Tag Archives: nonprofits

As COVID-19 impacts a variety of industries worldwide, nonprofit organizations are among the most heavily affected. The human and economic toll of this pandemic is immeasurable.

With business closures and company layoffs, businesses and community members have less money to contribute to philanthropy.

Social distancing policies and stay-at-home mandates mean in-person events like fundraiser galas and walks/runs are canceled. Nonprofits rely on these sources of contributions to keep their organizations running.

How can nonprofits drive donations during times of economic uncertainty? Campaign Monitor can help.

Communicating with donors

Nonprofits know the importance of fostering strong relationships with their donors. Economic uncertainty is the time to strengthen those ties and lean on donors for support. As you begin to re-evaluate your marketing plan to navigate these hard economic times, you’ll want to determine how your donors prefer to receive messages from you. This is a crucial time for effective communication.

According to a recent study, 41.6% of donors prefer email as their primary form of contact with nonprofits. Additionally, 17% said they want to receive an email from an organization representative.

How donors prefer to hear from nonprofits

Source: Campaign Monitor

Clearly, email is an effective marketing tool for nonprofits and should be used in your communications strategy. It’s a trusted and secure avenue, widely used across all demographics. Its combination of images and text provide an effective tool for telling a story. Whether that story focuses on your charity or the needs you’re meeting with donor funds, these emails help you connect with your audience on a personal level. That kind of connection can lead to more support for your organization.

Your emails can tell a story

Source: Campaign Monitor

Effective email messaging

Now that you know how to reach your audience, the next step is to determine the approach to your messaging. Your organization may indeed be suffering from the economic downturn caused by COVID-19. But reaching out with emergency solicitations may not only keep donors from responding; it may turn them off from making future contributions.

Donors view their contributions as investments, and nobody wants to invest in an organization on the brink of financial ruin. They want to feel that their money is being used wisely to help toward long-term success. Here are ways email communications can strengthen your relationship with donors and drive donations during economic uncertainty.

Be transparent.

While you shouldn’t emphasize the ways your organization is suffering, it’s essential to be open about the challenges your nonprofit is facing. Explain to donors why your services are important, especially now, when times are hard for so many. Address strategies you have for moving forward. Outline ways their support can alleviate the vital need created by COVID-19. Thoughtfully explain the urgency involved while informing, inspiring, and finding ways to collaborate as you work toward a solution. Remind them that their funds not only help your organization but help the community you serve.

Be grateful.

Appreciation goes a long way. Research shows that the primary reason donors stopped giving to a charity was that they no longer felt connected to the organization. No matter their level of contribution, all donors need to feel that their generosity is appreciated. There are any number of other ways people could be using their money. When they choose your organization, especially in a time of financial uncertainty, they deserve to be acknowledged.

Personal thank you emails can be achieved in several ways. Highlight a specific example of how donor funds have benefited others. Consider including a brief video portraying ways the donor’s gifts are making a difference. Take a celebratory approach. Rather than simply thanking them, congratulate them for their role in helping to achieve a goal. These kinds of communications help donors feel connected to your organization and increase the likelihood that they’ll contribute in the future.

Personalize congratulatory thank-you emails

Source: Campaign Monitor

Be specific.

Studies show that 68.8% of donors are more likely to give a donation when faced with a specific, compelling need. The economic toll of today’s pandemic may indeed be impacting your organization in several ways. Assess your needs and ask for funds that could be targeted for specific uses. People seem to be more generous when they see how their donations can solve a particular issue.

Asking for a large, seemingly arbitrary amount of money can be overwhelming and off-putting to donors. Those who can’t afford such an amount may disregard the gift entirely, assuming someone with more resources will cover that cost. By assigning a specific amount of money to a certain need, donors see the donation as financially manageable. They’ll understand how far their gift will go and how it’ll help. This can lead to an increase in contributions.

Ask for donors to fill a specific need

Source: Campaign Monitor

Components of an effective email

Email messaging is extremely important. But features that entice contributors to open emails, digest them, and take action are even more important. A compelling story doesn’t do any good if it winds up in people’s trash bins. Consider these components to build a successful email campaign to drive donations to your organization.

Enticing subject lines

Email subject lines with seven words tend to lead to higher click-through rates. With such a small number, you’ll want to choose your words carefully. Replace “donate” with “helping” and “fundraising,” as these resonate better with potential donors. Emphasize importance with words like “now” and “urgent” and reference timelines such as “tomorrow” and “midnight.” These not only give a sense of urgency, but they appeal to a reader who doesn’t want to miss out on an opportunity.

Use the subject line to ask a question. Get people thinking and considering their role and whether they’ll take action to help. Add a personal touch to your message by tailoring the subject line with a reader’s first name. Examples of effective subject lines for nonprofit emails include:

  • You can be a hero for $25
  • We can’t solve {problem} without you, {first name}
  • {First name}, will you help us reach our goal?
  • Donate by midnight to help save lives
  • Your last chance to support {cause}

Manageable content

While it’s important to share your story, people are only willing to invest so much money and time. Convey the need for donor assistance in short paragraphs that are easy to read. Overwhelming text isn’t compelling and can actually serve as a detriment to your cause. Make it personal, appealing, and concise.

Example of concise, manageable content

Source: Really Good Emails

Clear CTA

A CTA is one of the most important elements of your email, as this directs people to make a move. Use direct, simple messaging, so it’s clear what you’re asking of your readers. Appeal to your audience by evoking emotion. Give them a sense of the importance of their contribution and urge them to become involved. Call for an action that relates specifically to your cause. Take the guesswork out of donations and use a CTA that clearly defines the donor’s role. Lastly, the CTA should be prominent and easy to find in your email. Examples of effective CTA for your emails include:

  • Sign up to volunteer
  • Inspire change
  • Support a child
  • Volunteer to plant a rose garden
  • Donate $20

Example of a specific call to action

Source: Eisemann Center for Performing Arts

More ways to succeed

An effective email marketing strategy isn’t the only way to drive donations during COVID-19. Seek assistance beyond financial support. In an economic crisis, there are several ways people can help without spending any money. Ask donors for their advice and help in creating a strategy and inquire whether they can make introductions to other prospects. See how supporters can prepare matching gifts to help drive more donations and determine the strategic plans foundational donors employ when resources are limited. See what advice they can offer to help you position your cause as a priority to others.

It’s a great time to build your online presence. The internet offers a variety of benefits to nonprofits, allowing you to reach a younger target audience and provide followers with more ways to participate in your efforts. By building a social media following and creating compelling content, you’ll engage followers and increase support for your cause. Think about using online video conferencing tools to connect with your audience on a more personal level.

Wrap up

The economic impact of COVID-19 is far reaching and potentially long lasting. As a result, charitable organizations should focus on an effective email campaign to appeal to donors and connect them with your mission. Nonprofits can drive donations during times of economic uncertainty by taking the following actions:

  • Connect with donors through transparent messaging
  • Show gratitude for the offerings of your constituents
  • Be specific in your asks
  • Create emails with strong subject lines, concise content, and a compelling CTA
  • Ask for help from and collaborate with experienced individuals
  • Build an online presence

Reassess your goals, continue to foster relationships with your constituents, and stay the course. Your donors want you to succeed and, with a thoughtfully planned email campaign, they’ll help you survive an economic downturn.

For more information about how we can help your nonprofit with email marketing after COVID-19, contact our sales team today.

This post was originally published November 2015, updated May 2020.

The season for holiday shopping, family feasts, and gift giving: The last few months of the year are a busy time for everyone—especially nonprofits.

While retailers are busy with glitzy sales events featuring the year’s must-have items, nonprofits are also working hard to capitalize on the season of giving.

But whether it’s clutch time for nonprofits, or you’re looking to improve your strategy throughout the course of the year, there are certain methods of fundraising that email can always facilitate. Before getting into those emails, lets cover the basics of donation solication.

How to inspire donations

About 50% of nonprofit organizations receive the majority of their donations between October and December, according to a GuideStar survey. In 2015, the average U.S. donation was $137, with over 698,961 donors and a total of $358.4 billion according to Giving USA.

With so much riding on the last few months of the year, it’s important to use email marketing as a donation vehicle.

How do nonprofits fundraise?

Fundraising opens the door for nonprofits to not only raise money, but also raise awareness. One of the best parts of fundraising is the fact that there are quite literally hundreds of different ways to go about it. A few samples of popular fundraising ideas for nonprofits include:

  • Crowdfunding
  • Peer-to-peer fundraising
  • Walks or races
  • Trivia nights or charity auctions
  • Online donations
  • Email fundraising
  • Donation kiosks

How do you solicit donations?

Donors are a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to nonprofits reaching goals and remaining open. That means that nonprofits must employ marketing tactics to fundraise—but how does one do that without coming off as money-hungry?

The best way to market to donors is to have a clear story and tell it in as many ways as possible. You have a cause that impacts people—so turn that into a story and market it to the your audience.

When we say “make it into a story,” that doesn’t mean make up a story. This is where personal experiences and testimonials play a significant part in the nonprofit fundraising cycle.

plain text donation email that highlights a testimonial with photo

Source: Hope Abounds

People are touched by personal testimonials, like this one by Julie. Taking this story and sharing it in your email marketing is a great way to generate new donations as readers can see that their money is going to a worthwhile cause.

How often should nonprofits send emails?

While many marketing teams may want a direct answer as to how often they should be sending out their emails asking for donations, there’s no one right answer. It all comes down to the nonprofit and their audience.

The best way to determine how often you should send out emails is to run A/B tests and monitor key performance indicators to see how often your readers interact with the emails you send. Imagine you begin sending emails once a month and want to increase it to bi-weekly. Try it out for a few months and see what the open and click-through rates look like, as well as your unsubscribe rates. This will give you an idea of how often your readers want to hear from you.

Setting up a preference center is another great way to determine just how often your subscribers want to receive your content.

Nonprofit fundraising emails to help inspire donations

Wether sending in peak #GivingTuesday season or during a big campaign push, there are specific emails that may attract and inspire your audience more than others. Gather ideas from these examples, then test with your own audience to see what they respond to.

1. Gift guide email

During the holiday season, people need a little help in the gift department. To provide inspiration, businesses create gift guides to showcase must-have presents.

Why not try creating a gift guide for your nonprofit? The Red Cross does. Rather than simply asking for a specific monetary donation, this nonprofit and Campaign Monitor customer shows its subscribers what gifts can be bought with those donations.

Red Cross gift guide example - nonprofit marketing emails

For example, $25 buys five blankets for a displaced family, or a donation of $100 provides meals for 10 people.

This handy gift guide turns donations into tangible gifts. By showing subscribers what their donation can do, it makes an emotional connection that encourages more subscribers to act.

It’s a great alternative to the standard “please give money this holiday season” email.

