell A Friend Form
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Lets your supporters send their friends an email message with information about your organization, a personal message (optional), and a link to your website
- Volunteer Form
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Lets your supporters volunteer to help your organization. You can give any number of specific options for the volunteer to choose from.
- Letter to the Editor Form
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Lets your supporters send a letter to local or national newspapers
- Contact Elected Official Form
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Lets your supporters look up contact information for their state and/or national elected officials, review talking points you provide them with, and either write to their elected officials or call them and submit feedback on how the call went
- Call Talk Radio Form
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Lets your supporters look up call-in information for talk radio programs, review talking points you provide them with, and submit feedback on how the call went
Registration & Login Forms
- Register Form
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Lets your supporters choose a password and create an account on your website
- Confirmation Form
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After choosing a password, a person who registers on your site is sent an email with a link he must click to confirm his account. The confirmation form is the page he will come to after clicking that link.
- Forgot Password
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Lets a registered member request that a reset-password link be emailed to him
- Login Form
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Lets users log in to your website
- Profile Manager
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Lets a registered member edit his profile, manage his subscriptions, change his password and (for recurring donors) update his credit card information for monthly giving
- Community Journal
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Lets your supporters create a "journal" and post original content on your website
Other Forms
- Contact Us Form
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Lets a user send a message to your organization. The recipient can be any email address or a comma-separated list of email addresses.
- Optout Form
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Lets a member of your list change what subscription lists he is part of or opt out of all email communication from your organization
- Search Form
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Lets your users perform a keyword search of your website
Events
Want to display a searchable list of upcoming events on your website and let visitors submit their own events or RSVP? An Event Listing story is the way to go.
- Event Listing
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An event listing may be used to do any or all of the following: display a searchable list of events, let visitors add/event event listings (which can go live immediately or be held for approval), and let visitors RSVP to events.
The following story types are available, but deprecated. For questions, please contact your Plus Three account manager.
- Event
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An event
- Event Archive
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An autogenerated list of upcoming events
- Event Search Form
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Lets your users search upcoming events by date, keyword, etc.
Jobs
Want to display a list of job openings on your website?
- Job
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A job listing
- Job Search Form
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Lets your users search job openings by keyword, etc.
Less Common Types
- Directory Listing
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Used in conjunction with Directories
- Mini Subscribe Form
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Deprecated; use a Subscribe Form instead
- Podcast
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Deprecated
- Popup Video
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Deprecated
- Redirect
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Automatically forwards a user from one URL to another. This can be helpful if a page on your site has recently moved but you don't want the old link to break. It's also helpful if you want to give people a short, easy-to-remember URL that forwards them on to a page that has a longer URL.
- RSS Feed
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Lets you publish an RSS feed of content from your website. Your supporters can subscribe to your RSS feed or display it on their website or blog.
- Site Map
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A site map with all the pages and stories on the site