Is it time to take your nonprofit's communication to the next level? Email marketing can save you time and money while building stronger relationships with your donors and bringing in more of those all-important donations. Read on to discover why your organization needs to focus on email marketing, which types of emails to send, and some powerful platforms to help you create more donor momentum.
A solid email marketing strategy is an essential part of building a reliable, revenue-generating fundraising department. Your nonprofit has varied needs, from creating automated welcome emails to perfecting one-time appeals for events like Giving Tuesday. The right email marketing platform will make it easier to show donors gratitude, grow your supporter base, and streamline consistent and exciting engagement.
In this article, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about email marketing for your nonprofit, including types of emails you need to send and some platforms that are designed to help your email marketing shine.
When your nonprofit invests in email marketing, you’ll see tons of benefits that relate to something every savvy fundraiser should be obsessed with: saving money and increasing overall giving.
We know that nonprofit organizations operate with extremely tight budgets, and the resources at your disposal are often sparse. How much money did you spend on your last mailed appeal? How much time did you spend stuffing envelopes?
This is where email marketing saves you time and money! Many excellent email marketing platforms are free or very affordable. If you’re considering a platform that comes at a cost, rest easy knowing that the small monthly or annual fee you’ll pay will free you up to focus on writing, designing, and scheduling incredible campaigns.
What’s even better? Email marketing saves money while making money. In other words, it’s got a high return on investment. Studies show that frequent, consistent communication with online donors results in a 41.5% increase in revenue.
Bonus: Listen to Cara Augspurger talk about email marketing, the cost-effective way to build awareness of your cause in Episode 21 of The Nonprofit Podcast.
We all wish we could have more face-to-face meetings with our donors. The unfortunate truth is that donor meetings take a significant investment of time – and your donors aren’t always interested in or available for an in-person meeting.
Email marketing allows your nonprofit to connect with your supporters in one click. Plus, there are so many creative ways to personalize your emails! Use variables to set up campaigns that address your supporters by name. And, with careful segmentation, your donors can receive communication about the topics, programs, and news that genuinely interest them. Remember to include a strong call to action that motivates donors to give.
Email marketing and online giving go hand in hand. With one click, your donors are directed to your donation page. Email marketing reaches donors where they’re most accessible – their inboxes – and gives them an easy and efficient way to support their favorite causes. Plus, it saves donors the hassle of sending checks, cash, or money orders to their favorite nonprofit.
Reports show that 54% of donors worldwide prefer to give online in 2024. As we continue to move into a more digital world, this number is likely to grow significantly in the coming years.
Now you know why email marketing is critical and how it can serve your organization – but how do you decide which type of emails to send?
Newsletters are one of the best ways to update and educate your supporters, raise awareness for your cause, and highlight important updates like impact stories, statistics, and more. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to highlight particular volunteers, donors, and staff for their hard work.
The best newsletters are simple, well-structured, and consistent in how they’re formatted and branded. Create a schedule so your newsletters are sent at the same every month and your donors know when they’ll hear from you next.
By setting up an automated email series, you’ll save time and engage with your donors without having to think about it.
For example, a three-part welcome series for new subscribers is a great way to introduce your nonprofit’s mission, programs, impact, and ways to engage. Likewise, a multi-part gratitude series for donors who reach certain giving milestones is another great way to show donors that you’re paying attention and grateful for their support.
Whether you’re sending an email for an annual, end-of-year appeal, holiday gala, special circumstance (e.g. disaster relief), or a Giving Tuesday campaign, include a fundraising goal so you and your donors know what you’re trying to accomplish.
Include countdowns and updates on amounts raised so far through your campaign. This is a great motivator for donors who may still be undecided about whether or not to give to an appeal. Emphasize the urgency, reference a beneficiary waitlist (e.g. “the number of families still in need this holiday season”), or include a personalized or emotionally moving video.
Need more guidance? Learn how to write fundraising emails and start sending your fundraising campaigns like a pro.
Your supporters are more than donors – they’re people who believe in the value of your cause. This is why stewardship is so important. Think about it this way: if your friend kept asking you for money but gave you nothing in return, would you feel inspired to help them again? A simple but effective way to avoid donor burnout is by writing and sending thank-you emails.
Deciding what to include in your thank-you emails doesn’t need to take up too much time. Some of the most compelling content you could share, you already have access to; consider data like recent donation statistics and impact stories. Donors love to see that their gifts are being put to great use and this can inspire them to give again.
Ensure you have a solid mailing list before diving into creating campaigns. This will help you maximize your return on the time you put into your email marketing strategy.
