Properly welcoming and onboarding your new members is so crucial to retaining them for years to come. If you aren't sure where to start, you've come to the right place! Read on to learn how to write the best letters to make your new members want to stick around.
![Write The Best Welcome Letter for New Members [2 Free Samples]](https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/New-Design-2022-blog-images-4-1-1.png)
Members are a necessary asset for your nonprofit. These donors provide reliable funds for your programs and share your nonprofit’s mission with their friends and family. With every one of them coming in, you’re slowly building a loyal supporter base for your organization. With this in mind, you’ll want to write a membership welcome letter that conveys your excitement and gratitude.
So, how do you write a welcome letter of membership? This article provides 11 tips for the best welcome letter for your members, free samples, and more!
How do you feel when you walk into a friend’s home and they go out of their way to welcome you? That is how you must welcome new members from the start. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so how you welcome new members is vital to building and strengthening these new relationships.
A welcome letter or email is the best way to let them know they matter to your organization. You must start the conversation by sharing how important they are to the nonprofit. Find ways to make them feel desired and essential and share their gifts’ specific impacts on your beneficiaries.
New members may already have a connection with your organization, or this could be their first gift. Regardless of how long they’ve been with the nonprofit, your job is to inform them how grateful you are and how joining as a member has opened a new world of friendships and opportunities.
The worst thing you can do when sending a membership welcome letter is to end up in the spam folder. It doesn’t take much, but by including the person’s name, you can ensure your email doesn’t get lost. A simple “Welcome Finn! Thanks for joining (Nonprofit Name)” will start your welcome letter off on the right foot.
Personalizing your letter is an easy task when you’ve chosen the right membership tool for your organization. Donorbox automatically stores your members’ information in the tool. You can easily find members for a particular membership campaign by adding a filter to the “Supporters” list on the Donorbox dashboard. You can now check out each member’s record to personalize your letter.
Every communication piece you send to donors should fit your organization’s brand. You’ll want to include your nonprofit’s logo, color palette, and beneficiary images. You’ll also need to keep the content personal and professional.
You’re not selling anything with this membership welcome letter, so keep a casual tone that feels friendly and informative.
Admit it. Giving up any amount of money is difficult, and signing up for a monthly deduction from your checking account will leave new members concerned about their choice. The first thing your welcome letter should do is make the new member comfortable with their payment and excited about what their monthly gifts mean.
This is another area where you can add a touch of personalization. If your membership campaign has several membership tiers, the newly signed-up member has definitely chosen one. Your membership tool should have this information stored. When you send your welcome letter, explain their chosen tier and its detailed impact to make them feel good about their generosity.
Donorbox lets nonprofits add unlimited membership tiers to their membership campaign. Every membership payment gets attached to a particular tier and nonprofits can use this information to provide benefits and personalize their communications.
The below membership campaign example offers 3 membership tiers. Each tier is explained in the campaign description but mentioning them in the welcome letter will reassure new members and make them confident about their decision to support you.
One of the primary reasons members join a nonprofit is because of the mission. They may have already been impressed with your work and want to hear about the ways their gifts can make a difference. Real stories and testimonials from beneficiaries will go a long way in convincing them to continue their memberships.
Your welcome letter doesn’t need to have detailed updates and stories but you can definitely add testimonials and pictures to strengthen their trust in you.
Your nonprofit website is your business card. People know you have it but probably haven’t taken a deep look into all it offers. Since members have already shown interest in your organization, you must invite them to tour your website. Include links to pages that can help them find more on your programs, beneficiaries, impact reports, and outreach activities.
An excellent reason to become a member is the community you’re now a part of. Most nonprofits don’t consider including this as a benefit to membership, but connections with other people who share your passions are what many people are looking for in life.
Do you have a specific membership page on your website where you have listed members? Or do you have an upcoming event or dinner for all members? Add an invitation or link to your welcome letter to help them connect with each other.
Pro tip: It’s good practice to host a welcome event for new members on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be a grand event; you can invite new members and existing ones to help them interact and grow their passion for your cause. Include an invitation in your welcome letter to all new members, build a sense of community, and excite them right from the beginning.
