A decade after PC Mag proclaimed that “E-mail is Dead,” and the Wall Street Journal ran a similar headline, email continues to be a core part of how we communicate. While some social media networks have come and gone in that time, email (see, no hyphen now!) still remains. Email is an affordable way for nonprofits to reach the people who care about our missions. It provides us with feedback on our messaging (in the form of open and click-through rates that we’d never see with regular mail). And it stands the best chance of cutting through the clutter (rather than being one of more than 8,000 tweets posted every second or trying to keep up with the ever-changing Facebook algorithm that makes it increasingly difficult for nonprofits to get in front of their supporters – even if those people are fans of their page). In this issue of Nonprofit Knowledge Matters, we look at a few ways your nonprofit can keep its email communications going strong.

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Do your nonprofit’s messages still bring joy?

We all have way too many emails pouring into our inboxes. Our stakeholders are no different. Just think about the barrage of messages they get on Giving Tuesday and throughout the year. If your readers apply the Marie Kondo method to their email box, will they keep receiving your messages or decide to unsubscribe? If they are inspired by getting rid of physical objects that no longer bring joy, what about sources of email messages that similarly don’t inspire?

How you can find out if your emails are still bringing joy…

Is Nonprofit Knowledge Matters still bringing you joy? Please let us know in this quick four question survey.

Extend spring cleaning to your nonprofit’s email list(s)

It is the season of cleaning out our closets (and, hopefully, donating some lightly used items to a local nonprofit) and taking some Windex to the windows. Even in your office, you may be doing some light spring cleaning. But when was the last time your nonprofit cleaned up its email list? It may seem counterintuitive to remove people who signed up sometime in the past. When looking at metrics at the end of the year, who wants to see the number of subscribers go down? The truth is, however, that your nonprofit will benefit much more from a list that has removed any old, unused email addresses. Going through the process can also help your nonprofit reconnect with some of those lapsed subscribers and get them re-engaged with your mission.

How your nonprofit can clean up its email list…

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Ten tips for increasing the effectiveness of your nonprofit’s email messages

Nonprofits rely on email to encourage people to take a number of actions. Whether it is to donate or volunteer or advocate, those emails need to complete a three-step process before that action can take place: arrive in the inbox, be opened, and have a link clicked that inspires action. If any of those steps are missed, it means the action won’t take place. We gathered some of the top tips for ensuring your emails make an impact.

Make sure your nonprofit is doing these ten things with its emails…

New and Notable Resources

• Brief of National Council of Nonprofits, National Human Services Assembly, and YWCA USA as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents, Supreme Court of the United States, April 1, 2019. Brief filed in the Supreme Court case regarding whether a citizenship question may be added to the 2020 Census questionnaire. The brief, among other things, informs the justices about the size and scale of the nonprofit sector.
• Nebraska's Nonprofit Sector, Nonprofit Association of the Midlands, April 16, 2019. 
• Build a Movement: Tools to Use Public Policy to Achieve Your Nonprofit’s Mission, Washington Nonprofits, April 15, 2019.

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