Running a nonprofit organization is hard. More specifically, marketing a nonprofit can be hard. With countless amazing organizations out there, some find it difficult to attract loyal donors. If done right, email newsletters can be an incredible asset for your nonprofit fundraising strategy.
5 Nonprofit Newsletter Tips
The purpose of your nonprofit’s newsletter is multifold. Email marketing is highly effective! Putting out a weekly or monthly newsletter is great way to keep in touch with your audience base and help retain interest over a longer period of time.
It is also a fantastic opportunity in which you can advertise upcoming events, notify people about fundraising events, raise money, highlight updates or simply keep in touch with you donors.
Whether you’re justing starting out setting up your newsletter or you need a few ideas, keep reading!
Below are a few things your newsletter needs to garner success.
1. Donor & Board Member Spotlights
One large part of creating a newsletter is establishing unique and consistent columns.
As nonprofit donors, your audience is clearly a giving group. However, their charitable spirit does not mean they would not like recognition of their generosity.
Give them a pat on the back. Spotlighting donors in each newsletter offers a positive affirmation to push them to become loyal supporters.
A spotlight section will also show your followers how much you value their support. Not only is their donation going toward an amazing cause, but it is also appreciated by your team.
Treat your donors like family and your community will follow suit.
2. Write Quality Content
Tell a story.
If you don’t hook your audience within the first two sentences, they will likely click away. Use your newsletters to pull your readers in and tell a story.
Nonprofit organizations like the Be Positive Foundation support childhood cancer patients and their families through medical treatment while also funding key research. When working with such emotional and sensitive situations, the foundation uses photos, videos, and thank you notes from patients in their email newsletters to pull at their reader’s heartstrings.
When you donate to organizations like Be Positive, you send donations off with no real benchmark of your effect on the children’s lives. However, when the newsletters include firsthand stories from affected children, donors know they are truly making a difference.
Let your storytelling speak for itself. Connect to your readers with a shared empathy and keep the emotional connection alive between donations.
3. Celebrate Successful Statistics
If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?
Every frustrated teenager has heard this response from a parent when begging to do what everyone else is doing.
So, if everyone else is donating to a nonprofit, would you?
People like to be validated in their actions. When users see other people doing something, they are more inclined to try it themselves. Use your email newsletter to share benchmarks and analytics.
Did your organization hit a new social media follower goal this month? Share it!
Looking for some inspiration from other successful nonprofit campaigns? Check out the ultimate nonprofit marketing guide here.
4. Add a Call To Action
A newsletter is nothing without a solid CTA.
You can share all the positive information you want, but to turn interested readers into leads, you must include a path to do so.
At the end of every newsletter, summarize your organization with a question for your audience.
Do you want to help a child in need? Are rescue animals a passion of yours?
When writing these CTAs, make sure that the answer to these questions is an unquestionable yes for your readers. As they nod their head along in agreement, provide a place for them to take this newfound need.
Provide embedded links and buttons that lead to your website, donation pages, and other resources.
5. Don’t Miss Out On Mobile
Have you ever opened an email or website on your phone to find the design has glitched?
Immediate click off.
When sites are optimized for computers, they are not made to be opened on a mobile device. This creates funky visuals, misplaced buttons, and an incorrect layout.
While most people write and design email newsletters on a computer, 61.9% of email opens happen on a mobile device according to Adestra.
One easy way to avoid readers abandoning your newsletter is the mobile layout. Ensure your newsletter can be easily accessed and read on any kind of device, especially a mobile phone.
This also applies to embedded links and buttons that should lead readers to an external location like Instagram, Facebook, or Google.
Setup Your Newsletter for Nonprofit Fundraising
With a few consistent columns, great visual graphics, and positive community connection, your newsletter is sure to boost donations and keep your followers engaged. Newsletters can be a very effective marketing strategy for your nonprofit and a great way to help drive money towards a fundraising campaign.
Whether you’re looking to increase online donations or simply help bolster your fundraising efforts, newsletter could be part of the answer.
While these tips and tricks will assist your organization in developing a successful newsletter, the trusted team at Elevare has years of experience helping nonprofits increase donations.
Schedule a free consultation today!
