New here.... and don't even know where to post my question....

Hi, everyone.

i head a small non profit in upstate NY... Sample Soap.  The only charity in Rochester, NY, that won't take your money.  we only want toiletries you don't want.

Tech Soup is just terrific.... and i need a tech answer.

the problem is that i don't have a vocabulary for it... so i don't know where to post my question.

i need a distribution list for my volunteers.

just like distribution lists in yahoo groups or google groups.

you know, so you type in an email address... and your email goes to everyone in the group.

but... wait for it....

some of my volunteers are in corporations that block google groups and yahoo.

and some of my volunteers don't want to go to the trouble of joining yahoo or google.

so...  how can i do this?

i called my domain manager, go daddy, and they don't offer this service.

and i've tried searching on the web.

if i knew someone with a server, perhaps s/he could set this up & give me password access to only that area.  but i don't know anyone.

here's the question:

- what are the tech terms to describe my need?

- where on the tech soup forums would i post this question?

sorry for being a tech dummy.

and thanks!

Hi Sibber. I am also in Rochester, NY!

As for your question, sending the email from a domain that is DIFFERENT than your reply-to address will often get you blacklisted, and as a matter of fact, many domain hosts will not allow you to send email OUT that way. So, finding another person or orgnaization that is willing to send the email out on your behalf may not be the answer here.

I am sure others will chime in with their experiences in this area. In the meantime I will see what else I can uncover.

Hey, Tim.

Thanks for the fast reply.

Rochester is such a tiny town, i'm kind of surprised we've never met!

But i bet we have at least a handful of folks in common.

i didn't understand the black listed part of your message.

there's a sample soap DL at Xerox, where i used to work.  it only has Xerox folks on it. - i'm not on it.

but i can send messages to that DL from my earthlink mail account.

someone mentioned majordomo & major cool as possible solutions.  but i fear they are beyond my knowledge.

if you think of anything, please let me know.

and thanks again!

For my non profit I have setup and use the Google for your domain service, http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/nonprofit/index.html.

With that my users have an amazing email solution and I can also setup distribution lists for our auction.  So I have an email address, auction@angleorum.org that goes to 25 people and anyone can send email to that address and it goes to everyone on the list.  Google offers a very nice interface for managing the list and it works without any issues.

I am happy to help if you want to go down this route. 

Kevin Mullins

As a follow up note, the people on the distribution list do not need to have an email address on the Google for Domains account that is just the service I use for email on my domain and a service that they offer is distribution lists.

Google may have a good solution, but my other choices would be to use Mailman if your hosting provider offers it and I don't think Godaddy does (big surprise). Godaddy does have a mailing list service, which is what you want, but you may not need that either.

If you list is not too big and you don't need the automated features of Mailman (like Major Domo) then you can just create some "email forwards" under your account at Godaddy. You will have to add and delete people, but if your list is small this may be the easiest thing for you.

For your distribution list, are you looking to create something where everyone and anyone can send a message to groupname@yourdomain.com and it will go to all of your volunteers? or are you looking for something more like an announcement list where only you or a few people hold the keys to be able to send out a message to the whole group (but they won't be replying to the entire group themselves)?

Sibber, I think I worked with you back in the Xerox inkjet days...

Anyway, Yahoo groups might still be a viable option here. People can add and remove themselves, or choose what sort of distribution of messages they wish tor receive. But more specific to your point, they can actively visit the site to view the messages. This way the blocked email is not as much of an issue.

Of course, I have received my share of spam through the group list, but if your volume is low I believe you can have the list admin "approve" messages before they go out.

Although not really a solution to the email needs, you might consider something like a FaceBook presence, too. People can "friend" your organization and follow you that way.

Kevin - thanks so much for the pointer to google apps.

I saw that it's free if you have a few number of people.

and it looks like i can use my current domain, even though it's not a google-based domain.

this looks good!

thanks again.

sibber

Hi, Tim.

Yahoo is a great idea... i've used their groups before.  but i have folks that either don't want to join, or whose corporate servers block it.

and facebook is good... we use it.... but tough to email attachments.

i'm going to look at google apps.... it just might be my answer!

thanks again!

sibber

Hi, jdn.

I'm looking for the first option...

something where everyone & anyone can send a message to groupname@yourdomain.com and it will go to all members of the dl.

any & all suggestions are welcome!

thanks, sibber

Hi, Christian.

go daddy hosts our domains.  so the first thing i did was contact them & ask if they had a DL application.  they didn't!.  wow.

i don't know if they are compatible with Mailman.  i have no experience with it.  I was thinking of majorcool... but don't know if go daddy works with it.  i'll have to look into that.

i'm not following your suggestion on "email forwards" with go daddy.  could you please elaborate?  sorry to be dense.

and do you have any experience with google apps?  it's starting to look like the most straight-forward approach!

thanks for your help!

sibber

Godaddy has a mailing list system here. For 500 emails a month it's $8 a month.

That may work for you, but at that cost it may be worth getting a cheap hosting account just to use mailman or PHP list that will come with it. And you will be able to send many thousands of emails a month as well.

It may be possible to install Mailman or PHP list on your Godaddy hosting, and I would not be surprised if that would work, but it may not too.

An email forward is called an Email Forwarding Account at Godaddy. Unlike a regular email account, there is no mailbox. The forward address just sends the email to another address. In this way you can have one mailbox that will receive emails from many different email addresses. This page at Godaddy should explain how it works. And you can create one forward that sends to many email addresses.