Email Marketing for Charities and Nonprofits

Updated: Jun 4

Part 3 of The Ultimate Guide to Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits

Illustration of paper planes becoming emails flying from a laptop to a mobile phone

Email marketing is the backbone of most strong nonprofit digital fundraising programs. Charities that invest consistently in email list growth, engagement and appeals (or house campaigns) generally achieve great digital fundraising results.

As the following graph shows, even low conversion rates deliver significant fundraising outcomes when sending to more people. This is why email list growth is so important.

A graph showing an email list yielding greater fundraising returns as it grows

Email marketing for charities consists of:

Your regular email cycle: The rolling program of email campaigns you send to your list (or segments of it) week in, week out throughout the year
Triggered email journeys: Automated email sequences triggered by specific supporter actions or milestone achievements, such as a welcome journey for new monthly donors.

Need help with your email fundraising program? I can help. Book me for a free 30 minute call now.

Your regular email cycle should include a rich variety of emails with different objectives and offers for your supporters, for example:

Multi-email campaigns for different fundraising objectives
Stories (text, photo, video) for engagement
Event invitations
Peer-to-peer fundraising asks
Volunteering asks
Surveys, polls, handraisers and other requests for input, and more.

Diagram of a regular email cycle, with emails delivering on various different objectives — This example email cycle may cover three to six months of emails, depending on your frequency.

It’s important that you view your email list as a community of real people who have shown an interest in your cause, and who each have great potential for your fundraising program. In addition to asks for money, you must offer great stories, quality engagement, two-way conversation and opportunities for meaningful organisational input throughout the year.

With this in mind, I recommend most nonprofits build a program of “single focus” emails – an email about one single topic – instead of newsletters. Single focus emails confidently direct your supporter to one important story and one thing they must do right now, which is ideal for engagement and response.

Newsletters on the other hand push your reader’s attention in many different directions with competing stories and calls to action.

In terms of frequency, you can email your supporters as often as you like – every week or even several times a week – as long as your emails are highly relevant and compelling. However it’s only worth the effort of emailing your list every week if it offers sufficient fundraising opportunity. For example, if you’ve got a list of 1,000 subscribers, you should try to email them every month, but also focus on list growth to grow that list size to a point where you may earn more income for a well-crafted appeal.

Of course, as your list grows and you want to increase the frequency and sophistication of your program, you’ll need to increase your resourcing for it.

How does email marketing benefit nonprofit fundraising?

Done well, your email program can be a goldmine for your organisation. It can help grow everything and deliver on all your organisational objectives, including fundraising. For example:

Appeal income growth
Monthly/regular donor acquisition
Legacy income growth
Mid and major donor acquisition
Volunteer recruitment
Advocacy and mobilisation
Message awareness and amplification
… and more.

Again, your email list is a community of people who have shown an interest in your mission and values – either by subscribing directly, or taking some other cause-related action. Manage that relationship well from there, and you’ll enjoy steady growth in revenue and impact across all the areas above.

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