Events are one of the best ways to connect with members, engage and excite them, and raise funds. Most nonprofits have at least one annual fundraising event. In your welcome letter, add an invitation to this event along with a special discount on event tickets. You may also want to add a free ticket for your new members. It all depends on your membership and event strategy.
Whatever your choice, Donorbox has you covered. Along with membership campaigns, we also let nonprofits create online events, sell tickets, and manage purchasers from the tool. Check out this online event-ticketing form below. This organization is offering a discounted membership ticket for the 3-day event to all its members. It’s a good idea to include a link to such an online event page in your welcome letter to encourage them to buy a ticket.
In another event example on Donorbox, the organization is offering free entries to their banquet event to all their members. The tickets are being used to raise money instead.
Nonprofit members are passionate about your organization’s mission and they might be looking for other benefits, information, or changes to your work.
When writing your membership welcome letter, let them know you’re open to their suggestions and feedback about your work. Invite them to an e-meet to learn more about them and why they joined your charity. Add any information you get from the conversation to your donor database. This will help cultivate these new relationships and offer better benefits to your members.
Donorbox lets you add any communication notes to its donor management system. You can select the direction (internal note, outbound, inbound) and channel (Email, letter, meeting, Facebook, and more) and add a note. This helps keep track of all your donor interactions.
Your membership welcome letter is not the time to start begging for a donation. These individuals have already signed on to give more than most. You can invite members to an upcoming event but use it as an opportunity to learn more about them and start forming personal relationships that will benefit the organization in the future.
Finally, don’t forget to thank them again for becoming a member. You can never thank them enough for choosing to give you a steady stream of funds to help keep working toward your mission. End the letter with a heartfelt thanks.
Before you send your membership welcome letter or email, be sure to proofread and make sure you’ve fixed any mistakes. Grammarly is an affordable option that nonprofits can use to ensure all communication pieces are error-free. You’ll also need to check all links to website pages, and social media accounts are correct.
Churches should send membership welcome letters to thank new members for joining the church and provide ways to connect with other members from the start.
Many members will give offerings or tithes during Sunday services, but the true role of a church member is to connect with other members and share God’s work with the community.
Your church’s welcome membership letter should focus on these relationships and provide concrete ways they can build an internal community.
Do not pressure new members to visit the church again. In your letter, add details on worship services and any upcoming events that should inspire them to do that instead. Avoid stretching it too much by including the church history. You can always add links to that information on the church website. Keep the letter concise and heartwarming. Make it all about gratitude, opportunities, and a new beginning.
We have included a free church welcome letter sample for you in the next section.
Donorbox gives you a free, downloadable sample to help you write your own nonprofit welcome letter for new members. Click here to download.
We’ve created a free sample of a church membership welcome letter that you can use as a template to write your own. Click here to download.
Membership welcome letters are an excellent way to start these relationships off right. Your new members want to feel appreciated and excited about how they can make a difference. You can share specific ways their membership impacts the organization and start building a relationship that will benefit the organization for years to come.
At Donorbox, we understand the importance of finding new members for a nonprofit and hence, we’ve written several articles on the Nonprofit Membership Program. Explore the rest of our blog for more tips, ideas, insights, guides, free checklists and templates, etc. to grow your nonprofit through fundraising and effective donor management.
Donorbox Memberships is being used by hundreds of organizations to build and run a powerful membership program online. Here’s a YouTube demo video to help you understand our feature better. But also, there are a plethora of other Donorbox features that have helped 80,000+ organizations raise over $1.6 billion in donations. Some of our most-loved features include Recurring Donations, Fundraising Pages, Crowdfunding, Text-to-Give, Peer-to-Peer, Events, QuickDonate, and Donor Management.
Donorbox has designed a success package to help nonprofits like yours bring in more donations and acquire more donors. It’s called Donorbox Premium. You get access to expert fundraising coaches who’ll ensure you meet your fundraising goals, a dedicated account ambassador to guide you throughout your fundraising journey, excellent tech support whenever you need it, and high-powered tools. Pricing is personalized for each organization. Book a demo today!
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Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor