Don’t Take a Vacation from Your Donor Communication

Ann Green Communications, direct mail, donor engagement, donor relations, donor-centered, gratitude , , , , ,

It’s summer! I hope you’ll get a chance to take a vacation or just some time off. It may be quieter at your nonprofit, or maybe it isn’t considering everything that’s going on, especially in the U.S. Either way, you don’t want to be too quiet and ignore your donors. Summer is a great time to do some relationship building. 

You should communicate with your donors at least once a month and that includes the summer months. Don’t make the mistake of taking a vacation from your donor communication. Continuing to stay in touch with your donors will help you when you launch your fall fundraising campaign. 

Maybe this sounds impossible, especially if you’re a small organization and worried about your finances, but you can do this!

Here are a few ways you can connect with your donors this summer, as well as throughout the year, and build those important relationships. 

Brighten your donor’s day with a handwritten thank you card

Nonprofit organizations don’t thank their donors enough. You don’t need a reason to thank your donors. Just do it and do it often. You’ll stand out if you do.

This is a good time to do something personal, such as sending a handwritten thank you card. Pour on the gratitude and let your donors know how much you appreciate them.

You only need to write a few sentences, but make it warm and friendly. Think of it as having a conversation with a friend. Get board members and other volunteers to pitch in and help. You could also have a client/beneficiary write thank you notes.

Send a postcard

It used to be fairly common for people to send postcards when they went on vacation. I don’t know how many people still do that, although I always enjoy receiving them.

Postcards are a great way to connect with your donors. Communicating by mail is more effective than electronic communication. I know mail is expensive, but a postcard shouldn’t cost too much. Your donors are also more likely to see your messages if you send them by mail. 

You can say thank you, share an update, or a combination of both. Besides feeling appreciated, donors also like to hear how their gift is making a difference. You could consider an infographic postcard.

Sending something by mail is an investment that could pay off if your postcard (or handwritten card) entices a donor to give again and possibly upgrade.

Email and social media are okay, too.

While it’s important to stay in touch once a month, it may not be possible to use direct mail that much. You can also use email and social media. Email has an advantage here because you can personalize your messages and the engagement levels are better, although not as good as direct mail. The downside is people get a ton of email and social media messages, so make yours stand out.

You could send your donors a thank you photo or video. Maybe you already do a monthly e-newsletter. Spruce it up a little. You could even make it shorter. Share a story that lets your donors know how they’re helping you make a difference for your clients/community.

You don’t need anything fancy and make it easy for yourself by keeping it simple. There are so many ways to thank your donors and share an update. It’s okay to have a little fun and get creative. It’s summer, after all. It could also be a nice distraction from all the chaos and uncertainty going on right now.

Get donors involved

I know we’re facing a lot of economic uncertainty, but donors want to help if they can. 

Will certain policies or funding cuts affect your organization? Most likely, the answer is yes.

Share ways your donors can help – perhaps by contacting their legislators, volunteering, or making a donation.

I’m a big fan of advocacy alerts. They can be a great way for people to engage with your organization. Be sure to thank participants and keep them updated on any outcomes.

When all levels of government make funding cuts or policy changes, the need in the community grows, which puts more burden on nonprofit organizations. Remember, some donors will step up and help, if they can. 

Make room for improvement and plan ahead

Summer can be a good time to make improvements in your existing communication. Spend time finding some engaging stories and photos for your newsletters and other updates. This is also a good time to warm up your donors for your fall campaign.

Start working on your appeal and thank you letters for your next campaign. Make sure they focus on building relationships and are donor-centered. Segment your donors by different types – new, renewing, monthly, etc.  Also, make sure your CRM/database is up to date.

If you’re feeling pinched financially, I recommend starting your fall campaign earlier, maybe in September or October. Many nonprofits run year-end campaigns. The earlier you start, the less likely you’ll compete with an onslaught of appeals. 

You could try a summer campaign if you’ve experienced a big cut in funding, although summer generally isn’t the best time for a fundraising campaign. You could, however, try to raise some additional revenue by inviting current donors to join your family of monthly donors and reaching out to your lapsed donors.

For now, keep relationship building front and center. Keep communicating with your donors. They want to hear from you. Don’t take a vacation from your donor communication.

Make it Easier for Your Nonprofit and Your Donors by Keeping Things Simple

Ann Green Communications, donor engagement, donor relations, planning, writing , , , ,

Over the years, I’ve realized the importance of keeping things simple. This is even more important now during this time of chaos and uncertainty. I’m sure you’re experiencing those both professionally and personally. I often find pleasure in simple things such as taking a walk, reading (I’ve found the Thursday Murder Club series to be a nice escape right now), and doing yoga.

Keeping it simple doesn’t have to mean a bare-bones existence. There’s a Swedish term called lagom meaning everything in moderation or not too much, not too little. Or think of Goldilocks and choose what’s “just right.” This can apply to how much information we take in about everything that’s happening in the world. You want enough information to know what’s going on, but not too much that it’s overwhelming. Also, it’s not good for your brain to multitask. 

Keeping things simple is important for your nonprofit organization, too. I know this is a tough time, especially if you’ve experienced funding cuts and your revenue is down. Maybe you’re short-staffed and struggling to get things done.

Even so, you need to continue to raise money and communicate regularly with your donors, while not taking on too much. Donors are also navigating these uncertain situations, but they want to help if they can and they want to hear from you. What they don’t want is a lot of complex content and too much information.

Here are a few ways to simplify your donor communication without making it too difficult for you.

Keep it simple by planning ahead

If communicating regularly with your donors sounds overwhelming, plan ahead by using a communications calendar. You should be in touch every one to two weeks, if possible. Otherwise, aim for once a month. Fill your calendar with different ways to do that and update it as needed. A good rule of thumb is – ask, thank, report, repeat. And, as I mention below, you can keep it simple with shorter communication.

Keep it simple by sticking to one call to action

Your communication needs to be clear. Before you send an email message or letter, ask what is your intention?  Is it to ask for a donation, say thank you, or send an update?

Stick to one call to action. Suppose you send a message that includes requests for a donation, volunteers, and for people to contact their legislators. It’s likely your donors won’t respond to all of your requests and may not respond to any of them. Send separate messages for each request. 

You’ll also have better results if you send your messages to the right audience. For example, if you’re looking for volunteers for an event, reach out to past volunteers and ask them to bring a friend, as opposed to sending a message to everyone on your mailing list. This way you won’t be subjecting people to messages that may not be relevant to them.

In your fundraising appeals, don’t bury your ask. You can start with a story, followed by a clear, prominent ask. Recognize your reader. Thank previous donors and invite potential donors to be a part of your family of donors.

