What follows is based on what we set up for LWV Pasadena, and so the language is written with them in mind (including how they store/manage their PDFs), as well as with the fact that a template already exists. If you are not LWV-PA, remember that you will also need to create your very first template.


How To Create The LWV Pasadena Newsletter


Gather the materials for the articles


The two big things you will need are the text of all the articles and the images that were used with the articles.


You will need to create web appropriate images for the articles. All images should be JPEG or PNG files at 72 dpi. Vertical images should probably be about 250 pixels wide. Horizontal images should probably be about 800 pixels wide.


Create all articles on MyLO


Create a new article on MyLO for the first article in newsletter. The title should probably be something like "The Voter, Oct '19 - Article Name." By including "The Voter" at head and the Month and Year, it'll be easier to find all of the articles for that issue when compiling the summary page.


The Type of article can be left as "News." (Though if it is a Member Spotlight or something else, then it will benefit you to switch it!)


If you have a big main image for the article, add it with the "Main Image" button. It will appear at the top of your article. Remember this will work best with horizontal images about 800 pixels wide.


Paste your text from the newsletter article to the "Body" field using the regular styling that you would for other posts on MyLO. Inline images can be added with the image icon.


Once your article looks the way you want, you can publish it. Repeat the process for the next article in the newsletter.


Clone and archive the summary page


Go to The Voter Newsletter summary page here:


https://my.lwv.org/california/pasadena/voter-newsletter


Clone the existing page for the archive by clicking on the "Clone this page" link. On the new draft page, make sure that you rename the Title of the cloned page to the appropriate issue of The Voter Newsletter.


For example, if you are creating the October 2019 issue of "The Voter," you will be cloning and archiving the September 2019 issue. So the title should be changed to something like "The Voter - vol 81, no 2 - September 2019."


Publish the cloned article.


Update the summary page to the new issue


Go back to the The Voter Newsletter summary page here:


https://my.lwv.org/california/pasadena/voter-newsletter


Make a new draft of the page by clicking the "New draft" button.


Change the text of the summary page to the appropriate material for the new issue.


  1. Update the Volume, Number and Date to the current issue.
  2. Change the name of the 3 main articles to the new articles.
  3. Change the summary of the 3 main articles to the first paragraph text of the new articles.
  4. Change the links on the 3 "Read More" buttons to the URLs of the new articles.
  5. Update the "And the Rest..." section with the names of the new articles from the current newsletter. Make sure to change the links to the new URLs.
  6. Update the summary text at the bottom of the page to the latest information.
  7. Change the link to the PDF version of the newsletter to the latest PDF on Google Drive.


Once everything looks and behaves the way you want it to, publish the new version of the newsletter summary page.


Create a new newsletter email in MailChimp


Login to your account on https://mailchimp.com


From your landing page, there are the main categories listed in the top menubar. 


Upload new images


You should hopefully have 3 nice images to go with the 3 main article. You will need to upload them to MailChimp. You could use the 250 pixel wide images from MyLO but you might find the email newsletter works better with 150 pixel wide images.


Click "Content Studio" from the menubar at the top of the MailChimp website.


Click "Upload" in the upper right corner and selected your first image. Repeat for the others.


Start a new newsletter email


Click "Campaigns" from the menubar at the top of the MailChimp website.


Click the "Create Campaign" button in the upper right corner.


Select "Email" from the list on the left.


Give the email a "Campaign Name". This should be the name of the email newsletter, probably something like this: "The Voter - vol 81, no 3 - October 2019." Click "Begin."


In the "To" section, click "Add Recipients" and select your mailing list.


In the "From" section, click "Add From" and fill in the "Name" and "Email." The name should probably be "LWV Pasadena" or something similar and the email should be an appropriate address like "office@lwv-pa.org."


In the "Subject" section, click "Add Subject" and give the email a good subject like "The Voter Newsletter, October 2019." You can add Preview Text if you wish.


In the "Content" section, click "Design Email."


Design the email newsletter


On the "Select a template" page, click the "Saved templates" tab.


Click the image for "The Voter Newsletter Template."


Now you just have to fill in the specifics for this newsletter email. It will basically be the same thing you did when you created the Newsletter Summary page in MyLO.


  1. Update the Volume, Number, Month and Year to the appropriate information.
  2. Hover over Article 1 and click the Edit icon (pencil and paper).
  3. Change the Article Title and Summary Text to the current Title and Summary in the panel on the right.
  4. Click the grey "Save & Close" button in the panel on the right.
  5. Hover over the blue "Read More" button and click the Edit Icon (pencil and paper).
  6. Change the "Web Address" to the proper URL for the article on MyLO.
  7. Click the grey "Save & Close" button in the panel on the right.
  8. Repeat steps 2 through 7 for the other two articles. Adding or changing images as appropriate with the Icon in the edit pane on the right.
  9. Hover over "And the Rest" and click the Edit icon (pencil and paper).
  10. Change the article titles for the remaining articles in the newsletter. Remember to add links back to the appropriate pages on MyLO.
  11. Click the grey "Save & Close" button in the panel on the right.


Once you newsletter looks the way you want it to, click the blue "Save & Close" button in the lower right corner.


Send your email newsletter


From the campaign screen for your current email newsletter, click on the blue "Send" button in the upper right corner to send it out to your mailing list.