> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rescueconsole.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Mailchimp

> Send your people to a Mailchimp audience, with their roles as tags, and bring unsubscribes back.

Mailchimp is written, not read. Your people go **out** to one Mailchimp audience on a schedule. Their audience is something you fill, not a person record you want back.

One thing does come back: anybody who unsubscribes in Mailchimp is added to your suppression list here on the next send.

## What goes

First name and last name go as **FNAME** and **LNAME**, and each person's roles here go as **tags**, so you can build segments in Mailchimp for adopters, donors, volunteers and fosters.

Everybody with an email address goes, unless they have opted out of your communications or their address is on your suppression list.

<Note>
  Mailchimp emails each new person to ask them to confirm, and only the ones who agree are subscribed. That is their doing, not ours, and it is why a send of two hundred people does not become two hundred subscribers.
</Note>

## What you need

* A Mailchimp **API key**. Their key carries its own data centre in its suffix, so there is nothing else to discover and no app to install.
* Your **Audience ID**. In Mailchimp, open **Audience**, then **Settings**, then **Audience name and defaults**. It is listed there, and looks like `a1b2c3d4e5`.

## Set it up

<Steps>
  <Step title="Get a key from Mailchimp">
    In Mailchimp, open your **Account**, then **Extras**, then **API keys**, and create one.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add the integration">
    In RescueConsole, open **Settings → Advanced & security → Integrations**, find **Mailchimp** under *CRM and marketing*, and add it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Enter the key and the audience">
    Paste the **API key** and type the **Audience ID**, then press **Save it**. The key is stored and never shown again.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Confirm you may send these people">
    RescueConsole asks you to confirm that the people you are about to send have agreed to hear from you. Read it: it is your obligation, not ours.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Turn people on, going out">
    Under **Which way** choose **Out**, tick **People** under **What to sync**, choose **How often**, and **Save**.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  Sends go **at most hourly**. Each one works through your people a page at a time and brings unsubscribes back, and Mailchimp allows only ten simultaneous connections. An hour is plenty for an audience.
</Note>