Your thank you letter or email should thank the donor. Sounds simple, right? Make them feel good about giving to your organization. Welcome new donors and welcome back returning donors. You don’t need a lot of wordy text explaining what your organization does.

Keep your messages simple, yet sincere, and include a clear call to action.

Keep it simple with shorter, easy-to-read messages

Plain and simple if your communication is too long, most people won’t read it. 

Limit print communication, such as newsletters and impact reports, to four pages or less. Your email messages should be just a few paragraphs. On the other hand, you don’t want to be terse or say too little.

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Mark Twain

Be sure your communication is easy to read and scan. Use short paragraphs, especially for electronic communication, and include lots of white space. Don’t clutter up the page. Use at least a 12-point font with dark type on a light background – basic black on white is best.

Keep it simple by using conversational language

I find it annoying when I read an appeal letter or newsletter article that sounds like a Ph.D. thesis. Write at a sixth to eighth-grade level. That’s what most major newspapers do. This is not dumbing down. You’re smartening up by ensuring your donors will understand you. There are programs out there that can help you determine the reading level of your content. Plus, you can raise more money if your messages are easy to read.

Keep out jargon and other confusing language. Instead of saying something like – We’re helping underserved communities who are experiencing food insecurity, say  – Thanks to donors like you, we can serve more families at the Northside Community Food Pantry. 

We’re seeing real people being affected by real problems. Don’t diminish this with jargon and other vague language.

Use the active voice and there’s no need to get fancy by using a lot of SAT vocabulary words. Again, you want your donors to understand you.

Keep it simple by creating a clutter-free website

Your website is still a place where people will go to get information. Make sure it’s clear, clutter-free, and easy to read and navigate. Don’t forget about short paragraphs and lots of white space.

One of the most important parts of your website is your donation page. It needs to be easy to use and collect enough information without overwhelming your donors. If it’s too cumbersome, they may give up and leave. What’s known as form abandonment can happen on other web pages, too.

If it’s a branded donation page (e.g. not a third-party site), make sure it’s consistent with your messaging and look. Don’t go too minimalistic, though. Include a short description of how a donor’s gift will help you make a difference, as well as an engaging photo.

Make it easier for your nonprofit and your donors by keeping things simple.

How Is Your Nonprofit Doing This Year, and How You Can Make Improvements If You’re Behind In Your Goals

Ann Green Communications, donor engagement, fundraising, gratitude, planning , , , ,

It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through 2025. It’s been a tumultuous year so far, especially in the U.S. The midpoint of the year is a good time to see if you’re meeting your fundraising and communications goals. For this post, I’m assuming your fiscal year is the same as the calendar year. If you’re on a different fiscal cycle, you can make the appropriate time adjustments.

Your fundraising revenue may be down. You might have lost some federal funding, and cuts in federal funding can trickle down to the state and local levels.

Yes, we’re in an uncertain economy, but that doesn’t mean you should stop fundraising. Never stop fundraising! Donors will give if they can.

You may need to make some changes to your fundraising plan and other goals. And, if you never made a fundraising plan for this year, stop right there and put one together now and use it for the remainder of the year. Always have a plan.

Take a look at what’s working and what’s not. It will be different for every organization. If you’re doing okay, keep it up, although your circumstances could change. If you’re falling short, figure out where you need to make changes.

If you’re relying too much on grants and events, and those aren’t bringing in the revenue you need, focus more on individual giving. Many nonprofits raise the most money from individual giving. Summer is usually a less busy time for nonprofits. Take advantage of that with these suggestions to help you stay on track this year.

Start or enhance your monthly giving program

Monthly giving is doable for all sizes of nonprofit organizations, even small ones. It’s a great way to raise more money, as well as your donor retention rate. Retention rates for monthly donors are much better than other retention rates. You’ll have a steady stream of income and it may be more feasible for your donors, especially if they’re feeling pinched financially. It’s also one of the few types of fundraising that’s growing right now.

If you don’t have a monthly giving program, start one now. To get more monthly donors, send a special targeted letter to current donors inviting them to become monthly donors. This is a good opportunity to upgrade smaller dollar donors, or any donors for that matter.

Small gifts of $5 or $10 a month can make a difference. You could also get larger gifts of $10 or $20 a month. Again, this can be more appealing than giving a bigger sum all at once.

Also, do something special for your current monthly donors. Send them a thank you postcard or email. They’ve made a commitment to you – now make a commitment to them.

I’ve always been a big fan of monthly giving, even more so over the last few years. They’re one of your most committed donor groups. 

Having a strong monthly giving program is going to be a big help if you’re worried about meeting your fundraising goals.

Get in touch with your lapsed donors

This could be a good time to reach out to donors who haven’t given for a year or two. There are many reasons for that. Maybe they can’t afford to give right now. Maybe you’re doing a poor job with your donor communication. Maybe they were busy and forgot. Send them an engaging, personal appeal saying how much you’ve appreciated their support, state your need, and ask them to give a gift.

Don’t assume donors aren’t going to give right now.  Although if you hear from a donor who says they can’t give at this time, respect that. Most likely, your need is growing, and remember, many donors will help if they can. 

Look into higher levels of giving

Another advantage of monthly giving is that these donors are more likely to become mid-level and major donors. Starting a major gift program will take time, but it’s doable even for small organizations. Look into starting one soon. Organizations with strong major gift programs tend to do better financially. 

Ramp up your donor engagement

Since summer is usually a slower time for fundraising, it’s a good time to show some donor appreciation and plan for fall. Don’t disappear over the summer.

Some donors will pull back on their giving, but that doesn’t mean ghosting them. Keep engaging with them to help ensure they’ll give again, if they can. Remember the ask, thank, report, repeat formula, with a focus on thanking and reporting. 

Make improvements to your donor communication

Many nonprofits can do a better job of communicating with their donors. Are you one of them?  Look at metrics such as website visits and email open rates. I know these don’t always tell the whole story, but if you’re not seeing a lot of engagement, figure out why.

Often, it’s because your content isn’t great or it’s too long. Maybe it’s layout and design. You could also be targeting the wrong audience. Summer is a good time to make some changes. Do a marketing audit to see where you’re falling short.

It’s not too late, yet

If you’re falling behind in your goals, you still have time to do better, but you need to make an effort.

Be sure to keep evaluating your progress for the rest of the year. Remember, even if you’re doing okay now, circumstances can change. I would recommend monitoring your progress more frequently (once a month instead of once a quarter) so you can try to stay on track. You don’t want to get caught off guard. 

Keep monitoring your progress to help ensure a successful year.

