Novi AMS gives your organization all of the necessary tools to comply with the CAN-SPAM act; however, it is ultimately your association's responsibility to ensure compliance. We recommend that organizations confer with the appropriate legal counsel to ensure their business practices and software settings comply with this law and other laws and regulations that may apply.
Two Types of Emails
Emails sent from Novi or sent to members in your Novi database can be categorized as transactional or marketing.
Transactional emails are one-time emails sent to people or organizations with whom your organization has a relationship. They're also expected based on the business that is being conducted.
Marketing emails take the form of a campaign and are generally one of many. According to the CAN-SPAM act, there is a much higher duty of care when sending marketing emails since they are generally trying to "sell" something.
Transactional Emails
Novi AMS. Account signup and password emails along with confirmation and one-time reminder emails are sent by Novi AMS via SendGrid. These messages come "from" the association.
QuickBooks. All transactions, whether created in QuickBooks or by Novi AMS, are sent by QuickBooks Online. These messages come "from" QuickBooks.
Marketing Emails
An opt out process is provided for each of the following ways that marketing messages can be sent. Your organization may or may not be setup to use one or more of the following.
MailChimp
Constant Contact
Member to Member
Of Note - One-Off Emails
Novi AMS also supports one-off emails to individual members. While Novi makes the process easy by opening up an email window, the emails are sent through your personal email account.
Some Resources for Educational Purposes Only:
5 CAN-SPAM Myths & Best Practices
MythCAN-SPAM applies to all types of email you send.
Myth: Each SPAM email you send has a penalty of $16,000/email.
Myth: That irritated recipient that gets your unwanted mail screams “I’m going to sue you for sending me SPAM!!!” Better lawyer up.
Myth: You must include an unsubscribe hyperlink in every email you send.
Myth: You can’t send an email to a list of email addresses that you purchased.
CAN-SPAM’s Main Requirements
Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.
Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.
Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.