Tips for creating a gift guide:

  • Set a variety of donation amounts. From $5 to $500, every donation counts so make sure your holiday guide includes amounts that fit every budget.
  • Be visual. Show subscribers what “gifts” their donations provide with great images. To help subscribers make a connection, use images of real people whenever possible.
  • Include a call to action. Make sure the gift guide provides a clear call to action that directs subscribers to a shopping or donation page.
  • Include a shareable link. Ask your subscribers to share the gift guide with others by including a link that allows them to share it.

2. Story email

There’s power in storytelling. If your organization helps those in need, share stories with subscribers to help them understand how important their donation is.

Sure, you could explain that a $10 donation feeds a homeless person for one night, but you can go further than a simple explanation. Don’t just tell donors how their gifts help—show them.

Ask a few people that your organization helps to share their story. You’ll be surprised at the number of people who are willing to share their story as a way to thank your organization for the services provided.

Once you have a few willing volunteers, interview each person, learn about his or her situation and tell their story to your subscribers.

You can create a short article and include it along with a call to action to donate in an email. Here’s an example from UNICEF:

UNICEF nonprofit email example - nonprofit marketing emails

In this example, the brief story of a thirteen-year-old girl, Fatima, helps describe the need for people to act. In this case, UNICEF is asking subscribers to sign a petition.

Storytelling tips:

  • Tell a story, not a promotion. The story should focus on a person, not how your organization saved the day. Mention how you help, but make sure the story is fueled by the details and emotion of the person in need.
  • Include a picture. Make sure you share a picture of the person; it brings the story to life.
  • Make a connection to the holiday season. After telling the story, mention your need for holiday donations (if you’re sending during the holidays). Or if you can tell a story about someone in need during the holidays that’s even better.
  • Consider including a video. Creating a video has never been easier. Consider telling a story through video and sharing a link to it via email and on your social sites.

Use an email template for quick, professional sends.

Having a well-designed email can make or break a donor’s conversion. Try out Campaign Monitor’s donation template to make your fundraising email count.

Try out the donation template. Customize and edit one of our mobile-ready email templates.

3. Refresher email

The holiday season is a good time to remind donors what your organization is all about.

Create an email that outlines your organization’s mission and the good it does. Consider adding a bulleted list that outlines the number of people helped, and next year’s goals. Or, create a short video that looks back at this year’s accomplishments, explains new initiatives for the year to come or reminds donors about the year-round need.

Check out this example from St. Jude:

Donation email from St Jude's

The purpose of this email is to inform and solicit donations. Remember, you need to send a diverse variety of emails (even during the holiday season). If you send too many “please donate” emails, you may burn out some donors. Remember, they may be, and probably are, getting many requests for donations this time of year.

A refresher email is the type of email that builds trusts between you and your donors while offering a crash course in why your organization is worth donating to.

Tips to create a refresher email:

  • Keep it short. Everyone is busy, but even more so during the holiday season, so keep it brief.
  • Consider creating a video. Emails with video have a 53% higher click to open rate than those without. It’s worth taking a little time to create a short (1-2 minute) video this season.
  • Help donors learn more. Provide links to your website and social channels in the email to help donors continue their learning process.

4. Event email

A lot of nonprofits host holiday events. Whether you’re hosting your annual gala, coat drive, food collection, or charity auction, use email to invite guests.

Be sure to explain what the event is and tell donors what to expect. Encourage guests to come by explaining what’s in it for them.

nonprofit event email by amnesty international

Once you send out your initial email, you can use marketing automation to send reminder emails as the event gets closer.

Tips to create and send an event email:

  • Double check the details. Run through your email and make sure all of the information is correct. You don’t want to send an invitation with the wrong date or address.
  • Offer perks to those who RSVP early. Give early bird RSVPers something special like a free t-shirt, a chance to win a giveaway or a VIP tour of your facility.
  • Create an event on Facebook. To cross-promote your event, create a Facebook event and let people RSVP. Facebook explains how to set up an event in five easy steps.
  • Provide additional information in reminder emails. When you remind people about your event via email, offer additional information like parking suggestions or a list of speakers featured at the event.

5. Thank you email

When a donation is made, you should follow up with a thank you. It’s important to show gratitude to donors, no matter how big or small a donation is.

The Red Cross takes the thank you email one step further by explaining exactly where the donation went.

Red Cross thank you email example - nonprofit marketing emails

The email thanks the donor for his donation of blood and explains that the donation is headed to a specific hospital. It also encourages the donor to share his good deed on social media. It even uses a specific hashtag, #RedCrossOnTheWay, that the donor can use.

This follow-up email accomplishes a lot. It says thanks, follows up on the donation and encourages the subscriber to share some social love on Facebook and Twitter.

Tips to create and send a thank you email:

  • Say thanks. A simple message of gratitude should be the first item in the email.
  • Reinforce the decision. Remind the subscriber why their decision to donate to your organization was a great one.
  • Cross-promote. The Red Cross uses a thank you email to promote a social campaign. It’s a great example of cross-promotion—one that could drum up more support during the holidays.

6. Bonus: a personal email

Another excellent example of a nonprofit email fundraising example is the personal email. The personal email does more than just address the reader directly. It can either provide a personal story that’ll resonate with the reader or it can be a one-on-one style email from someone higher up in the company.

Take this example by Politician Bernie Sanders:

a long email from Bernie Sanders that helps raise money for his campaign year round

In this email, which clearly is written by Bernie’s marketing staff, the person speaking to the reader (AKA “Bernie”) is giving the reader directions to take action and doing it as if they’re having a one-on-one conversation. This gives the reader incentive to participate.

Another example of a personal email is telling a story of someone whose life will be impacted by giving to your nonprofit. This example by charity : water does an excellent job of sharing a personal story to readers in order to encourage donations.

Nonprofit email from charity : water that focuses on a personal story

Source: Really Good Emails

In this email, we meet Srey from Cambodia. She’s from a village that doesn’t have quality water to help them survive day to day. This email tells readers that, with their donation, they’re providing Srey with the necessary means to get that clean water to help her and her village survive.

Tips for creating a personal email to potential donors:

  • Tell a real story. Tell a story about someone or something impacted by the donation of the reader. This makes the mission tangible,
  • Get detailed. Spare no detail with how the donation is going to help.
  • Provide perspective. Addressing the reader from the point of view of someone higher up in the nonprofit makes the reader feel as if they’re important enough to the organization that the leader needs to reach out to them.

Wrap up

As your peak fundraising season approaches, you don’t have to scramble to find email inspiration for your next donation drive—it’s all right here for you. Use these five examples to create effective emails that collect the donations your nonprofit needs to succeed.

Looking for a more comprehensive guide on email marketing for nonprofits? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Nonprofits today.

This guest post is written by Abby Jarvis from Qgiv.

For-profit businesses everywhere are stocking up for Black Friday, but nonprofits are preparing for a different day of spending: Giving Tuesday.

If you work for a nonprofit, you know just how important Giving Tuesday can be, and just how many donations it can generate. In fact, Giving Tuesday hit the billion dollar mark just last year.

This generosity-based holiday falls on December 3rd this year, meaning the time to prepare your nonprofit’s messaging and marketing materials is coming to a close.

Is your organization ready for Giving Tuesday?

If not, you can easily begin informing your donors and followers of your Giving Tuesday plans through email. While this generous holiday may seem top-of-mind for nonprofit employees and volunteers, many members of the general public are still somewhat uninformed.

In fact, significantly less people know about Giving Tuesday when compared to those who are familiar with Black Friday.

That’s why we’re going over four steps you can take to improve your current Giving Tuesday campaign (or plan it last-minute).

Read on to learn how you can give more to Giving Tuesday.

Get ready for Giving Tuesday with these four steps.

1. Introduce donors to your upcoming Giving Tuesday campaign.

If you have an upcoming goal, why not tell your subscribers about it? The more knowledge you equip your donors with regarding your Giving Tuesday campaign, the more likely they are to donate.

In a recent study, we teamed up with Campaign Monitor and surveyed 1,000+ donors; this survey found that a specific, urgent goal with a personal touch can inspire donors to give.

In other words, give your subscribers all the information they need:

  • Tell them about Giving Tuesday: what it is and why it matters
  • Send an urgent campaign with a Giving Tuesday deadline
  • Make it personal by sending from a specific person and telling donors where the money is going

How do you make it urgent, though? Send emails at a consistent (but not annoying) cadence, reminding donors of your upcoming campaign.

Additionally, consider adding a countdown timer or a donation meter to your emails to track the campaign, like North Shore Animal League America does in the email below.

Be ready for Giving Tuesday like North Shore Animal League America.

And don’t forget to use urgent language paired with a compelling CTA.

2. Tell a story donors will care about.

Donors often contribute, either financially or through in-kind donations, without seeing anything in return. This process can be difficult for donors if they don’t know where their money is going.

Because of this, it’s important to make your Giving Tuesday campaign as personal as possible. Not only can you do this through segmenting emails on the backend, but you can also achieve personal campaigns by sharing the story of someone your organization has helped.

When we teamed up with Campaign Monitor and surveyed donors, over 61% wanted to receive stories about how their chosen nonprofits affected real people for the better.

You can see how Amazon Frontlines does this in the email below, showing images of real people and information about how donations are used.

This is a Giving Tuesday email example from Amazon Frontlines. This is part of the Nonprofit email benchmarks guide from Campaign Monitor.

Here are a few ways you can make it personal:

  • Show photos and videos of the people your nonprofit impacted (video increases open rates by up to 13% and conversions by 21%).
  • Share their names, creating an even deeper connection.
  • Tell their stories: where they were before and where they are thanks to donations.
  • If possible, share how your subscribers’ donations specifically impacted the people in the email.

3. Communicate through real members of your organization.

To collect donations on Giving Tuesday, consider sending a letter from nonprofit employees or volunteers. Even better, consider sending a communication directly from the director of the organization.

Our study found donors enjoy hearing from someone specific at the organization, so send a heartfelt plea from a real person. This encourages connection among your subscribers and nonprofit members.

By reaching out through an individual, your nonprofit is no longer an organization looking for donations, but it instead becomes a collection of real people trying to make a real difference.

Notice how the Red Cross email below is sent from Lauri, a real Red Cross advocate who cares deeply about the organization’s mission.

American Red Cross email showing an example of a Giving Tuesday letter from someone important

Here are some ideas of how you might reach out:

  • Include a personalized from name, like “Sam at Nonprofit Today.”
  • Introduce the person and what they do within the first few lines of copy.
  • Explain why the nonprofit is important to them.
  • Include a personal signoff.

4. Show gratitude and include updates.

As with any transaction, send a thank you email immediately to anyone who donated. Additionally, send another email thanking everyone who donated once Giving Tuesday ends.

But that’s not all. Your email should do more than thank donors: It should also explain how much money was raised and what the proceeds will accomplish. If possible, consider including how much money will go to specific steps in the nonprofit project.