Event Ideas to Strengthen Donor-Beneficiary Relationships

Ann Green donor engagement, donor relations, events, fundraising, gratitude, stories , , , , ,

Explore top event ideas to strengthen relationships between donors and beneficiaries, enhance engagement, and maximize fundraising success for your nonprofit.

By Jen Wemhoff

Nonprofit fundraising is about more than just dollars—it’s about connections. Strong relationships between donors and beneficiaries can deepen donor engagement, build trust, and generate more meaningful support for your organization’s mission. For smaller nonprofits, these relationships are incredibly powerful. They humanize your work, turn statistics into human-driven stories, and can help transform one-time donors into long-term supporters.

When donors have the opportunity to see and hear the real-world impact of their giving and meet the people whose lives have been changed because of their contributions, it cultivates a deeper sense of purpose. One of the most effective ways to do this is through events that bring donors and beneficiaries together in intentional ways. Here are four event ideas that can help your nonprofit foster deeper connections between donors and the people they’re helping.

1. Charity Golf Tournament

A charity golf tournament offers a relaxed setting centered around an enjoyable event where meaningful conversations and connections happen naturally. Unlike more structured events, golf tournaments provide plenty of downtime between holes and during post-golf activities like a cocktail hour, reception, or banquet, which provides an organic interaction between donors, beneficiaries, volunteers, and staff. 

Why It Works:

  • Participation opportunities for beneficiaries. Invite beneficiaries to join foursomes or serve as event speakers. Their presence adds authenticity and helps donors connect their support to real stories.
  • Informal setting. The laid-back nature of the day encourages casual, authentic conversations that can’t be achieved with a formal program. 
  • Multi-purpose. You can integrate storytelling, donor recognition, and fundraising opportunities into one event.

Golf Tournament Pro Tips:

  • GolfStatus recommends getting creative by adding a theme to your tournament that helps drive home your mission to participants. 
  • Invite a beneficiary to share their story during opening remarks or the awards ceremony. 
  • Set up a casual “Meet and Greet” session over breakfast or lunch before the tournament begins or over drinks and appetizers after the round finishes, where donors and beneficiaries can connect.
  • Add additional fundraising elements like a raffle with items or experiences tied to your mission to spotlight beneficiary needs or milestones.

2. Storytelling Event

Storytelling events, whether hosted in person or online, center on experiences. Beneficiaries share their personal journeys, and donors see the direct results of their support. Both groups get to witness the people behind the mission.

Why It Works:

  • Emotional connection to your nonprofit. Stories humanize your work in ways that data and numbers simply can’t. Hearing someone describe how a program changed their life is more powerful than any campaign report.
  • Clarity and transparency. When donors hear directly from organizational beneficiaries, it reinforces your mission and impact in a tangible, memorable way. 
  • Flexibility. A storytelling event allows you to choose how and when to hold it. You might fold it into another event (like your golf tournament) or host a series of online sessions once a month.

Storytelling Events Pro Tips:

  • Use video, photos, and music to amplify the emotional impact of the beneficiary stories and your mission. 
  • Tie each story to a specific call to action, such as making a donation, volunteering to help with an event or initiative, or participating in an advocacy effort. 
  • To foster meaningful connections, make the event as interactive as possible. Offer live Q&A, breakout rooms, or discussion prompts to allow donors and beneficiaries to talk directly with one another.

3. Community Dinner or Picnic

Want a high-impact way to bring people together? Host a casual community dinner or picnic. These types of relaxed events invite people to gather together in a friendly, informal atmosphere to forge genuine connections and relationships. 

Why It Works:

  • Authenticity. A potluck or BBQ can feel more like a family reunion than a fundraising event. That kind of setting opens the door to real, heartfelt conversations.
  • Accessibility. These events are typically less expensive than a formal gala or corporate gathering, and are easy to host at a local park, community center, or even someone’s backyard.

Community Dinner Pro Tips:

  • Create a “meet the beneficiary” table or booth where willing beneficiaries can chat with attendees and share their experiences.
  • Include a special “thank you” segment at the dinner where beneficiaries personally express appreciation to donors. This could be as simple as a few brief testimonials or even thank-you cards distributed at tables.

4. Workshop or Educational Panel

Consider hosting a workshop, discussion panel, conference session, or series of open-table conversations where donors and beneficiaries participate. Center the discussions around topics relevant to your nonprofit’s mission and work, allowing both groups to engage with and learn from each other.

Why It Works:

  • Shared learning. These types of sessions position donors and beneficiaries as co-learners, fostering empathy, respect, and shared purpose of your organization’s mission.
  • Dialogue and insight. Donors hear firsthand about lived experiences from those who have benefited from the nonprofit’s services, and beneficiaries gain visibility and confidence by sharing their story and letting their voices be heard.

Discussion Event Pro Tips:

  • Choose discussion topics that matter to both audiences. You might invite representatives from each group to collaborate on designing the agenda and topics.
  • Use a skilled moderator to guide the discussion and ensure equal participation from both donors and beneficiaries. 
  • Consider hands-on workshops where beneficiaries and donors collaborate. For example, you might offer a session on financial literacy or resume writing led by a donor with expertise in those areas, which gives donors the chance to learn more about a beneficiary’s journey. 

Final Thoughts

You don’t need a huge staff or a big budget to pull off events like those mentioned in this guide. Think about strategic ways to stretch your resources, such as:

  • Leveraging partnerships. Tap into community organizations, schools, or local businesses that might donate space, catering, or supplies in exchange for recognition.
  • Securing sponsorships. Local businesses are often willing to sponsor nonprofit fundraising events, especially when they earn positive brand exposure and appreciate the community impact.
  • Aligning with corporate social responsibility goals. Reach out to companies already committed to giving back through corporate social responsibility initiatives.

The key to meaningful donor engagement isn’t just showing impact—it’s creating opportunities for donors to feel it firsthand. When donors and beneficiaries connect, it dissolves the distance between giving and receiving. For smaller nonprofits, these events are more than just good ideas, they can be powerful tools for transformation. So, whether it’s on the golf course, around a picnic table, or inside a community hall, start planning your next event with relationships in mind!

Jen Wemhoff came to GolfStatus in 2020 after 20 years in the nonprofit industry. Her favorite things about golf are its ability to bring people together and its capacity to raise money for important causes, and she is one of the co-founders of the Putt Putt Fore Puppies mini golf tournament. She can be found listening to the Interstellar soundtrack while writing content for GolfStatus’ educational guides, templates, blogs, case studies, webinars, and more. She likes to brag about sinking a 25-foot putt at Victoria National Golf Club during her first round of golf in years. Jen and her husband, Mark, have two daughters, Anna and Elsa (who are not named for the movie Frozen), and love to cheer on the Kansas City Chiefs and Nebraska Cornhuskers. 


Why Your Audience Needs to Understand You

Ann Green Communications, donor engagement, donor relations, donor-centered, writing , , , ,

One of the most important aspects of communication (written and verbal) is to make sure your audience understands you. There are many reasons this doesn’t happen. In nonprofit communication, organizations will overcomplicate things or use jargon and other language donors don’t understand. Some people like to show off their large vocabulary or only think about things from their perspective.

The problem is that if your audience doesn’t understand you, you can’t connect with them. You may have trouble convincing them to take action, such as making a donation.

Remember, you are not your audience and you need to keep them in mind when you communicate with them. Here’s what you need to do to make sure your audience understands you.

Write at a sixth to eighth-grade level

This is not dumbing down. You’re smartening up so you can ensure your donors will understand you.

I find it annoying if I come across a word I don’t understand and have to look it up. I have a pretty good vocabulary but wonder why the writer didn’t use a more understandable word. Some people might not bother to look something up and then won’t know what you’re trying to convey.

Maybe we’re going back to our school days when we were encouraged to use all those big vocabulary words we studied or write lengthy, complex essays.

A readability tool, such as Flesch Kincaid, can help you with this.

Go easy on the jargon

One of the biggest culprits here is using jargon. Over the last several years, we’ve seen many examples of real problems affecting real people. We’ve also seen more authenticity. Yet, some nonprofit organizations still use jargon in their donor communication.

They may be using the same boring templates they’ve used for years or they’re so used to some of these terms that they don’t realize these words fall flat with their donors. I think people use jargon because it’s insider language that makes them feel like they’re “in the know” in their professional community. It’s easy to slip into jargon mode in your work environment. But the danger comes when jargon creeps outside of your insular world and into your donor communication.

Sometimes we get lazy and use jargon when we can’t think of anything fresh and original. Instead, you see appeal letters, thank you letters, newsletter articles, and impact reports laced with cringeworthy terms such as food insecurity, at-risk youth, and underserved communities. While your donors may know what some of these terms mean, they’re vague, impersonal, and can come across as demeaning.

How to break free from your jargon

You may know you need to freshen up some of your messages but aren’t sure how to start. 

Sometimes you need to give a little more information. Let’s look at these problem terms and what you can say instead. You may use some of these terms internally and they might be in your mission statement, but please try to limit them when you communicate with your donors.

  • Food insecurity The USDA defines it as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.” Wow, that’s a mouthful! I’ve never liked the term food insecurity because it’s so impersonal. We hear this term often because it continues to be a problem and is likely to get worse. Let’s go a step further and put it in human terms by describing a situation where a single mother has to choose between buying groceries and paying the heating bill.
  • At-risk means there’s a possibility something bad will happen. Instead of just saying at-risk students or youth, tell a story or give specific examples of something bad that could happen or has happened. Our tutoring program works with high school students who are more likely to fail their classes, be held back, and drop out of school. Remote learning didn’t work for many of the students in our community and they’re still struggling to catch up. 
  • Underserved means not receiving adequate help or services. Instead of saying we work with underserved communities, explain what types of services these residents don’t receive. Maybe it’s healthcare, affordable housing, decent preschool education, or all of the above. Tell a story or give a specific example. Tina has to take two buses to see a doctor for her diabetes because there isn’t a good healthcare facility in her community. She often feels depleted after these trips, so sometimes she skips her appointments.

Another way to help you transition from jargon to understandable language is to stop using it in your work environment. That means at staff meetings and in interoffice written communication. Maybe you go so far as to rewrite your mission statement to make it more conversational. And telling staff and board members to recite your mission statement as an elevator pitch is a bad idea unless you can make it conversational.

It’s important for you to take time to break free from your jargon to ensure your donors will understand you. Write as if you’re having a conversation with a friend.

Tell a story

This is why stories are so important. You can get beyond that vague, impersonal language and jargon to let your donors see firsthand how they’re helping you make a difference for your clients/community.

Visualize your reader 

Donor or audience personas can be useful on many levels. How much do you know about your donors? The average age of a donor is 64. That’s something to take into account. So is what drew them to your organization.

I always like to use this analogy. Imagine you’re at a family gathering and you’re explaining what your organization does to your 75-year-old Aunt Shirley, or maybe it’s Uncle Ted. Does she look confused and uninterested when you use terms like underserved and at-risk, or does he perk up and want you to tell him more when you mention you’ve been able to help homeless families move out of shelters and into their own homes?

You can go one step further and ask a friend or family member (maybe Aunt Shirley) to look at some of your messages. Remember, what’s clear to you may not be clear to others.

Always take into account who’s reading your fundraising letter or other type of communication. Most likely, your donors don’t have a medical or social services background. They also don’t have a lot of time to look up something they don’t understand. 

What they do want is a personal connection and to be able to understand you.

Connect With Your Donors by Sending Them a Postcard

Ann Green Communications, direct mail, donor engagement, donor relations, donor-centered, gratitude, impact report , , , , , ,

Some of you may remember when people sent postcards when they went on vacation, especially back in the days before email and social media. Now people are more likely to post pictures on social media, sometimes posting more than you want to see. 

We don’t use postal mail as much anymore and many nonprofits are a part of that group. This is a mistake. Direct mail is more personal and your donors are more likely to see something they receive in the mail, as opposed to any type of electronic message you send. Plus, people never get nearly as much mail as they do email and social media messages. Electronic communication is good, but communicating by mail is better.

I’m a big fan of communicating by mail and believe nonprofits should communicate by mail more often than they do. Now you might say – “But mail is too expensive. So is printing something. We have a small staff and barely have time to get anything done.” I understand all that. I know direct mail can be expensive and putting together a mailing takes more time, but it’s an investment that can help you raise more money.

One way to mail that shouldn’t cost too much is to use postcards. First, you can probably do them in house. Also, if you do it well, it’s a quick, easy way to capture your donor’s attention right away. Creating a postcard will be less expensive than something like a four-page newsletter or impact report. Donors have a lot going on and don’t want to be bombarded with too much information. 

Direct mail is a proven way to communicate and engage. I encourage you to give postcards a try. Landscaping companies, realtors, and political candidates all use postcards, and so should you. With summer coming up (yea!), it’s a great way to stay in touch, and maybe even brighten your donor’s day. Here are a few ways you can engage with your donors by using postcards.

Say thank you

Never miss an opportunity to thank your donors and a quick, easy way to show gratitude is with a postcard.

Create a postcard with a thank you photo, image, or word cloud. The best option is to create a card with enough space so you can include a handwritten note. If that’s not possible, then create one with a pre-printed message.

Let your donors know how their gifts are helping you make a difference for your clients/community and that you can’t do your work without them. 

Send a thank you postcard between one of your fundraising campaigns, so your donors know you’re thinking about them. Another idea is to send one as a warm-up before a campaign.

Ideally, you should be thanking your donors at least once a month. Many organizations don’t mail any type of thank you card, so you’ll stand out if you do.

Share an update

A postcard can be a good way to share an update with your donors. You could make an infographic to give them a quick glance at some of your progress. Some organizations use oversized postcards for their impact/annual report. 

Some infographics just show a bunch of numbers, and numbers don’t mean that much without knowing why something is important. For example, instead of just listing the number of people visiting your food pantry, let your donors know you’re seeing higher numbers because families are having trouble making ends meet since groceries are so expensive.

Other ways to use postcards

You could send a postcard wishing your donors a Happy Thanksgiving or Happy Holidays. Another option is a donor’s anniversary or their birthday, if you keep track of that.

You can also use a postcard for fundraising. While not as effective as a direct mail package (letter, reply envelope, etc.), it can be used as a heads-up for a campaign or a reminder. You could include a QR code and a website link so your donors can easily make a gift or get more information.

Postcards are good for a Save the Date for an event. You could also use one for an informal event.

What to keep in mind

Your postcard needs to capture your donor’s attention right away. It needs to be visual and not include a lot of text (but not just numbers). The text you do include needs to be engaging, conversational, and donor-centered. Examples could include Thank You, Because of you, or Look what you helped us do. Don’t be afraid to get a little creative by using shaped printing. 

Yes, communicating by mail costs more, but it can pay off if you create something more personal that your donors will see. Whether you’re saying thank you, sharing an update, or a combination of both, connect with your donors by sending them a postcard.

How to Use Your Website to Promote Your Nonprofit Online

Ann Green donor engagement, donor retention, marketing, planning, website , , , ,

Whether you’re setting up your website or improving an existing one, explore best practices for promoting your nonprofit online effectively in this guide.

By Carl Diesing

Your website is an essential tool in your online marketing kit. It serves as the foundation of your digital strategy by providing a place for any individual to find the information they seek about your nonprofit, whether that’s your mission statement, impact on beneficiaries, how to donate, or volunteer sign-up forms.

As a small nonprofit, you may have created a website but not had the bandwidth to flesh it out and optimize it fully. Or, you may not have dedicated marketing professionals on your staff, leading to confusion over how best to handle your website marketing efforts.

Whether you’re just setting up your website or wanting to improve your existing one, here are four best practices to implement on your website to effectively promote your nonprofit online.

1. Create all the important pages you need.

If you’re just starting your website, you might feel overwhelmed with how many pages you need to set up. However, it all boils down to the essential information that web visitors might want when they land on your website.

To meet those needs, start with these key pages:

  • About
  • Mission/Values
  • Donate
  • Volunteer

If you’ve already created these pages, start your website refresh with some spring cleaning. Look through your existing website and check that all your pages are updated and accurate. As nonprofits grow and change, their missions and audiences evolve, requiring adjustments to marketing materials like your website to ensure you deliver a consistent message to your supporters.

Later on, when your nonprofit has the time and resources, you can expand your website by adding other important pages like the ones below:

  • History
  • Our Team
  • Financials
  • Events/Calendar
  • Resources/Blog
  • Online Shop

Your cause may also impact the additional pages you should add or build. For example, a food bank might create a dedicated in-kind donation page listing all the specific food items they’re running low on and what they would like donated. Or, a nonprofit aquarium might have a page highlighting its standout exhibits and animals.

2. Make navigation simple and intuitive.

It’s not enough to simply create the pages web visitors are looking for—you must make it easy for supporters to explore those pages. To do that, prioritize simple and intuitive navigation that boosts the user experience. You can achieve that with the following strategies:

  • Keep menu structure simple: Limit the items in your navigation menu by only adding essential pages. Make sure that each page is labeled in an easy-to-understand and concise way.
  • Organize information logically: If your navigation menu has many items in it, you may benefit from grouping pages into subcategories to minimize the number of clicks needed to find information. For example, you might create a “Support” category for your donation, volunteer, and events pages.
  • Implement a sticky navigation bar: Ideally, web visitors should be able to access your menu on every page through a navigation header or footer. Take that principle a step further by adding a sticky navigation bar, which keeps your menu visible as users scroll down your pages.
  • Incorporate clear calls-to-action (CTAs): Encourage visitors to take the desired next action by adding clear CTAs in strategic areas of your site. Nonprofits usually add a large button-style CTA to their navigation bar leading to their donation page, but you can also add buttons to other pages in other relevant areas.
  • Add a search feature: At times, visitors may be looking for a page or piece of content that’s not readily available through your navigation headers. In those cases, having a dedicated search feature is extremely helpful and enhances the overall user experience.

Generally, the first few versions of any website, nonprofit or not, leave much to be desired. That’s completely normal—after all, when you first launch your website, you’re also busy with plenty of other responsibilities associated with starting a nonprofit.

Once your organization has achieved some stability and is ready to reinvent its website to supercharge its marketing potential, implement an accessible design and incorporate your nonprofit’s branding for better user experience and brand visibility.

3. Implement SEO best practices.

Part of what makes a website such a useful tool for nonprofit marketing is its ability to be discovered organically through search engines. However, you can’t rely on people Googling your nonprofit’s name to discover your website. Ideally, it should be discoverable through other relevant keywords.

That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. To ensure your nonprofit gets noticed online, leverage the following SEO best practices:

  • Use clean URLs: Short and concise URLs help search engine crawlers index your page and easily understand what it’s about, resulting in better search engine results.
  • Incorporate keywords naturally in content: Gone are the days of adding SEO keywords to web content as many times as possible. Now, search engines prioritize authoritative, comprehensive content. Create high-quality content with natural keyword incorporation to provide value to readers and signal to search engines what your content is about.
  • Add alt text to visual elements: Not only is this a great accessibility practice, but this also helps search engines understand what your visuals are about. Since search engines have dedicated image and video search sections, adding alt text enables your images and videos to show up for related queries.

Use analytics from Google Search Console and other SEO tools to assess whether your new practices are working. Taking a data-driven approach ensures that you know which changes are most impactful for your nonprofit’s visibility, allowing you to refine your SEO strategy for the future.

4. Create engaging content.

To maximize your nonprofit’s chances of leading web visitors to a desired action, you want visitors to stay on your site for as long as possible. Once your nonprofit can dedicate the time to do so, create a resource hub and blog and populate these pages with engaging content that captivates your audiences and keeps them on your site.

Here are a few tips for boosting engagement with content:

  • Create content regularly: When your community knows they can expect content from your organization regularly, they’ll be more likely to visit your site and see what new resources or insights you’ve posted. Increased interaction with your site may lead them to make a donation, sign up to volunteer, or register to attend one of your events.
  • Add visual elements: Visual elements help visitors digest your content by breaking up large blocks of text. Plus, they can be used to summarize key information. For example, if you publish a quick summary of your nonprofit’s annual impact report, you might also create an image that summarizes your key accomplishments.
  • Incorporate interactive content: Interactive content is generally more engaging to web visitors than content that they simply read or watch. Polls, quizzes, slideshows, social media feeds, and other elements can draw visitors’ attention and keep them on your website.

To ensure your content is truly engaging, ask yourself one core question: what would your audience be interested in? For instance, if you run a community church and you want to attract new congregants, you might highlight ministry games played at Sunday School, reflections on scripture, and practical guidance on how faith relates to daily life.

Depending on your audience, you can get creative or playful with your content. For example, the Atlanta Humane Society, an animal shelter that helps homeless animals find loving homes, posted a fun blog post from the perspective of a cat holding the website hostage.

Getting your nonprofit noticed through your website is only the first step to a robust marketing strategy. Afterward, focus on how your website delivers an experience that leads visitors to interact further with your mission and get involved in the long term. Then, consider how your marketing channels support donor retention to nurture relationships and build a base of loyal supporters who are passionate about your cause.

Carl Diesing is the Managing Director of DNL OmniMedia, which he co-founded in 2006, and has grown the team to accommodate clients with ongoing 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. Carl lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife Sarah and their two children, Charlie and Evelyn.


Why Your Nonprofit Needs to Make the Right Investments

Ann Green Communications, direct mail, donation page, donor engagement, donor retention, monthly donors, planning , , , , ,

With all the economic uncertainty right now, you may be worried about your nonprofit’s finances.

Maybe your giving has gone down and you’ve cut back on some expenses. While that’s understandable on one level, you need to be careful before you nix something you think you can’t afford. It may be something you should be investing in.

Instead of going on autopilot and saying “We can’t afford this,” think about how you can make the right investments. Stay away from the scarcity mindset. It’s often not helpful.

Here are a few areas you should invest more money in, even in a down economy. The good news is that if you do it well, these investments can help you raise more money.

Invest in a good CRM/database

Plain and simple, a good CRM (customer relationship management)/database can help you raise more money. You can segment your donors by giving amount and politely ask them to give a little more in your next appeal – $35 or $50 instead of $25. Many organizations don’t ask their donors to upgrade their gifts and you’re leaving money on the table when you don’t do this.

A good database can help you with retention, which will save you money since it costs less to keep donors than to acquire new ones. Donor retention continues to be a huge problem. Having a good database also helps with donor engagement.

Many CRMs have built-in payment processors. If not, invest in a good one. 

Your CRM will let you personalize your letters and email messages. Make sure to invest in a good email service provider, too. Personalized letters and messages mean you can address your donors by name and not Dear Friend. You can welcome new donors and thank current donors for their previous support. You can send targeted mailings to lapsed donors to try to woo them back. You can send special mailings to your monthly donors. You can record any personal information, such as conversations you had with a donor and their areas of interest.

In short, you can do a lot with a good CRM/database. Invest in the best one you can afford, and Excel is not a database.

If you’re worried about spending $50 to $100 a month on a CRM/database, you may be able to recoup that expense if you can ask for an upgrade and personalize your communication.

Invest in direct mail

You may not use direct mail that much. If that’s the case for you, you’re missing out on an effective and more personal way to communicate with your donors. Think of the enormous amount of email and social media posts you receive as opposed to postal mail. Your donors will be more likely to see your messages if you send them by mail.

Yes, direct mail is more expensive, but you don’t have to mail that often. Quality is more important than quantity, but aim for at least three or four times a year, and don’t just send fundraising appeals.

Give some thought to what you send. Some ideas, besides appeal letters, include thank you letters/cards; Thanksgiving, holiday, and/or Valentine’s Day cards; infographic postcards; two-to-four-page newsletters; and impact reports. You could put a donation envelope in your newsletter to raise some additional revenue, but do not put one in a thank you or holiday card. I wouldn’t recommend putting one in an impact report either, especially if you only do one a year.

Shorter is better. Lengthy communication will cost more and your donors are less likely to read it. 

A few ways you can use direct mail without breaking your budget are to clean up your mailing lists to avoid costly duplicate mailings, spread thank you mailings throughout the year – perhaps sending something to a small number of donors each month, and look into special nonprofit mailing rates. You may also be able to get print materials done pro bono or do them in-house, as long as they look professional.

Of course, you can use email, but your primary reason for communicating that way shouldn’t be because it’s cheaper. Both direct mail and email have their place, but in many cases, direct mail is more effective. They also work well when you use them together.

Invest in monthly giving

If you don’t have a robust monthly giving program, you’re missing out on a great way to raise more money. Monthly giving is one of the few types of fundraising that has increased over the last few years. It’s good for all nonprofit organizations, but it’s especially beneficial for small nonprofits.

Monthly giving will provide you with a steady stream of revenue throughout the year. This is important during this time of economic uncertainty and funding cuts. It can also be a more feasible option for donors if they can spread out their gifts over the year.

All it takes is for someone to start giving $5.00 or $10.00 a month (hopefully more). These small gifts add up. Also, the retention rate for monthly donors is around 90%. Plus, they’re more likely to become mid-level, major, and legacy donors.

This is why having a good CRM is so important. It will help you find potential monthly donors and segment your current monthly donors so you can send them specialized donor communications. 

Don’t wait any longer to invest in this proven way to raise more money. If you already have a strong monthly giving program (kudos to you), take the next step and invest in mid-level donors and so on.

Invest in donor communications

By donor communications I mean thank you letters/notes, newsletters, and other updates. Some organizations don’t prioritize these and want to spend their time “raising money.” They don’t seem to realize they can raise more money with better donor communications. Remember this formula – ask, thank, report, repeat.

Don’t skimp on your communications budget. Creating thank you cards and infographic postcards is a good investment and a necessity, not a luxury. Thank you cards are a much better investment than mailing labels and other useless swag.

Maybe you need to reallocate your budget to cover some of these expenses. You could also look into additional sources of unrestricted funding. 

Of course, you can also use email and social media to communicate with donors. This reiterates the need for a good email service provider with professional looking templates for your email newsletter and other updates.

Invest in infrastrucure

We need to stop treating overhead or infrastructure as something negative. Most individual donors don’t care about overhead, anyway. However, some funders want us to spend our budget on programs, but how can we successfully run our programs if we don’t have enough staff and can barely afford to pay the people we do have? A rotating door of development staff makes it hard to maintain those important relationships. We also have to pay rent and other expenses (including a CRM, direct mail communication, etc.).

