A Guide to Nonprofit Newsletters

September 7, 2023
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Does your nonprofit have a regular newsletter? Monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly email newsletters are a great way to communicate with your supporters—and we almost always recommend them to our clients. Our guide to nonprofit newsletters includes best practices, data-backed tips, ideas to test, and a treasure trove of resources to inform your newsletter strategy.

Nonprofit Newsletters we love…

  • Have a distinct voice. You feel like you are connected to an author, even when they’re just sending you a list of bullet points or recommended links. 
  • Are simple and skimmable. There is something to a super unformatted email – or at least a minimally formatted email. And know that people are cruising – can they get what they need from just the headlines? 
  • Almost always have at least one thing we want to click. Know your audience – and know what they might enjoy! 
  • Are personalized. It sounds like it’s from a real person being written to a real person. 
  • Make it clear what they want us to do. They have one prominent CTA, even if they have a bunch of links throughout. 
  • Are designed with lots of white space (our favorite in all emails!). 
  • Keep a really healthy list. Be ruthless on list health (even if that means cutting people off). 
  • Are a conversation. Instead of blasting the reader with information, they speak to their existing concerns and welcome feedback and ideas. 
  • Aggregate content from other sources, saving me time and the need to follow every quality source out there.

Data shows…

  • Keep subject lines short and clear. Aim for eight words or less (per recent suggestions based on iPhone preview text) and say what is actually in the newsletter/why it’s of value for the reader. 
  • Your email MUST be mobile-optimized. (Mobile first in everything these days, really.) 
  • Streamlining matters. Make it SUPER clear (and explicit) what your newsletter is about. Ie: Here are eight stories about your impact this month that you don’t want to miss. 

Consider testing…

  • A survey for newsletter subscribers. What do they WANT to read/see/receive? 
  • Removing the marketing template entirely. (Check out this study.)
  • Choosing a person in the organization who is the “newsletter” person. It always comes from them. People can reply to them. It’s written in a super human voice. And it makes the newsletter stand out from other communications from their DPs. 
  • An all text newsletter that feels like a real person wrote it
  • Creative subject lines. Have some fun and get people to OPEN! Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone, you want to catch people’s attention.
  • Z-pattern design instead of straight columns. 
  • Segmenting newsletter topics or the order of topics based on interests or other factors

Learn more about nonprofit newsletters…

Lindsey Lincoln

Lindsey is a communications specialist, writer, and literary fiction enthusiast. She spends her workdays writing social copy, stories, and newsletters, all while trying to curb her excessive exclamation point habit. Outside of that, you can usually find her reading books, talking about books, writing about books, or adding books to her neverending to-be-read-list.
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