Here are the steps you can follow to show gratitude:

  • Send a triggered thank you email any time someone donates.
  • Send a Giving Tuesday gratitude email to all donors once the holiday ends.
  • Tell donors how much money was raised and where the proceeds are going.

Giving Tuesday tips (bonus round)

Want to make this Giving Tuesday a success no matter what? If so, there are a few things you can do.

First, create a marketing calendar that includes each email, social post, webinar, and any other piece of promotional content you plan to publish in preparation for Giving Tuesday.

Qgiv’s 2019 #GivingTuesday Ultimate Guide has a calendar and templates you can use to make Giving Tuesday communication and scheduling a breeze.

Secondly, combine all your content efforts to create a cohesive campaign. This includes social media posts, newsletters, emails, and blog posts. Make sure all your content is working in tandem.

Finally, make sure you’re sending the best emails you can at the right time. To send emails that are best suited to each of your subscribers, make sure you’re personalizing your content, segmenting your campaigns, maintaining healthy list hygiene, and utilizing automation.

To send emails at the right time, familiarize yourself with the best days to send emails. This changes depending on whether you’re looking for high opens, click-throughs, or click-to-open rates.

Learn about nonprofit benchmarks by reading Campaign Monitor’s guide here.

Wrap up

Giving Tuesday is more than just a day for giving: It’s a day of driving awareness, promoting generosity, and uniting behind a singular cause.

If you haven’t started getting ready for Giving Tuesday, it’s not too late. There are plenty of urgent efforts that need your nonprofit and your subscribers.

So, tell your donors about Giving Tuesday and the specific cause you want to support with their help. Get personal, share life-changing stories, and show gratitude every step of the way.

Want to know the secret to getting donations from donors who care? Sign up for the Campaign Monitor + Qgiv webinar here.


Abby Jarvis is the Nonprofit Education Manager at Qgiv, an online fundraising service provider. When she’s not working at Qgiv, Abby can usually be found writing for local magazines, catching up on her favorite blogs, or binge-watching sci-fi shows on Netflix.

Why do you need ready-to-go ecommerce workflows in your email marketing toolbox?

The main reason is this: Small businesses, startups, and nonprofits must perform a balancing act between efficiency and never sacrificing functional depth at any point in the subscriber’s journey, whether messaging a customer, member, or donor.

The right tools make marketing and advocating for others easier—and they increase the likelihood of prospects buying or donating since people will see themselves reflected in your brand or cause.

Relevancy plays a powerful role in making conversions. More than 90% of consumers say they’re more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations, Accenture Interactive finds.

Another reason to lean into smart ecommerce tools is for the help they provide people just beginning their ecommerce and email marketing efforts. You’re busy and you might not be a digital marketing expert—at least, not yet.

Shopify puts the value of automation in context:

“In any organization, there are hundreds if not thousands of small tasks that take between two and five minutes to execute. Individually, they never appear to be a significant time-waster. Together, however, they devour productivity and stunt growth. Automation simplifies these tasks, drives efficiency, and allows you to experiment.”

Whether you’re launching new products, managing finances, tracking inventory and courting suppliers, or you’re meeting with nongovernmental organizations, hiring developers, and planning charity events, your time is understandably tight.

But there’s a third reason to invest in the right tools for your small business.

Buyers and donors have their own set of expectations that can’t be ignored. Today, your customers and donors want to talk to your organization. You must listen to and heed your target audience. They want you to reflect the trust they put in causes and brands. When that happens, they become your advocates across the digital landscape and in social channels.

This landscape continues to intensify as the spending demographic shifts. Here’s an interesting statistic: Gen Z spends two to three times more on shopping through social channels than the average consumer, according to the “2018 Omnichannel Buying Report” from BigCommerce.

Gartner ecommerce analysts predict that by 2023, the majority of organizations using artificial intelligence in their digital commerce will achieve at least a 25% improvement in customer satisfaction, revenue, or cost reduction.

If you’re up to date on the best practices in digital marketing, you know you need the right data and tools to automatically pull information and engage and convert buyers or donors wherever they enter your ecosystem: through product reviews and giving campaigns on social channels, on landing pages, in carts, and through newsletters.

But what do you need in an ecommerce marketing tool and why? Here are six ways you’ll want to use these tools today and why these capabilities matter in helping your organization with growth, revenue recovery, and conversion.

1. Leverage customer feedback in marketing communication.

Your product or social cause isn’t always going to be enough on its own.

Additionally, donors and consumers—who want to be found on the channels they use—share and interact with brands through email, social media, and mobile experiences. The most trusted brands and social causes pay close attention to personalization and social proof, and they leverage it.

Here’s an example from Revolution Tea that wraps testimonials and survey data into an email to help further validate its products and service.

Revolution Product Review Example

Source: Really Good Emails

2. Combine message personalization with audience segmentation.

Ultimately, a human makes the decision to buy from or give to you. Customers who are fully engaged represent a 23% higher share of profitability, revenue, and relationship growth compared with the average customer, according to Gallup research.

The right ecommerce marketing tools pay attention to and segment communication efforts based on these human preferences and buying and giving habits.

Here’s a tactic that uses both personalization and segmenting based on location. Use information collected from your ecommerce platform to personalize your email campaigns. For example, WooCommerce might tell you which subscribers live in a certain geographic area based on billing addresses. You can then use this information to send emails tailored to a subscriber’s physical location, which is useful if you’re promoting an event in a particular city.

Here’s another example: Use people’s names or special occasions to personalize your emails, as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation wildlife charity does on donor birthdays.

WDC celebrate special day learn how

The data is clear: Being as human as possible works. Per Monetate, 86% of companies getting high return on investment online reported that personalization made up at least 21% of their marketing budgets.

Our own research finds emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. Likewise, marketers note a 760% increase in revenue from segmented campaigns.

3. Integrate the right ecommerce stack.

Automated functions depend on advanced data intelligence. Businesses will want tools that can capture customer information, interpret events, and then automate decisions based on that data.

Tools that automatically integrate with your ecommerce platform are essential. You’re not going to burn more developer hours on back-end integration with shopping platforms. You’re just not set up for it (nor should you have to be).

Advanced segmentation that welcomes new signups, captures product reviews from customers or donors, and can use those reviews in multiple mediums will help save time and ensure consistency. That ecommerce marketing stack should also be able to send reminders to people who abandoned their carts, upsell with personalized receipts, and target customers or donors based on their preferences and behavior.

CM Commerce leverages all of your customers’ purchase, demographic, preference, and engagement data. We seamlessly connect with your Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce platform.

4. Optimize your time and your value to customers on day 1.

The sooner you’re generating revenue or inching closer to donor targets, the sooner you can scale and make an impact on your bottom line or your cause.

You might need an email-centric ecommerce tool that works right away—that can take your store’s URL and start immediately pulling the most relevant customer data.

But remember, you’re not the only one with time constraints. Your customers’ time and experiences matter, too.

It’s a fact of ecommerce today: Cart abandonment happens often. If your account setup, checkout flow, and shopping cart take longer than customers expect, they’ll abandon their orders.

People are easily distracted or disappointed when a digital process feels like it could (or should) be faster. According to a Baymard Institute study, 69.57% is the average rate of ecommerce cart abandonment. It’s even higher for mobile consumers, at 85.6%. The same study finds customers want an ideal checkout flow of 12 to 14 steps, yet the average storefront flow has 23.48 steps.

5. Humanize ecommerce with product reviews from your customers.

All customers and prospects expect validation from reviews and positive social sentiment. They look to other real people.

Even with a personal voice in your approach, your customers and donors will seek independent validation from others. Sentiment matters. There is no better marketing than word-of-mouth, user-generated buzz, and positive customer testimonials.

And it goes further than your efforts on your website, email marketing, digital ads, and search and SEO efforts. Social proof makes it easier to validate sentiment and tie it to your sales.

“The basic examples of social proof can be found in users leaving reviews, comments, recommendations, or social sharing,” notes the Search Engine Journal. “This form of user-generated content and its demonstrated ability to create social proof can lead to higher conversion rates, and thus sales.”

Across industries, the average uplift in conversion rates between customers who view content created by other buyers and those who do not is a whopping 161%. It’s even higher for apparel (207%), health and beauty (203%), and food and beverage (203%), according to Search Engine Journal.

CM Commerce provides a unique set of options to turn happy customers into the best form of advertising. A few simple steps make it easy for brands to immediately capture customer feedback, solicit reviews for recent purchases, and feature that social proof on the brand’s website to accelerate additional purchases.

Don’t sleep on social proof. Leverage it as important data that can be reused and personalized. After all, ads with customer-generated product reviews have a click-through rate four times higher than those without.

6. Create and foster loyalty by building trust.

Go beyond surface-level information when you collect data from your customers and donors. Find ways to ask about their hobbies, food choices, personal life, or habits.

Did they just have a baby? How often do they use a particular app? There are so many ways to create targeted emails and further your efforts.

For example, check out this newsletter from Grammarly.

Source: Really Good Emails

Grammarly collected data on a customer’s typing habits and corrections that were made with the free version of its software. The company went above and beyond to share personal statistics about productivity and accuracy.

The number in the “advanced mistakes not corrected” section may sway the customer to buy the premium package offered with the discount. This newsletter could result in both a win for the customer (problem solved) and a win for Grammarly (sale made).

Wrap up

You never need to sacrifice functional depth at any point in your target’s journey or waste time on getting your ecommerce email marketing set up and working with your shopping platform.

Look to these tactics for help:

  • Embrace the feedback loop with your customers and donors.
  • Personalize your messaging and marketing tactics with segmentation.
  • Integrate the right ecommerce stack.
  • Optimize your time on day 1.
  • Humanize ecommerce and leverage the reviews from your customers.
  • Foster loyalty—and build trust in your brand during every experience.

From welcome emails to re-engagement campaigns and beyond, we seamlessly integrate with your ecommerce platforms—Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce—so you’ll have all the features you need to exceed your goals.

CM Commerce features:

  • Pre-made conversion campaigns to recover revenue from abandoned carts
  • Follow-up segmented and personalized emails for cross-selling
  • Product reviews that spotlight your happy customers and build trust (and sales)
  • Automated feedback to increase repeat revenue
  • Ready-to-go templates or custom versions, coupons, and rewards with your branding

Try CM Commerce today for free.

This is a guest post by Carl Diesing at DNL OmniMedia.

Events can be major investments for any type of organization, and that’s especially true for nonprofits. Relying on events both large and small for fundraising, community outreach, and supporter engagement means nonprofits need must see results. Naturally, they want a return on the time and resources it takes to both plan and host major events.

The most surefire way to ensure a return on investment? Marketing. Increasing visibility, awareness, and excitement for your event among the right audiences will increase attendance.

In an increasingly internet-reliant world, digital marketing has become a central piece of any comprehensive nonprofit strategy. Chances are you’ve already worked to develop an effective website, active social media presence, and useful email list.

The level of expertise your nonprofit has on marketing concepts and techniques will vary based on your background and the size of your organization, but there are always opportunities to brush up on new trends and improve your strategies.

For many growing nonprofits, the single biggest improvement to be made is email marketing automation for their nonprofit emails, and promoting an upcoming event is the perfect test run to begin implementing new techniques.

Read on to discover the basics of email marketing automation and how you might use it to help promote your events.

Want to drive attendees to your next nonprofit event? Read this article.

Email marketing automation for nonprofits

At DNL OmniMedia, we work with nonprofits to develop customized tech solutions and large-scale strategies and we specialize in Blackbaud platforms. The tips in this quick guide are primarily geared towards nonprofits that are already using a professional-grade CRM, like Blackbaud CRM, Raiser’s Edge, or any of the other solutions on the market.

However, you can totally adapt these strategies to your nonprofit’s particular context and needs. Standalone email marketing tools, like Campaign Monitor, are very effective and can typically be integrated with your database platform later on, as needed.

Designing a stream graphic - A stream is part of your email marketing automation for nonprofits journey

1. Designing an email stream

Whether you’re using a Blackbaud product, another nonprofit-specific CRM platform, or a standalone email marketing tool, it’s important to understand what email streams are and how they fit into your broader marketing tactics.

An email stream is a pre-configured set of email messages that are automated to be sent to readers in a particular order, once that reader has triggered the stream to begin.

We encounter these emails all the time (and we’ll cover a few tips to make sure yours stand out in Section 3). Nearly every type of organization (e.g. businesses, nonprofits, and schools), relies on email marketing to accomplish specific tasks, while also taking the manual guesswork out of the marketing process.

Automated email streams might be designed to address all kinds of needs, including:

  • Welcoming new members, donors, advocates, or customers to your community
  • Keeping donors, constituents, or members updated on new developments and stewarding them for future donations or engagement
  • Advertising special offers from your shop or gift catalog after a customer completes a purchase, or reminding potential customers to complete their abandoned carts
  • Promoting upcoming events, incentivizing registration, and sharing more information and directions leading up to them

For example, here’s how you might set up a basic welcome stream (series) for new volunteers in your advocacy campaign:

welcome email stream: email marketing automation for nonprofits

This stream keeps readers engaged with your message and adapts based on how responsive each recipient is. Each message should contain increasingly engaging information that builds on the reader’s past actions and directs them toward getting started as an official advocate.

A stream like this could fit well into a multichannel marketing campaign designed to reach new supporters and train them to use your campaign’s mobile app. Check out the TeamDNL guide to advocacy apps to learn more about these tools.

Email streams and the constituent lifecycle

One of the core concepts behind automated email marketing is the idea of the customer or constituent lifecycle. Your marketing efforts should be designed to guide new supporters through their relationship with your nonprofit and its events. If you’re familiar with the sales funnel, it’s a similar idea but as a broader, more relationship-oriented cycle.

The main stages in a lifecycle marketing strategy are Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage. Check out Campaign Monitor’s in-depth guide to lifecycle marketing for real-life examples. In the specific context of nonprofit event marketing, though, your email stream might look like this:

  • Reach – Send initial invitations to previous attendees, current donors, and any others who’ve expressed interest online.
  • Act – Show off your event to readers, including special activities, speakers, etc., and encourage them to learn more on your website.
  • Convert – Secure new registered attendees for your event by directing them to your registration page. Special offers are useful at this stage to incentivize registration.
  • Engage – Send updates to keep attendees excited leading up to the event, and then follow up with them after the event too.

This is a fairly general example, and your own email stream will need to be more fleshed out. However, it’s important that your stream can be broken down into these distinct stages.

A jumbled email stream that’s too generally directed to every supporter regardless of their relationship to your work can be a big turn-off. For example, if a reader isn’t even fully aware of your event or its purpose, immediately pressuring them to register probably won’t work.

Or, if your email stream drags on for too long before providing registration information, readers who were initially excited might’ve begun to tune you out and ignore your messages.

Building a list graphic - Build a quality list to encourage event attendance

2. Building an effective mailing list

You’re going to need a list of recipients before you can even begin thinking about how to design your email stream to promote your event. An effective mailing list will be segmented in strategic ways to maximize impact and increase the chances that readers will take the proper next steps.

If you’re already using a dedicated CRM or donor database, use the data you collect and record on supporters to help you segment them for targeted email streams. Chances are you already use segmentation strategies to guide your marketing efforts, but it’s particularly important when it comes to email automation.

For instance, you’ll probably want to develop different email streams for past attendees, donors who’ve never attended an event before, and your contacts who’ve never donated or attended before.

Each can and should be engaged in different ways. Additionally, the target audience for your event might already be a very specific segment of your community, like volunteers or mid-range donors.

Having access to comprehensive, easily sortable donor profiles is invaluable for your marketing efforts. There are plenty of best practices you can still use even without a dedicated CRM platform, though. Consider a few other best practices for refining your email lists when promoting your events:

  • Use event planning software and registration tools that report attendee data in intuitive ways. They should either have internal analytics tools or they should integrate with your CRM. Check out ePly’s event software guide for more information on data features to look for in your standalone event tools.
  • Make sure your various digital marketing outlets are helping to drive some traffic to one another. A multi-channel marketing strategy will increase engagement with the campaign as a whole and ideally result in higher attendance for your event. Integrating your email and social media strategies is a great way to start.
  • Use previous campaigns to help build out your mailing list to include one-time donors who’ve expressed interest in your mission but haven’t stayed directly engaged with your nonprofit. Donors to your last crowdfunding campaign are good examples. Your marketing strategies for crowdfunding campaigns should ideally contain a way to collect email addresses for sharing additional updates in the future.

It’s generally a good idea to brush up on current segmentation strategies before launching a new campaign to promote your next event, and a quick online search should put you in touch with plenty of helpful resources.

Check out our nonprofit resources here.

Always make sure to take full advantage of the stream configuration and list-building features of your email marketing tools.

Optimizing for performance graphic - optimize your email marketing automation for nonprofit events in order to get the best results

3. Optimizing your emails to perform.

By “perform,” we mean your emails actually need to engage their recipients. They’ll have no impact at all if your potential attendees don’t even bother to open them.

Pesky advertising emails are, unfortunately, a fact of life for most of us, but why do we ignore some messages and not others? There are a few typical reasons:

  • The subject line is boring, obnoxious, or too long.
  • We already receive tons of ad emails from the sender, so we tend to tune them out.
  • The email looks completely irrelevant to our interests.
  • We don’t recognize the sender as an organization that we’ve interacted with in the past.

These are very common reasons that email campaigns might have low open rates and, subsequently, very little impact on the larger project at hand, and they’re all completely avoidable.

By implementing smarter strategies from the very beginning, you can strengthen your campaign as a whole.

Looking for the open rates you should be aiming for? Check out Campaign Monitor’s email benchmarks guide for nonprofits.

This is essentially what we’ve been talking about in the above sections. Taking the time to carefully segment your lists and then design highly targeted email streams for each key segment of your audience will result in a much more effective campaign for your event than a general email to your entire contact book ever would.

Aside from building smarter strategy into your email automation from the beginning, though, there are plenty of additional design-related steps you can take to make your messages more engaging (and, therefore, memorable and effective) for readers.

Interactivity techniques are great for encouraging more click-throughs to your social media profiles, registration pages, and additional information on your website. Strong visual design in your emails’ images and layouts are very important investments of your time and thought as well.

Make sure your email marketing tools let you track performance analytics—most importantly, the open rates and click-through rates for each message.

These metrics will immediately tell you how effective each email was at engaging recipients and driving more engagement for your event, and you can then use those insights to identify which techniques work well and which don’t.

Wrap up

Email automation can seriously boost registration rates and overall engagement for your nonprofit’s events, but only if you incorporate smart strategies from the beginning. Keeping a highly focused approach will be your best bet. Remember, just because it’s automated doesn’t make it hands-off.

Use this quick guide as a starting point, and continue your research on marketing automation techniques and email marketing software. You’ll be designing your next campaign in no time.


Carl Diesing co-founded DNL OmniMedia in 2006 and has grown the team to accommodate clients with on-going web development projects. Together DNL OmniMedia has worked with over 100 organizations to assist them with accomplishing their online goals. As Managing Director of DNL OmniMedia, Carl works with nonprofits and their technology to foster fundraising, create awareness, cure disease, and solve social issues.

Today’s consumers are more socially conscious than ever: 79% of Americans say they’re more loyal to purpose-driven brands. Brands aren’t letting the opportunity go to waste, and they tend to have much larger marketing budgets than the average NGO. There are also agencies who specialize in email marketing for nonprofits who can help.

How can you create a nonprofit branding strategy that stands out and helps you reach the right audience? We know you may not have the same funding as Amnesty, UNICEF, or Human Rights Watch but that doesn’t mean you can’t develop a solid name for yourself.

Read on to discover how to use cost-effective strategies for branding your nonprofit and standing out from the crowd.

The modern conundrum with branding for nonprofits

More and more consumers around the world are voting with their dollars, with over half of all worldwide consumers considering themselves “belief-driven” buyers, and 57% stating they’ll boycott a brand based on a hot political issue.

Chinese citizens lead the way with 73% making purchase decisions based on a shared belief, followed by India with 63% of consumers doing the same. Forty-three percent of Americans also say they make belief-driven purchases.

nonprofit branding values statistics

Source: Customer Insights Group

At first glance, this would mean there’s never been a better time for NGOs and nonprofits to capitalize on the value-driven trend.

Developing identity with integrity

However, businesses are already working two steps ahead. Starbucks, Nike, Toms, Adidas, Patagonia—some brands have jumped on the bandwagon recently, while others have always worked socially conscious branding into their entire marketing strategy.

Meanwhile, companies like Airbnb get stuck in the middle on topics deemed too controversial for businesses to support or denounce.

To distance themselves from consumer brands and develop a niche, nonprofits need to focus on building a brand identity that has integrity.

Nonprofit branding guidelines

As you develop a nonprofit branding strategy, keep these general nonprofit branding guidelines in mind to make the most of your efforts.

  • Do get controversial if you believe there’s an audience for your cause.
  • Do highlight your logo and colors in all your marketing materials, including social media campaigns, fonts, and images.
  • Do partner with brands who share your mission.
  • Don’t make your marketing material too generic. Be specific.
  • Don’t be afraid of connecting with other grassroots movements.
  • Don’t spread your marketing funds too thin on unproven strategies.

7 cost-effective strategies and examples for branding your nonprofit and standing out

NGOs and other organizations can take advantage of these cost-effective strategies and examples for branding your nonprofit.

With these tips, you’ll stand out from competitors as well as consumer brands to make sure your message resonates and doesn’t get lost in the crowd.

1. Get on the ground.

While it’s a challenge to get accurate figures on something so fluid, data shows that, by October of 2017, over 5.4 million Americans attended thousands of political protests.

According to a Washington Post survey, roughly 20% of Americans have attended a protest or rally since 2016.

nonprofit grassroots branding

Source: Boston University

Nonprofits don’t necessarily have to insert themselves into a controversial political debate, but they can find local events that relate to their cause to connect with potential donors. With rallies, panels, discussions, and community events springing up everywhere, nonprofits are sure to find events where their audience hangs out.

Consider investing in your own set of evergreen placards for marches, flyers to hand out, brochures about causes, and any other relevant information on marketing material to pass out to attendees.

2. Engage with your audience as your nonprofit.

While social media paid advertisements and sponsored posts can get pricey without a strategy, it’s free to use the platforms. As part of your nonprofit branding strategy, make sure you’re doing everything you can to connect with your audience.

Use your page to start discussions and form groups, to like and comment on relevant topics and posts. When it comes to branding your nonprofit, every little bit of interaction counts.

Twitter is an excellent medium for connecting with your audience. Follow plenty of influencers, journalists, and activists in your field. Tweetstorms are popular tools activists use to make an impact. While Twitter tends to restrict and control which hashtags make the public trending list, your audience will still see your posts, and that’s really what matters.

nonprofit branding Twitter and Tweetstorms

Source: Twitter

3. Become a great storyteller.

While content marketing is an effective tool for engagement and organic traffic, most NGOs and nonprofits don’t have the marketing budgets to pump out several high-quality pieces of blog content every week.

Instead, it’s important to make do with what you can afford. To do that, become a great storyteller. Let your recipients, volunteers, and donors draft stories explaining how and why they chose to get involved.

Start by deciding on an audience you’d like to target. Next, find a current volunteer that matches that demographic and ask them to tell their story.

You can then use targeted social media posts to reach that specific audience with the content you created. You can still target specific keywords and create content, but you don’t have to devote a ton of funds to content marketing.

4. Leverage your images and video content.

Video content and other multimedia are important, but their production also demands a heavy financial investment. Most nonprofits can’t afford to keep up with organizations like Amnesty in this respect.

Do what you can with what you already have available. Modern smartphones have excellent camera features. Use images from your events for branding your nonprofit with logos and colors. Use YouTube for live videos and storytelling that appeal to different demographics.

Multimedia like infographics are an excellent choice when you decide to splurge because they have a long shelf life and tend to share well.

5. Personalize as much as possible.

It’s important to use your recipient’s first name in email marketing, but that’s not enough.

A few affordable AI and data collecting tools can go a long way for connecting with your audience and reaching them with personalized content.

Use Facebook audience insights to strategically sponsor posts and reach your target audience. Break your subscriber list up into segments based on location and interest to create personalized content.

It’s also important to speak to each reader on a personal level. Write in one-on-one terms like you’re having a conversation with a friend and make them feel like they’re part of the team.

Take advantage of buttons with different donation levels. If you keep it general and just ask for any donation, you’ll get nothing.

6. Connect with influencers and brands.

Many nonprofits don’t realize that plenty of activist influencers will gladly share their posts—often for free because they genuinely care about the cause.

Follow relevant journalists that cover your cause. See who interacts with their content on Twitter and Facebook.

Reach out to activists who have connections on the ground to volunteers and donors. Plenty of people would love to get involved with more causes they care about, but they have no idea how to do it.

Simply asking an activist to share your content can make a dramatic difference in terms of branding your nonprofit. Plus, it helps you develop credibility because activists are technically influencers in their communities.

7. Focus on an email marketing strategy.

Email marketing is a cost-effective branding and marketing tool for nonprofits because it allows you to do a lot with minimal resources.

Thanks to AI and modern email service providers like Campaign Monitor for nonprofits, you can use drag-and-drop editors, segmentation, and personalization to create effective email marketing strategies.

Customer journeys are effective tools for onboarding new subscribers and introducing them to what you do with welcome messages, information about the cause, and triggered campaigns based on their online behavior.

nonprofit email marketing automation example

Source: Campaign Monitor

8. Hold a contest or game.

Contests and games are great ways to engage your online audience and encourage user-generated content for your nonprofit branding strategy.

Video essay contests, voting in polls, asking for reviews—these are all great ways to help spread your branding message without spending an arm and a leg on marketing material.

Nonprofits can also consider partnering with brands that may be willing to donate gift cards or other prizes for contest winners. Plus, they can help promote the contest to their audience.

Wrap up

Nonprofits are in a difficult position. On one hand, the public—especially young generations—are more socially conscious than ever.

Branding your nonprofit is crucial for standing out, and you can make an impact using some of the following strategies:

  • Connect with influencers and journalists.
  • Personalize as much as possible.
  • Leverage your multimedia content.
  • Get on the ground to engage with relevant movements.

Are you ready to learn some nonprofit email marketing strategies?

If you’re in the nonprofit industry, you’ll likely agree that engagement rates for nonprofit emails aren’t as great as you’d like them to be. And that’s particularly true for donation request emails.

Unlike other industries that offer products and services in exchange for cash, nonprofit organizations have nothing to give in exchange for the donations that come in.

Because of this, raising the funding you need to remain operational and succeed in fulfilling your mission can seem like an uphill task.

So how can you improve the situation?

It’s all in the ask.

When asking for donations, wording matters—especially if you’re doing it via email. Read on to discover how you can improve your donation request emails to help ensure financial support continues to come in for your nonprofit.

Asking for donations—wording matters for 3 reasons

One important element of every fundraising campaign is the donation message. Craft it well, and you’re bound to garner enough support to fulfill your noble cause—and more.

So why does wording matter when creating your donation request email?

1. Giving is an emotional act.

One of the biggest reasons words matter in donation request emails is that giving is an emotional act. When soliciting for donations, you need to craft your email in such a way that it elicits the desired emotional response from your target audience. It’s this emotional aspect of giving that makes storytelling so powerful.

 Asking for donations – wording a touching story.

By using stories and thoughtful language in your messaging like the email above, you connect your readers to your cause.

2. Donors want clarity.

Another reason your choice of wording matters? Donors want to understand your vision clearly before parting with their hard-earned money.

Using words that are ambiguous or confusing will only turn readers off, resulting in you not getting the funding you desperately need.

However, by using language that’s easy to understand, your donors will quickly grasp your message and rally to your cause.

3. Engagement is crucial.

Using the right words in your email ensures that your readers remain engaged. On the other hand, using bland wording in your email will reduce engagement rates and participation.

How can you increase engagement? Personalization, segmentation, and automation are all important steps you can take to improve your email metrics.

This involves sending authentic messaging to your donors and separating them by distinguishing factors, like donation amount and age. Once you have the proper messaging, you can use automation to send campaigns automatically.

Find out more by reading our nonprofit benchmarks guide.

Asking for donations—wording tips to supercharge your fundraising campaign

Now that you’ve seen the power of words in your messaging, consider these tips to improve your donation request message.

1. Know your audience.

Knowing your audience is the first step to crafting a donation request email that moves your donors into action. To pull this off, you’ll need to conduct a bit of audience research.

Audience research simply means getting as much data as you can about your target audience. This includes their interests, habits, and the causes they’re passionate about.

Why does audience research matter? Here are two main reasons why:

  • Helps you improve your communication
  • Gives valuable insight into what your audience wants from you

Getting all this information isn’t as daunting as it seems. One easy way to get it is to send out a survey email to your email list.

If there’s one thing that helps marketers craft the perfect donation request email, it’s data, so be sure to gather as much of it as you can.

2. Segment and personalize.

As we mentioned earlier, one of the first things you need to do to craft the perfect donation request email is to segment your email list.

Doing so ensures that you group donors with similar demographics together. Segmenting your email list enables you to craft personalized messages, and your emails will feel more thoughtful and more personal.

List segmentation is super easy, especially if you’re using an email marketing service like Campaign Monitor, which has more advanced segmentation capabilities than going it alone.

3. Choose your words wisely.

Word choice is a crucial component of driving engagement and donations. Always remember that soliciting for donations is never about convincing your readers that your cause is worthy to support.

It’s all about communicating in a way that’s authentic and moves people into action.

When it comes to soliciting for donations, the way you ask is more important than what you’re asking for. Wording your email poorly can negatively impact your response rates, while using the right words can result in a successful fundraising campaign.

Asking for donations – wording and the right words to use.

Source: Really Good Emails

Consider the following words you might include in your donation request emails.

  • Small. “A small donation of…” has more impact than “a donation of….” Adding the word “small” to your donation request, especially if you’re asking for a specific amount, has the psychological effect of making the donation look manageable.
  • Expert. Using the word “expert,” particularly when referencing your staff, is a great way to build trust. Trust is a big factor when it comes to driving donations. Using the word “expert” in describing your staff will show donors that your organization is run by professionals, which will foster a relationship of trust and increase donations.
  • Help. People, by nature, want to be useful. Using the word “help” in your donation request email is a great way to make your donors know that they’re being useful. Driving donations is all about pushing the right emotional triggers, and the word “help” does just that.
  • Now. To ensure your email elicits a speedy (and positive) response from your readers, use action words. One good example is the word “now.” Words like this one spur people into action, as they show the urgency of the situation. A good example of how you can use this word in your email might be, “Pete needs your help now, if he’s to get his life-saving operation.”
  • Together. Particularly in the digital age we’re living in, people can feel disconnected. The word “together” makes your readers feel like they belong to a community of like-minded people.
  • You. One of the most important words you can never use too many times in your emails is the word “you.” Using it in your donation messages not only adds to your personalization but, more importantly, it helps donors know that they’re part of your team. It helps them own the vision.

Asking for donations using the word “you.”

Source: Campaign Monitor

Using the right words in your donation request email can’t be stressed enough. Words have the power to move people into action when used well, so do your best to harness the power they carry.

4. Be clear about your ask.

One thing you can’t escape is asking people for help. While it’s never the easiest thing to do, it must be done, and done right. Make sure your readers know exactly what you need from them. Not only that, but let them know what they need to do.

You need to craft your ask to be as clear as possible and ensure that there’s an easy-to-understand CTA button to direct them to the next step.

Asking for donations – wording the CTA.

Source: Really Good Emails

People are willing to help. They just need you to be clear about what you want them to help you with and what next steps they need to take to help.

Wrap up

When asking for donations, wording really does matter because:

  • Giving is an emotional act
  • A clear ask drives more donations
  • The right words increase engagement and participation

Employing the above tips and strategies will help you improve your email marketing campaign results, and you’ll enjoy improved participation from your donor base.

Need more information on how to run an email marketing campaign for nonprofits? Check out our guide on how to impress and retain donors using email marketing.

Brands aren’t the only organizations who can take advantage of the money flowing throughout the winter holiday season. After the madness of Black Friday weekend and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday emerges to encourage consumers to break from the buying and give back.

Like brands, NGOs and nonprofits have quarterly and year-end goals to meet. Also like brands, they can capitalize on social media and email marketing to communicate with donors and reach new audiences in order to drive in more donations than ever before.

What is Giving Tuesday exactly? In this post, we’ll explain the basics. We’ll also provide strategies and tips for nonprofits to make the most of their marketing strategy this holiday season.

What is Giving Tuesday?

While Black Friday is the unofficial start of the holiday buying season, Giving Tuesday—and don’t forget the accompanying custom hashtag, #GivingTuesday—is the unofficial beginning of the winter holiday giving season.

Marketers know better than anyone that the holiday buying season has slowly expanded each year. In 2012, 92 Street Y and the United Nations Foundation decided to do something about the fast-paced consumer-driven nature and #GivingTuesday was born.

Individuals, nonprofits, NGOs, and even brands come together under the hashtag #GivingTuesday to launch specialized donation campaigns and raise money for important causes.

#GivingTuesday takes place every year on the Tuesday after American Thanksgiving.

Is it effective?

#GivingTuesday sounds nice on paper, but what do the numbers say?

According to nonprofit software company Blackbaud, $10 million moved through its platform during the first #GivingTuesday in 2012—bringing online giving up 90% from the previous year.

In 2013, $28 million exchanged hands-on #GivingTuesday over the top five nonprofit software platforms. Donations continued to increase every year as more organizations like Kickstarter, the Gates Foundation, and PayPal got involved, often matching donations and running promotions.

As of 2018, platforms recorded $400 million in total donations with $125 moving through Facebook alone and PayPal matching $7 million.

Yeah, it’s a lot of money.

However, whether or not Giving Tuesday is effective depends on how you market your organization during the holiday.

How nonprofits can maximize exposure with marketing strategies for Giving Tuesday

Your marketing for #GivingTuesday (and the rest of the holiday season) can make the difference between hitting your year-end goals or falling seriously short.

Plus, with the right marketing strategy, you can keep the momentum going all year long and reduce spot-givers.

Get creative to break through the noise.

Statistically, Giving Tuesday is actually a bad time to encourage donations. Think about it: everyone’s inbox is already flooded with #GivingTuesday appeals.

If you run a smaller NGO, you don’t have to get frustrated and write off the holiday completely. Instead, think of unique and interesting ways to make your campaigns stand out before Giving Tuesday arrives.

Contests and user-generated content are great for donations. With emails, it’s important to optimize your subject line with urgent and intriguing messages to ensure your message stands out.

Consider teaming up with other organizations.

NGOs and nonprofits can expand their audiences by partnering with brands or other nonprofits during #GivingTuesday. The #GivingTuesday website offers an entire PDF dedicated to high-profile collaboration efforts for the holiday season.

If you want to collaborate with fellow NGOs, look for local organizations in your area that share a similar mission.

Brands can also help you spread the message and boost other organizations that share their values and core mission. Some brands who share your values may be willing to share a percentage of the day’s profits or at least amplify your promotion through social media and email.

Get specific about where donations will go.

It’s important you put plenty of thought into your email and social media campaign copy for Giving Tuesday. But don’t be afraid to keep your plan to yourself: Instead, get descriptive with not only your CTA but exactly where the donations will go.

Since nonprofits and NGOs aren’t selling a physical product, it’s important to help your audience visualize how you’ll use their donations. Describe a specific problem in detail. Provide statistics and highlight one person or family’s story if possible.

For example, the Middle East Children’s Alliance sent an email out to previous donors addressed from its main director, and it was written like a letter. Not only that but the email details which project MECA needs the money for and exactly how much they need to accomplish it.

Integrate your campaign across multiple platforms.

While #GivingTuesday is largely a social media phenomenon, most people don’t choose to actually donate through these platforms. It’s true that donations through Facebook are increasing on #GivingTuesday, but you don’t want to strictly rely on social media to meet your donation goals.

Instead, use social media to your advantage. Schedule contests, photos, and partnerships to increase brand awareness, build trust, and educate people about your organization.

You can also use social media to generate leads through website visits and email list signups. When the holiday season ends, you’ll be able to continue contacting them without fighting social media algorithms.

Email marketing is where it’s at.

If your nonprofit isn’t devoting time and energy to email marketing, you’re missing out on a valuable channel to drive donations, build rapport with your donors, and keep your cause top of mind. In fact, nonprofits enjoy a much higher average open rate than consumer brands: 26% compared to 6%.

Email gives you a direct line of communication with your leads and donors—something social media can’t provide.

Plus, automation tools can help you guide your leads through a gentle donation funnel to introduce them to your organization and how your organization changes lives.

Personalize your content.

You don’t have to send the same email campaign to all of your subscribers this Giving Tuesday.

Break your subscriber list into segments based on different factors. When nonprofits segment their list, they should begin with categories like:

  • Recurring donors
  • Frequent donors
  • Members
  • Volunteers
  • Newsletter recipients

For donations, you can further break your list up for #GivingTuesday based on behavioral data, interests, and location. Segmented campaigns can deliver 760% more revenue than generic emails because they’re more relevant.

Include interactive content and multimedia.

Emails that contain video improve click rates between 200% and 300%. Meanwhile, people who view a video in email are 64% more likely to complete a transaction. Just make sure to mention that your email contains a video in the subject line.

Use infographics to explain why you need donations and where donations go. Make videos to introduce your team and the people you help. Make your subscribers feel like part of the organization.

For example, below is an infographic we made based on nonprofit benchmarks:

nonprofit benchmarks infographic

Write for one person.

Nonprofit emails are most effective when they’re written for one person. You’re not talking to thousands of people. That could accidentally trigger the bystander effect and reduce your donation potential.

Instead, write your email copy as though you’re talking to a friend. You could even address your email from one person at your organization to make it seem more like a personal message.

Carefully plan an automated nurturing strategy for spot-givers.

While the extra donations are nice on Giving Tuesday, spot-givers can throw off your marketing efforts and donation funnel throughout the rest of the year. After all, what is Giving Tuesday good for if it only provides a small boost in donations?

You can avoid spot-givers in the first place by creating highly personalized and targeted ads on social media. These measures will ensure you reach people who are truly interested in your mission.

However, you can easily create an automated nurturing strategy for spot-givers throughout the rest of the year. Use CRM data to gain insights about their interests and create personalized campaigns for them year-round.

Move spot-givers to their own email segment. Instead of focusing mainly on donation appeals, devote time to creating relevant and interesting content for them such as blog posts, press releases, and current event articles.

Get Your Gifts Matched

Most corporate employers have programs in place to match donations made by employees to nonprofit organizations. However, there is often a disconnect between donors and their knowledge of these programs.

Nearly 78% of donors are match-eligible for matching gift programs, but they have no idea. This leads to nonprofits missing out on additional dollars that can push them closer to their fundraising goals.

Here are a few ways to inform donors that they can double their contribution to nonprofits:

  • Donation pages – Take advantage of the peak of donor engagement. Encourage donors to check if their employers have matching gift programs.
  • Thank you emails – Promote gift matching in your acknowledgment letters to help further your cause.
  • Matching gift tools – Share matching gift tools with donors so that they can verify if their employers have matching gift programs. These tools will be especially helpful for the upcoming #GivingTuesday.
  • Dedicated donation page – Give donors options on how they can support your organization. Include matching gift programs, as a way to increase the donations your organization receives.

What about brands?

Brands can also capitalize on the Giving Tuesday hype to boost sales, website visits, exposure, and raise money for an amazing cause that’s close to their heart.

  • Partner with or choose an NGO or nonprofit that fits with your brand values.
  • Plan a donation strategy.
  • Promote your #GivingTuesday promotion through social media and email.

Wrap up

Giving Tuesday is an effective tool for nonprofits and NGOs to capitalize on the generous spirit of the holiday season with social media and email campaigns. Remember to:

  • Find a way to make your marketing campaign stand out.
  • Be descriptive in your marketing and write for one person.
  • Plan an automated nurturing strategy for the rest of the year.

By maximizing your email marketing efforts and integrating them with social media and your landing pages, you can boost your donations during the year-end holiday season and all year long.

Just like brands, nonprofits can build loyal relationships with donors through data. Learn how you can enhance your nonprofit’s email marketing with CRM data.

 

Article first published November 2016, updated June 2019

We read the news, shop, and connect with friends online. We send and receive dozens (if not hundreds) of emails a day, and then respond to Facebook messages, Tweet, poke, chat, and create Instagram stories about our lives.

Some of us even communicate with our doctors and accountants through online portals.

You can’t deny that our lives online are irreversibly connected to our lives “offline”—which is why it doesn’t come as a surprise that we’re even connecting and donating to our favorite nonprofits and charities online.

In 2015, around 7% of all charitable donations were made online, and this figure is expected to grow in the coming years.

As our online and offline worlds continue to merge, it’s now more important than ever for nonprofits to better understand how to effectively drive online donations. Whether your nonprofit has overlooked online giving, is just getting started, or has been focusing on donations online for some time, Rob Wu, CEO and Co-founder of CauseVox shares 15 proven ways that your nonprofit can bring in more online donations.

1. Perfect your email marketing.

Email marketing for nonprofits helps send impactful email campaigns that deepen donor relationships and achieve fundraising goals. Nonprofits can use email marketing to recruit volunteers, re-engage lapsed donors, drive attendance to your next event, and, of course, fundraise.

Focus on email marketing best practices including:

Aside from content, frequency also matters. While you may think that less is more, nonprofits receive fewer unsubscribes when they send 4 or more emails per month. You can figure out the ideal email frequency for your audience by testing your frequency to portions of your list. See if your engagement increases and the impact it has on your unsubscribes before you increase your frequency and always let your subscribers know the added value they’ll get from receiving more email from you.

Save the Children has a strong fundraising email campaign as seen in this email:

 

Check out this guide for more tips on email marketing for your nonprofit.

2. Leverage social media.

While social media platforms have begun to incorporate donation-specific features (think Facebook Donate button), nonprofits shouldn’t overlook the biggest power of social media: exposure.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram are all great ways to spread the word about your cause to current supporters. As people learn about your organization, you’ll be giving them the tools (and fuel) to share your cause with their own friends and family.

We’ve seen nonprofits and charities leverage the natural exposure that social media creates by:

  • Using social sharing buttons on your website, emails, and content
  • Asking your supporters to connect with your cause and to share your message with others
  • Distributing shareable content across all platforms

For example, Neverthirst uses social sharing buttons on all of their website pages.

neverthirst-leverage-social-media

3. Leverage peer-to-peer fundraising.

Ask your most loyal supporters to raise money on behalf of your organization by becoming personal fundraisers for a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.