Until these funders stop worrying so much about overhead, you may want to invest some time in finding unrestricted funding sources – often those important individual gifts, such as monthly donations and mid-level/major gifts. Plus, weaning yourself off grant funding isn’t a bad idea.

Don’t limit yourself by saying you can’t afford certain expenses. If you make the right investments, you should be able to raise more money.

4 Tips to Optimize Your Donor Database to Boost Engagement

Ann Green database, donor engagement, donor relations, fundraising , ,

Your donor database is an effective tool for boosting engagement at your nonprofit—if you optimize and leverage it strategically. Learn more in this guide.

By Sarah Tedesco

It’s no secret that effective donor engagement is vital to your nonprofit’s success. Individual donations make up a large portion of most nonprofits’ funding, and those donors generally want to feel connected to and appreciated by the organizations they support. So, you need to build strong donor relationships to secure the necessary resources to further your organization’s mission (and simply to keep the lights on!).

A robust donor database or constituent relationship management (CRM) system is one of the best tools you have at your disposal to boost engagement at your nonprofit. However, this solution can only serve your organization to its fullest potential if you maintain it carefully and leverage it strategically.

In this guide, we’ll discuss four ways to optimize your nonprofit’s donor database so it’s as useful as possible for increasing engagement. Let’s dive in!

1. Create Thorough Donor Profiles

Donor profiles are essential relationship-building tools that are built into nearly every nonprofit CRM. These resources track all of the important information you’ve learned about current and potential supporters of your organization—one profile per donor.

While your database may come with some pre-built fields, you’ll likely have to customize your profiles to account for all of the data you need to track. DonorSearch’s guide to donor profiles recommends including the following sections in each one you create:

[alt text: A checklist of elements to include in supporter profiles to optimize your donor database, which are explained below.]

  • Donor overview: Displays the donor’s name, giving status (prospect, one-time donor, repeat donor, etc.), and the date of their last interaction with your nonprofit for quick reference.
  • Basic details: Tracks contact information and other general personal data (full and preferred name, pronouns, birthday, preferred communication method, etc.).
  • Personal history: Includes a donor’s education level, wealth information, and interests so you know why they support your nonprofit and how much they could give.
  • Familial information: Makes your interactions with donors more personal and allows you to involve their spouse, children, and other family members in your mission.
  • Professional affiliations: Helps you dive deeper into donors’ financial situations, networking connections, and ability to participate in workplace giving.
  • Organizational connections: Compiles donors’ giving history and involvement in other activities at your nonprofit to help you choose the right next steps for engaging them.
  • Philanthropic ties: Lets you know if donors have contributed to other similar nonprofits, so you can more accurately gauge their affinity for your mission.

Treat your donor profiles as living documents. Every time a supporter engages with your organization, update their profile with the new data (either manually or automatically) so you can stay on top of their involvement and more effectively strategize ways to deepen your relationship with them.

2. Segment Your Supporters

Once you’ve created profiles for individual donors, segmentation allows you to keep your database organized and communicate more personally with large numbers of supporters. To segment your donors, group them according to shared characteristics found in their profiles, such as:

  • Demographics: Age, location, education, marital and family status, wealth
  • Psychographics: Hobbies, interests, values, connections to your mission, preferred communication channels
  • Giving history: Average donation amount, frequency and recency of giving, lifetime value to your nonprofit
  • Non-donation engagement: Event attendance, volunteer hours, board service, in-kind contributions, advocacy campaign participation

From here, you can more easily choose which segments to prioritize during particular fundraising initiatives and send targeted appeals using their preferred channels. For example, a segment of older, wealthy donors might be the best group for direct mail outreach promoting your annual fund. However, a segment of younger supporters who tend to make smaller donations but are passionate about advocacy may be the most likely to see, contribute to, and share a crowdfunding campaign on social media.

3. Integrate Your Database With Other Nonprofit Software

Integrations allow data to transfer automatically from your nonprofit’s other fundraising and management platforms to its CRM, saving your team time and reducing the risk of errors that come with manual entry. 

Depending on your current technology stack, consider integrating the following tools with your database:

  • Online donation processors to update supporters’ giving history in real time and track their status as recurring or sporadic donors.
  • Event management solutions to log donors’ registrations, merchandise and auction item purchases, and peer-to-peer fundraising participation for a-thon style events.
  • Corporate giving tools to track which donors are eligible for and have requested matching gifts or volunteer grants, as well as connections to businesses that might partner with you to sponsor events or host team volunteer days.
  • Accounting software to ensure your giving data matches your financial records for accurate reporting and compliance.
  • Volunteer management systems to link supporters’ volunteer involvement with their giving, which can help you encourage volunteers to become donors and vice versa.
  • Communication platforms to more easily send targeted messages to specific segments and monitor donors’ engagement with emails, text messages, social media posts, and other digital marketing content.
  • Prospect research databases to dig deeper into supporters’ wealth and philanthropic details so you can find potential major and planned giving donors who already have a relationship with your organization, which makes cultivation easier.

Some of these tools (particularly corporate giving and prospect research solutions) are usually sold separately from donor databases, while others might be built into or available as add-ons for more robust CRM systems. Before you invest in a new platform, ensure there isn’t a comparable tool available in your CRM already, so you can avoid paying for duplicate software subscriptions. If not, check whether the solutions you’re considering integrate with your existing donor database so your whole tech stack can work together once you make your final decision.

4. Practice Good Data Hygiene

Your donor database will be most useful to your nonprofit if you consistently maintain the data within it to ensure accuracy and relevance. To set up a solid management system, Double the Donation’s guide to data hygiene best practices explains that you should:

  • Audit your CRM—i.e., review your entire database to identify and remove any inaccurate, inconsistent, or duplicate data and migrate in any information stored in other locations.
  • Assign data responsibilities so your staff knows who is in charge of managing specific categories of information or performing certain ongoing maintenance tasks.
  • Evaluate your data collection strategy to ensure you’re prioritizing the right segments and storing data that will help you achieve your nonprofit’s current goals.
  • Develop standards for when to enter new data, how to solve common CRM problems, and how to format certain types of information (e.g., abbreviations for streets and state names as seen in donors’ mailing addresses) to ensure consistency.
  • Continuously update and validate information, leveraging your prospect research tools or investing in data appending as needed.

Hold training sessions to introduce these best practices to your team, and compile them in a handbook for easy reference going forward. Remember to also cover your organization’s rules for ensuring data security and ethical collection methods in this training to help you maintain donors’ trust and avoid legal issues related to your database.