Lead magnets are a fantastic way to incentivize new supporters to sign up for your mailing list. This is essentially a gated ‘free’ gift or value add you create that your target audience can only access once they have signed up to your list. For example, let’s say your nonprofit supports children’s mental health and many of your donors are worried mothers. Your lead magnet could be a list of key signs that a child is experiencing depression.
You can also build your list by asking for emails as often as possible. Bring an email sign-up list to every event you host, add a check box to your donation form encouraging donors to sign up, and include a link on all your social media platforms.
The first touch point a new subscriber has with your organization shouldn’t be a donation request. Give them a chance to get to know your organization first by designing a personalized welcome email series. You can include everything from your mission and values statements to introductions to your programs and staff members and even stories about your organization’s impact.
Remember to space these emails out! You don’t want your new supporters to feel so overwhelmed by communication that they end up unsubscribing!
Consent is critical when building your mailing list. Contacting people who may not be invested in your cause will lead to low engagement rates – and it’s also potentially against the law. This could breach data protection laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation. If in violation of GDPR, you could face fines ranging from 2% – 4% of your revenue.
Also, supporters who don’t want to receive your emails might mark them as spam, harming the deliverability of your email marketing campaigns (i.e., whether they end up in the inbox or junk mail folders).
To ensure you’re compliant, check the language used on your website and opt-in forms and always include an option to unsubscribe in all campaigns you send.
One size definitely doesn’t fit all. This is why it’s vital to segment your mailing list and send out communication tailored to your donor’s unique interests, location, giving history, or programs they’ve supported in the past. If you’re an animal rescue nonprofit with some donors who are interested in cats and some in dogs, create two segments, sending more dog or cat-focused emails based on the segment.
Most email platforms allow you to segment your lists, making it easy to create and send targeted emails to multiple groups. To gather your donors’ preferences, design an opt-in page that asks your donor’s leading questions about those preferences! Send out a survey to existing subscribers asking for their opinions on your emails and which topics have resonated with them the most.
Most email marketing platforms have a set of templates or “drag and drop” design features that make it easy to create emails that boost your engagement rates.
However, there’s more to consider than just the design and content of the email itself. Make your subject lines concise so that as many characters as possible can be seen from both desktop and mobile devices. Your messages should be eye-catching and include enough spacing, breaks in text, images, and buttons with links.
Bonus Resource: Watch this webinar to learn how to create effective segmented email campaigns that resonate with your diverse donor base, ensuring your messages inspire action and foster long-term relationships.
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Metrics and data insights are critical for creating an effective email marketing strategy.
Many email marketing platforms provide metrics on open rates (the percentage of supporters that opened your email), click rates (the percentage of supporters that clicked one or more of the links in your email), the amount of time a supporter spends looking at your email, and the most common days and times your supporters are opening emails.
For example, your analytics might tell you that older donors click through emails on Thursdays at 11 AM, while younger donors do so on Tuesdays at 9 AM. This would be a great opportunity to segment your mailing list and contact these different groups of supporters on different days and times.
With Donorbox Email Marketing, your nonprofit can work smarter, create more meaningful donor communication, and increase your impact.
By leveraging advanced segmentation, customization tools, and hyper-personalization, our Email Marketing platform gives you everything you need to reach the right supporter at the right time!
Features: Your nonprofit needs powerful tools that allow you to connect authentically with your supporters. Donorbox Email Marketing has a powerful suite of features that simplifies creating messaging that works hard to amplify your mission and highlight your impact. Plus, you can manage it all directly from within the Donorbox CRM ecosystem.
Learn more about all Donorbox CRM has to offer in this blog.
Pricing: The Email Marketing Beta is available to Donorbox CRM users. Apply for Beta access on the Beta onboarding page in your CRM account. Not using Donorbox CRM yet? Contact sales to learn more or sign up for a 14-day free trial through the CRM onboarding page.
Sign Up for the Email Marketing Beta!
Mailchimp is a well-established choice for email marketing across multiple sectors.
Features: Their platform has powerful automation features, targeting tools that allow you to focus on donor behavior and preferences, and the ability to schedule email campaigns according to different time zones. Their free plan comes with limited access to analytics and 30 days of email support. Another limitation of the free and Essential Plan is that segmentation is gated to 1 to 3 audiences. If your organization needs unlimited segmentation options, you would need to sign up for the Premium Plan.
Pricing: Nonprofits receive a 15% discount. Free, Essential, Standard, and Premium marketing plans range from $0 – $350 per month.
Donorbox integrates with Mailchimp, making communicating and sending personalized emails to your donors seamless.
Campaign Monitor helps you connect with your audience through straightforward email marketing and automation tools.
Features: They offer professionally designed email templates, the ability to customize every aspect of your email marketing strategy, targeted emails thanks to strong segmentation tools, visual journey designer, automated emails and workflow triggers, numerous integration options, analytics, and more.