Not only does this online crowdfunding technique help to increase your reach, but it’s also a way for you to engage those supporters that are looking for another way to get involved.

Peer to peer fundraising can be a great tool to maximize donations and reach a larger audience. If even a small portion of your constituents created their own peer-to-peer fundraiser and reached out to their families, friends, and community members, you’ll be able to reach your fundraising goals in no time.

Plus, the additional exposure may result in gaining more long-term donors for your organization.

Save the Frogs is using online peer-to-peer fundraising with CauseVox to fund a conversation project. Teams of fundraisers are helping to spread the word—and raise money—for this cause.

world-bicycle-relief-peer-to-peer-fundraising-website

4. Remember website popups.

As we’ve helped power thousands of nonprofit’s online fundraising, we’ve found website popups to be a surprisingly effective way to capture a prospective donor’s name and email address. After all, if someone makes the effort to visit your website (and especially your donation page) chances are they’re looking to get involved.

Now may not be the right time for them to give a gift, but a follow-up email or other form of outreach could be the way to engage that person down the road.

Popups can be strategically placed depending on your preferences. To see a subtle, effective popup, check out the Human Rights Watch website.

human-rights-watch-popup

5. Organize your donation page.

If online giving isn’t easy, people won’t donate to your organization. Make it easy to give by presenting a clean, organized donation page.

Check out these stellar donation pages by Girls Write Now and charity:water.

girls-wrtie-now-donation-page

charity-water-donation-page

6. Optimize for mobile.

People are using their mobile devices to connect with your organization. Thirteen percent of online gifts were made from mobile devices, according to the 2016 M+R Benchmarks study.

Additionally, 51% of your website visitors are using a mobile device to view your site.

It’s possible you’re even reading this post on a mobile device.

Nonprofits should optimize for mobile on their websites, email communications, and social media. Here are some things that you can do today to start the mobile optimization process:

  • Keep content short and to the point
  • Use a single-column layout
  • Check images and video for optimization

Use a bold call-to-action button with actionable language (i.e., Donate Now, Give Today)

world-help-for-mobile

7. Distribute valuable content.

Establish your nonprofit or charity as an expert in your field by creating and distributing valuable content such as blogs, eBooks, and other resources online. People are more likely to support your cause if they see you as a knowledgeable source.

For inspiration, take a look at the research page on the Amnesty International website, which includes links to reports and research findings.

amnesty-international-valuable-content

8. Use quality, effective images.

Your nonprofit story defines your organization, and images are a great way to share that story. Use impactful images that showcase your work, including your website, emails, and social media. According to Kissmetrics, photos get 53% more likes, 104% more comments and 84% more click-throughs on links than text-based posts.

The most effective way to use images is to focus on ones that feature people and places that are influenced by your work. Noteworthy (and shareable) pictures are usually:

  • People, particularly faces turned toward the camera
  • Not stock photos, but ones taken by your nonprofit
  • Large with high resolution
  • Optimized for mobile

Check out this UNICEF Facebook post, which includes one of thousands of great, compelling pictures meant to educate, inspire, and get the audience to act.

9. Be trendy.

Capitalize on current events and holidays. When something is trending, people want to be involved—and this includes your supporters. If there’s a way that you can connect your nonprofit to a current event, then do it online.

Keep in mind that a good portion of giving occurs during the last two months of the year. In fact, 31% of all giving occurs in December and 12% happens in the last three days of the year.

To stay relevant, try doing an online year-end or #GivingTuesday fundraising campaign to stay top of mind for those looking to give during the holiday season.

 

Year-End Fundraising Plan

10. Create a recurring giving campaign.

People want to support causes they come across online, but there are times when a donor can’t make a one-time gift. It may be because their budget doesn’t match their desired giving amount or because they’d like to spread payments over the course of the year. Therefore, it’s in everyone’s best interest for organizations to create a recurring giving program.

Nonprofits benefit from recurring giving because this method keeps donors involved and engaged while also ensuring a steady flow of income for the organization.

One of the best recurring giving programs out there was developed by Watsi. This nonprofit sends a monthly, personalized message and thank you featuring a client helped with the donation, and they’ve seen amazing results because of this donation feature.

Owatsi-universal-fund-recuring-campaign

11. Recognize your supporters quickly and often.

After observing thousands of campaigns, we’ve found that thanking donors is the single most important thing a nonprofit can do to retain a donor. It’s easy to thank a donor when they’ve given in person, but what about those donating online?

If possible, send a personal email or make a phone call to acknowledge the gift. If you know your donor is comfortable with it (they chose to not give anonymously), give them a shout out on social media. The more you recognize their efforts, the more they’ll feel like an essential part of the cause. You can use marketing automation to trigger an email when someone makes a donation so the right message is sent to the right person at exactly the right time.

Research shows that attracting a new customer is 5x more expensive than keeping an existing one. With this in mind, St. Jude’s Hospital tracks when their donors last made a contribution and automatically sends a re-engagement email exactly three months after that date.

12. Keep donors (& prospects) updated.

You can keep donations coming in the door by communicating with your donors and prospects, not just about the status of the campaign, but of the impact of their gifts.

Send email updates and create/update your blog and website with the latest on your campaigns and work. If you calculate the return on investment, then definitely share that as well.

World Bicycle Relief allows supporters share status updates and results with supporters on their online fundraising website. This is a great way to keep everyone in the loop.

village-schools-blog-update

13. Use compelling storytelling to drive your cause.

Have you ever heard the concept of personal, not personalized, when it comes to upgrading your nonprofit donors?

The idea is to make donors feel special and tug on their heartstrings—which means automation and bland, generic email blasts need to be thrown out the window.

Stories are a great way to create powerful connections with your audience. To do this effectively, you’ll need to give people the following:

  • Statistics: Facts and figures give people a clear picture of the severity of the problem you’re trying to solve.
  • Experiences: Sometimes the big picture doesn’t drive donations as much as an individual’s story. For instance, citing the fact that 1000 children need food may not tug at the heart. However, telling the story of the struggles that John—one of the children—goes through just to get one less-than-decent meal a week puts the situation in perspective.

Here’s an example of good storytelling in an email:

Here’s an example of good storytelling in an email:

Source: Campaign Monitor

Using storytelling allows your audience to “live” the experience that your cause is going through, therefore appealing to their empathetic side. For nonprofits, empathy is one of the biggest emotions to trigger, as it helps loosen people’s purse strings.

So go ahead and incorporate storytelling in your quest to collect donations online.

14. Employ QR codes.

QR codes are powerful yet underutilized. QR codes, short for “quick response” codes, are technology that allows creators to store data in square-shaped black-and-white symbols. Users can then scan and read the data with the use of their smartphones. Scanning the code usually takes you to a website or some other online asset—in this case, probably a fundraising page or your donation forms.

To pull this off, you’ll have to design a compelling print ad that you can place in an area with either a lot of foot traffic or in direct mail publications that are widely read. You can also utilize your QR code on merchandise, event invitations, postcard mailers, and more.

Of course, you’ll have to use a compelling image, ad copy, and CTA to get people to get to stop and scan your QR code.

Of course, you’ll have to use a compelling image, ad copy, and CTA to get people to get to stop and scan your QR code.

Source: Kindful

15. Offer alternative payment options.

One of the biggest advantages of collecting donations online is the fact that you can get support from all over the world. However, that also comes with its own complications—namely, the fact that your donors may have different payment avenues.

Getting around this is possible if you provide alternative payment options instead of only using those favored in your region.

Getting around this is possible if you provide alternative payment options instead of only using those favored in your region.

Source: Donorbox

Wrap up

Sometimes it seems impossible for our nonprofits to keep up with the ever-evolving, demanding world of technology. But it’s coming, whether we like it or not.

Although your nonprofit may still get a bulk of your donations from offline sources, the tide is shifting. Incorporate these 15 techniques, and you’ll begin to drive more donations online and hopefully gain, educate, and engage donors in the process.

Need more tips on how to help your brick-and-mortar nonprofit garner more support for your causes? Then check out our ultimate guide to email marketing for nonprofits.

This is a guest post from CallHub.

You’ve gotten people to sign up or register for your event. That’s great.

But, if your event is a month or two away, how do you actually confirm that they will attend it? It’s possible that the people who signed up did it in the spur of the moment and are likely to forget about it.

This is where email nurturing comes into play.

Nurturing your nonprofit event attendees with email

By keeping your attendees engaged through strategic emails that you send at regular intervals:

  • You ensure your event stays fresh on their minds, so that they actually remember to show up
  • You build the foundation for a relationship with people who haven’t engaged with your nonprofit before

But knowing what kind of emails you should send and the order in which you do so may prove to be a challenge. Read on to learn more about the email nurturing process in a step-by-step approach so you know exactly what type of emails your nonprofit should send to foster relationships and increase event attendance.

Figure out what your goals are

Nonprofit emails have a decent chance of being opened and read because of the recipient’s awareness about your cause and/or their involvement with your organization. You should capitalize on this by making sure your emails are both compelling and actionable, and this can be achieved by having clear, set goals.

While your primary goal is to boost attendance at your event, you may have other goals too, such as acquiring donations from attendees or using the event to get closer to your important donors. Once you’re clear on what your exact goals are, framing and tracking your nurturing emails becomes easier.

For instance, if the event is being held to raise money for your cause, you’d include a link in your email to your ticketing page and track how many donations you actually receive to see if your goals are being met.

Or, if you want to use the event as an opportunity to bond with your loyal supporters, you’d include a personal message in your email. Your special donors should be in a separate list, so sending these emails would be simple. You can then track open and click-through rates to see whether you’re getting your desired engagement or not.

Having your goals in mind gives you a clearer idea of what your emails should include.

Email 1: save the date

Once people have signed up to your event on your website or social media, the first email you send is the ‘Save the Date’ email. Here, you’ll briefly mention the event and relevant information. For example:

  • Date
  • Venue
  • Time
  • Event name and slogan (if any)

The purpose here is to give your recipients a heads up regarding your event so that they can add it to their calendars. Use an email marketing software to automatically send this email to people who have entered their basic details on your form.

In all of your “Save the Date” emails, include a compelling caption image that gives a clear indication of what the event is about, while reinforcing your brand identity.

Since this is your first email, you’d include just one main CTA—mark this date on your calendar— which can increase your open rates by upto 371%. Your other CTAs could be something you send in all your emails, such as your social media icons or a donate button.

Operation Fresh Start’s Save the Date email for their gala event is a good example to keep in mind. The graphic shows that it’s going to be a fun event, and they’ve briefly mentioned what the occasion is and when and where it will take place.

nonprofit event email examples

Note: Your organization would have contacts—(major donors or loyal supporters)—who haven’t specifically signed up for the event on your website. However, you’d still like for them to participate so you can strengthen your bond with them. For them, you’d send the “Save the Date” email as early as possible (a few months in advance). Here, you’d include a link to your ticketing page where they can purchase passes and early bird tickets.