The tips above should give you a solid foundation for leveraging your nonprofit’s CRM to boost donor engagement. Remember to adapt your strategy to align with your organization’s goals and the capabilities of your specific database and complementary solutions. Happy fundraising!

Sarah Tedesco is the Chief Operating Officer and Part Owner of DonorSearch, a prospect research company that focuses on proven philanthropy. Sarah is responsible for managing the production and customer support department, which focuses on client contract fulfillment, retention, and satisfaction. She also collaborates with other team members in various areas like sales, marketing, and product development. Sarah holds an MBA from the University of Maryland and worked as a foundation prospect researcher before joining DonorSearch, providing her with industry experience that she applies to her responsibilities day-to-day.


How to Make Your Nonprofit Messages Stand Out In a World Filled With Information

Ann Green Communications, direct mail, donor engagement, donor-centered, email, planning, writing , , , , ,

Our world is chock full of information. When I was growing up, we just had a few TV channels to choose from. Now there are countless streaming options. We also have email, the internet, and social media, just to name a few. It’s not only the volume of options, it’s also the content. And in our current climate of crisis and uncertainty, it’s information overload on steroids.

How does your nonprofit organization compete with all this? You need to communicate regularly with your donors and you need to do it well. But in this deluge of information, they might miss your messages. 

Here are a few ways you can make your messages stand out and get noticed. 

What’s your intention?

What’s the purpose of your message? What do you want your reader to do? Are you asking for a donation? Maybe you’re thanking your donor or sharing an update.

Think from your reader’s perspective. What would she be interested in or what would make him take action?

Don’t muddle your messages with too much information. Keep it simple and stick to one call to action or type of message. If you ask someone to make a donation, volunteer, and contact their legislators in the same message, they may not do any of that.

Choose the right channels

Most likely, you’ll use more than one channel to communicate. Pay attention to the channels your donors are using and focus your efforts there.

Email may be your primary mode of communication and there’s a reason for that. It’s fast, easy, relatively inexpensive, and almost everyone has an email address. You can quickly get a message out to a lot of people. Also, unlike social media, it’s something you can control. You don’t have to rely on a social media algorithm to hope your message ends up in your donor’s feed.

The downside is people get an enormous amount of email from a variety of different sources. Political organizations and candidates here in the U.S. send a ton of email messages, especially now, and it won’t let up anytime soon. Some of the PACs send emails that are so obnoxious they give fundraising a bad name. I tend to ignore a lot of those messages and then end up missing something important. Plan a strategy to help you break through the noise. 

Plus, the average email open rate is around 20%. And, social media is often just a lot of a lot.  

You can see how easy it is for your electronic messages to get lost in the shuffle. Your donors may just tune things out, even if you have something engaging to share. 

While you’ll likely use electronic communication pretty regularly, don’t discount direct mail. Your donors are more likely to see these messages. We get far less postal mail than electronic communication. Also, someone can put a piece of mail aside and look at it later. Don’t count on that happening with any type of electronic communication. You can also communicate by phone. This is a great way to thank your donors.

Going multichannel is usually your best bet. This is very common for fundraising campaigns and inviting people to events, as well as including a link to your email newsletter on your social media platforms. This way if people miss your initial message on one platform, they may see it on a different one. You’ll also want to send regular reminders for fundraising appeals and event invitations.

Get noticed right away

Your donors have a lot going on and you need to capture their attention right away.

Your fundraising letters and anything else you send by mail need to look appealing enough to open. You could put a tagline on the envelope. That doesn’t mean something like It’s Our Annual Appeal. Try something like – How you can help families move into their own homes. or THANK YOU!

Your envelope should look personal and not resemble a bill or junk mail. A few ways to make your mail stand out are to use something other than the usual white business envelope, hand address your envelope, and use stamps.

Once your donor opens your fundraising appeal, lead with a story followed by a clear, prominent ask. When they open your thank you letter, they should be greeted with gratitude.

A good subject line is the key to getting someone to open your email message. Keep in mind that your donor’s inbox is bursting with messages. Don’t use something boring like April e-newsletter or Donation Received. Entice them with Learn how you helped Jason learn to read or You just did something amazing today! Putting someone’s first name in the subject line can also help with open rates.

Keep them engaged once they open your message.

Keep it short

In many cases, a shorter message is best. You want a good balance between saying too much and saying too little. All your words should count, so be careful about adding too much filler. That often includes bragging about your organization and explaining what you do.

Keep in mind the average human attention span is about eight seconds.

Your goal is to get your donors to read your messages. If it looks long and boring, they probably won’t bother.

Make it easy to read and scan

Besides sending a short message, use short paragraphs and lots of white space, too. Your messages need to be easy to read and scan in an instant. Most people aren’t going to read something word for word. Be sure they can quickly get the gist of what you want to say. Don’t use microscopic font either – use 12 point or higher.

Be personal and conversational

Write directly to your reader using clear, conversational language – no jargon. Don’t confuse your donors with generic messages.

Don’t cast a wide net

It’s important to send your messages to the right audience and your audience isn’t everyone.

You’ll have more luck with a fundraising appeal when you send it to past donors or people who have a connection to your cause. The same is true for event invitations or recruiting volunteers.

You may want to reach out to as many people as possible, but that won’t guarantee you’ll get more donations or event attendees. Segmenting and engaging with the right audience will bring you better results.

Be a welcome visitor

If you communicate regularly and do it well, your donors should recognize you as a reputable source and are more likely to read your messages. If all you do is send them generic fundraising appeals, then you’ll be disappointed.

When you send email, make sure people know it’s coming from your organization. In the from field, put DoGood Nonprofit or Susan (Davis), DoGood Nonprofit. If you just put a person’s name, people may not know who it’s from and ignore your message, unless that person is well known to your readers. Also, don’t use info@dogoodnonprofit or even worse, no-reply@dogoodnonprofit. That just screams impersonal.

Only send email to people who have opted into your list. Otherwise, you’re spamming them. Some people will choose not to receive email from you and that’s okay. The ones who do are interested in hearing from you. Give people the option to unsubscribe, too. Measuring your email metrics will help you communicate more effectively. 

When you send email, it’s important to strike a balance between being known and being annoying. Unlike the political organizations I mentioned above, many nonprofits don’t communicate enough. Be sure to reach out anywhere between once a week and once a month. 

Don’t let this current climate of uncertainty stop you from fundraising and engaging with your donors. They want to hear from you. With all the negativity and depressing news, be a friendly factor.

Even though people only get a few pieces of mail a day, most of it’s junk mail. You never want any of your letters, newsletters, or postcards to be perceived as junk mail (see above).

By putting in a little time and effort, you can help ensure that your messages stand out in a world filled with information.