Pricing: Nonprofits receive a 15% discount. Basic, Unlimited, and Premier pricing packages range from $12 to $159 per month.
Email Octopus offers nonprofit organizations a simple yet powerful platform to help you grow your mission.
Features: Their free email templates allow you to create campaigns that are responsive on any device, drip email sequences, the ability to import existing contacts, customized reports, form integration, targeted email campaigns, and more.
Pricing: The starter plan is $0 per month and the pro plan is $9 per month. Email Octopus also offers a 20% discount to registered nonprofits.
Flodesk is a relatively new email marketing platform focused on helping businesses and nonprofits of all sizes grow their databases.
Features: Unlike other email marketing platforms, Flodesk doesn’t work with tiers or contact limits. Their transparent pricing model paired with modern templates and a drag-and-drop email builder means you’re getting a platform that’s affordable, easy to use, and ready to scale with your organization. In addition to their sleek templates, Flodesk also offers users streamlined workflows, dynamic forms, and connections to more than 3,000 apps through Zapier.
Pricing: Nonprofits receive a 50% discount and a 30-day free trial. The monthly subscription fees are $0 – $35 per month.
Benchmark offers users powerful, easy-to-use tools that are streamlined for organizational growth.
Features: Their AI-powered drag-and-drop email builder, HTML editor, RSS emails, photo editing, pre-built email templates, and color customization allow users to ensure their campaigns are fully aligned with their brand. Plus, with additional features like A/B testing, marketing automation, list building, landing pages, insights, reporting, and integration with more than 1,500 services, Benchmarch is a strong choice for nonprofits looking for a robust email marketing platform.
Pricing: Priced between $0 – $13, Benchmark is an affordable option. Their custom Enterprize plan is perfect for organizations that need more than their free or Pro Plan offers.
By using data and statistics, you can not only highlight your organization’s impact, but also communicate the need that exists in your various programs and with your beneficiaries. These figures are powerful tools that grab your donors’ attention while creating an immediate emotional connection with your cause.
Emails like the one above from the World Wild Life Fund are a great way to educate and inspire your supporters. Try including statistics and figures in both your subject lines and in the body of your email. Don’t forget to add variables – they help personalize your messaging and there’s nothing better than recieveing a mail addressed directly to you.
We all love a freebie and your donors are no exception! Creating a strong incentive campaign can help boost donations, bring in new donors, and foster a deeper connection with your supporters. Incentives are also a great way to ensure donors feel appreciated and recognized for the support they offer your organization.
Take a look at this example from the Human Rights Campaign. Their bold, enticing banner offers a great incentive – a “free” T-shirt for donors who give $15 or more. This campaign emphasizes the urgency of the appeal by adding a time limit on the opportunity. T-shirts are only available to donors who give on this specific day.
We mentioned it earlier in this blog post, but it bears repeating: stewardship is one of the most important parts of fundraising. Your donors want to feel appreciated! They want to feel like their contribution matters to you and your mission. It’s one of the key steps in ensuring repeat donations.
This example from LoveYourBrain gives us a great view of stewardship in action. Their email includes a large, inviting photo, placed in a prominent position “above the fold.” They’ve also highlighted a key fact donors will care about – their Giving Tuesday campaign goal of $60,000 was surpassed. In addition, they go on to explain how the money will be used to uplift the lives of their beneficiaries.
Donors are more likely to give to a cause highlighting a single individual rather than a large group of people. The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation is one such organization sharing heart-warming stories of individual children in need in its email campaigns.
When your nonprofit storytelling focuses on one beneficiary, it creates a strong and meaningful connection between your organization, your donors, and the impact of their support. This connection can help create a sense of urgency during appeals because it illustrates a very tangible link between your mission and the help your donor is able to provide.
The next time you write a one-time email to a donor or multiple donors, stop and reconsider. Are you using your time wisely? Is there a way to reach larger audiences while saving time and increasing your donation rates?
The energy and costs associated with investing in a great email marketing strategy are more than worth it. A solid email marketing strategy could be the difference between a mediocre and absolutely booming fundraising campaign. When you invest in a great email marketing platform, you’re investing in your nonprofit and your donors!
Donorbox is a leading fundraising platform that offers nonprofits like yours powerful tools designed to make fundraising easier and more rewarding. From our AI-driven CRM that contains dynamic tools like our Email Marketing platform, advanced segmentation, and more, to our purpose-built fundraising and events software – we’ve got you covered. Find out more about our features here.
Don’t forget to visit our Nonprofit Blog for more tips and ideas to elevate your fundraising!
Raviraj heads the sales and marketing team at Donorbox. His growth-hacking abilities have helped Donorbox boost fundraising efforts for thousands of nonprofit organizations.
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