Emails 2 and 3: build anticipation and nurture your targets

Now that you’ve sent the first email, your aim should be focused on ensuring people don’t forget your event. So how do you do this without coming off as too pushy? By building curiosity and a sense of anticipation around it.

Depending on how far along your event is, you should send at least two emails before sending the invite. Some of the key components you should consider including in these emails would be:

  • Value proposition: This states why the recipient should be attending your event and what the expected outcomes are. If it’s a charity run, talk about how attendees would become more fit by participating and how they would contribute to spreading awareness about your cause. By mentioning the benefits involved, you’re essentially motivating your contacts to attend.
  • Social Proof: This is a way of showing attendees (especially first-timers)  you understand they may have some concerns about how your event is going to turn out and whether it’s worth attending. By adding social proof, you’re aiming to assuage these concerns. Include testimonials from attendees of previous events or attendee numbers from those events in your emails. You can even link out to a separate testimonial page on your website or use video testimonials in your email. Use captivating graphics and friendly images of past attendees to portray a feeling of warmth. An example would be the image below, which works because it comes off as a friendly and trustworthy message.

event emails for nonprofits

  • X days to go!: Send this email a couple of weeks to a few days before your event to enforce a sense of anticipation. Include some fun videos and pictures of your volunteers working behind the scenes to show your attendees that you’re super excited to host them.

Email 4: the formal invitation

You’ve built up the event and now it’s time for the formal invitation. Make sure you personalize your invite so your attendees feel that you value them as individuals. Use the invitee’s name in the subject line as well, because personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. Create a neat and well-designed template that looks captivating and includes the necessary details, such as event venue and time.

Keep it short and briefly talk about what the event is going to achieve, what the itinerary looks like, and what attendees can expect by being present. If you have guest speakers, mention their names too and what they’ll be talking about. Include RSVP CTAs so that you get an estimate of how many people will be there.

A good example of a formal email invite would be for a gala dinner. Here, the design of the invite is elegant, and the event name and purpose are clearly mentioned. The venue, date, time, and attire are specified too, so that recipients are adequately prepared to attend the event.

Nonprofit event email templates

Email 5: event reminder

This is the final email you should send just a day or two before the event to remind your attendees of the important details: time, location, and anything else they’d need to know before attending. You can even suggest different routes they can take—bus or subway routes—so that they’ll be at the venue well ahead of time.

If your nonprofit uses a text messaging software, you should certainly schedule text messages in advance to complement your email reminders. Since SMS has a super-high open rate of 98%, you can be assured that people are going to be read them. You can text all the necessary event details. Examine this sample SMS:

“Hey Jon, the big day is tomorrow! Our ‘Save the Children’ charity ball is happening at the Town Hall on the 21st of October at 221B Baker Street. If you’re coming by bus or subway, please check out www.savechildren/events.ly to figure out which route to take. We can’t wait to see you tomorrow, Jon—it’s going to be great.”

Post-event email 1: thank you and survey

After your event is over, you should send a thank you email to your attendees as a token of appreciation. This is a nice gesture on your part and will help them feel that the time they spent was worth it.

This would also likely motivate them to come to your future events. An example of a well-composed thank you email is shown in the screenshot below, where UNICEF has clearly outlined the recipient’s importance for the cause.

how to write an event email for your nonprofit event

An effective way to track all your emails is to include a short survey in your post-event email. You can include an NPS (net promoter score) survey, which asks attendees how likely they are to recommend your future events to their friends. You can also link out to a survey using tools like Survey Monkey or Typeform to learn more about their opinion about the event. This shows attendees that you value them, and is an important nurturing strategy.

Post-event email 2: impact

While the previous email would be sent immediately (one or two days) after the event, the impact email would be sent a little later, depending on the type of event you had. If it was a fundraiser, you’d mention how much money was raised and how it benefited your campaign.

Whatever the event was for, use storytelling to portray its impact. This essentially tells recipients: thanks a lot for your contribution. We were able to achieve so much and you played an important role in it!

Being the last nurturing email, it is an important step, as it figuratively completes the circle:

  • A person signed up for your event
  • They understood what the event was about through a series of nurturing emails
  • They then received a formal invitation and a reminder
  • They were thanked for attending
  • They understood the part they played in achieving an important goal

This validates their decision to attend and makes them feel glad that they were present.

Wrap up

Your emails can do wonders when it comes to increasing attendance and nurturing your participants. Plan and space out your emails according to the number of people who are attending, when the event is going to take place, and what its scope is. Once the event is over, make sure to nurture them further through email newsletters so that they become advocates of your cause and start donating to your organization down the line.

 

campaign monitor guest post

Shaunak Wanikar is part of the Marketing team at CallHub, a cloud telephony company which connects campaigns with their supporters through its voice and SMS software. He helps deliver compelling content which bridges knowledge gaps for nonprofit organizations, political campaigns, advocacy groups, and businesses. An engineering graduate, Shaunak is passionate about seeing the world improve through the medium of technology. Movies, football, and books keep him sane.

Just about every business on the planet uses email marketing to some extent—and it’s not hard to guess why. Email consistently delivers double the ROI of any other digital channel. That’s why smart marketers have built an optimized strategy around email.

The same is becoming true for nonprofits, as well. Charitable organizations have learned just how big the ROI can be for email marketing and are using it to keep in contact with their donors and fund new initiatives.

However, email marketing for nonprofits requires some specific tactics in order to be successful. Here are four ideas to improve your nonprofit’s email marketing results.

4 tips that will improve email marketing for nonprofits

Before you launch a new campaign, take a few minutes to read through the following tips designed specifically for email marketing for nonprofits.

Whether you’re happy with the email results you’re already getting or just trying to get your email marketing program off the ground, there’s always an opportunity to optimize your strategy and reach more people for your cause.

1. Segment your audience to deliver more relevant content.

Too often, email marketing for nonprofits revolves around sending out one message aimed at their entire list of recipients. On paper, this seems to make sense. The entire list of recipients has the same goal, right? They want to help.

However, as we’re about to cover, the motives behind giving vary. That’s why you must segment your nonprofit’s list based on the reasons that matter most to your donors.

This example from the Australian Red Cross segments based on which causes their subscribers have donated to in the past, providing an update on their work and building long-term loyalty with their donors.

Red Cross Email Campaign

Of course, you can also segment them further after that based on their estimated income level, history of giving, etc. The point is that, if you try to use the same email to get everyone to give, no one will give.

2. Understand your subscriber’s motivations.

Everyone knows how important subject lines are. They’re the first thing your recipient sees when you send an email, so if it falls short of grabbing their interest, nothing else matters.

As we already covered, segmentation is important for understanding what matters to the different groups in your market.

However, if you need a little help identifying their biggest priorities, take a look at a study done by “The Development and Validation of the Motives to Donate Scale”, which identified five main reasons people give – also known by the acronym T.A.S.T.E.

Trust

No one wants to donate their time or money to a nonprofit they don’t trust. Whenever your organization is publicly recognized, be sure to send out an email where this is mentioned in the subject line. You need to continuously reinforce the idea that your nonprofit will make the best use of your donors’ resources.

Altruism

Studies show that an altruistic concern for the wellbeing of others may be the most powerful reason people decide to volunteer or donate. In your email marketing, make sure to include photos of the actual work your organization is doing.

Visuals in email can be a powerful way to show your impact and spur subscribers to contribute. Charity:Water does an excellent job of this across all digital marketing channels with photography that clearly communicates the value they’re providing with the help of their donors.

Charity Water Photography

Social

Donors often give to charities because a loved one cares about their cause.

For example, married couples often decide on donations together. Many fundraising initiatives succeed by recruiting children (e.g. The Girl Scouts) as this ensures potential donors know someone who is involved.

You can use testimonials or stories from those you’ve helped, volunteers, or staff at your nonprofit organization to drive home the social impact that their donation helps provide.

Taxes

Charitable giving often qualifies for certain tax breaks—a great point to stress as you approach the end of the year. From an email marketing perspective, creating targeted campaigns around the holiday season is often an effective way of generating awareness and driving donations.

This example from Unicef New Zealand combines compelling images with a call for subscribers to donate to their efforts for the holidays.

Unicef - Email Marketing

Egoism

This term might sound a little loaded, but it really just refers to their positive feelings that people feel when they exhibit charitable behavior.

This study also found that the main reason people don’t give is that of financial constraints. In your email campaign copy, consider addressing the financial commitment up front with language such as: “any amount helps” or speaking to specifically what their donation will be used for.

At the same time, email marketing for nonprofits doesn’t need to focus on money. If you have volunteer opportunities, this is a great way to leverage people’s altruistic motives without stumbling over the issue of money.

3. Optimize your email campaigns.

As we mentioned earlier, you’ll always have opportunities to improve your campaigns. This is simply part of email marketing. You double-down on what works and move past what doesn’t.

That said, one very important aspect of email marketing for nonprofits is that you must respond to feedback. No donor wants to feel as though they’re being ignored after they’ve donated their hard-earned money and/or precious time.

Keep in mind, too, the more personalized your emails are, the more likely donors are to respond. So, be very careful about how much personalization you utilize if you don’t have the means to respond to all the feedback you may receive.

Sometimes, donor feedback can be extremely helpful. Other times, it’s decadently not. Either way, email marketing will backfire if you’re not responding in a timely fashion to each email you receive from your recipients.

4. Don’t just ask for donations.

Given its effectiveness, email marketing for nonprofits tends to be largely aimed at soliciting donations. It makes sense to use such a powerful practice to address the biggest challenge most charities face.

That said, you’ll find your email list quickly becomes unresponsive if all you do is ask for people’s money and time. In fact, if you notice your open-rates falling, especially right after a major giving initiative comes to completion, there’s a good chance it’s because people are starting to associate your emails with an ask.

That’s why you need to vary things by sending different types of content. Create and send content that covers a variety of examples of the work that your nonprofit does to help. Case studies are also phenomenal for showing specific stories with lots of emotion—use these as much as possible.

This example from The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation does include a CTA, but it also features a case study about Akeira, the child pictured, and her experience with their organization.

Royal Childrens Hospital Foundation

This is a great example of using email to show your recipients where their money is going. This doesn’t just feel good to see—it substantiates the importance of giving in the first place.

Email marketing for nonprofits offers a number of ways to do this. The easiest is probably to cover this topic in your blog and then link to it from the email with a short introduction.

This way, your recipients see the good their money is doing but prospective donors can also view this information on your site.

Wrap up

Email marketing for nonprofits may not be exactly the same as it is for other companies, but that doesn’t make it any less effective.

Keep the above tips in mind when you launch your initiative and you’ll see greater engagement from your list and more donations, as well.

To learn more about the best ways for nonprofits to reach out via email marketing, check out The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Nonprofits to transform your organization’s email strategy.