7 Tips For A More Responsive Nonprofit Email List

In nonprofit email marketing, it’s easy to get caught up in list size. But a large email list that doesn’t ever engage is simply a vanity metric, and it’s costing you time and energy. This is why focusing on a responsive nonprofit email list is so important.

So – where do you start? Below we’ve gathered seven tips for a more responsive email list at your nonprofit. Act on these, and over time, you will attract not just more people to your list – but the right kind of person, too.

Here’s how to build a more responsive email list at your nonprofit — one that’s not only bigger, but better.

7 Tips For A More Responsive Nonprofit Email List

1) Attract The Right People

If you want a responsive nonprofit email list, this first tip will save you a lot of trouble. What kind of email subscriber do you want? Do you want somebody that habitually joins email lists (and never takes action)? Or do you want someone with a high potential to donate? The answer is obvious for most nonprofits.  

Before you can improve responsiveness, you need to make sure you’re attracting quality email subscribers in the first place. Here are things you should do – as well as a few things to avoid:

What to do:

• Get people to voluntarily opt-in to your list (see tip #2)
• Promote your email list on the platforms that truly matter
• Work with “micro influencers” or other organizations that have a similar audience to your own

What not to do:

• Buy lists (it’s often illegal anyway, and bad for your email reputation)
• Add people without permission (even if they gave you a business card).
• Use gimmicky giveaways that have nothing to do with your mission

For a responsible nonprofit email list, it all starts with attracting people who actually want to engage. 

2) Make Your Lead Magnet Worth It

People will usually join your email list in exchange for something. But it’s important here to set the tone. What people sign up to get should be valuable; that’s what makes them more responsive down the road. 

This is where quality lead magnets for nonprofits comes in. Here are a few tips to follow with your opt-in:

• Frame your copy in a way that gets a specific kind of person interested (“Sign up to receive our free guide on supporting trauma victims:)
• Align your lead magnet with your organizational mission 
• Attach it to an automated welcome sequence

Which brings us to our next tip for a responsive nonprofit email list…

3) Use An Automated Welcome Series

Once people do join your list, your job is to make them feel like it was a good choice. This is where a simple welcome series works its magic. Here are a few things to include (these can either be one email or spread out over several):

• A warm thank-you and mission reminder
• A quick story or statistic to show the impact that you’ve had
• A personal touch (like a message from somebody you’ve helped or a volunteer)
• An invitation on what to do next (donate, volunteer, attend an event, etc.)

A responsive nonprofit email list starts with setting expectations. Do that with a welcome sequence, and people are more likely to engage with your future emails. The reason? You’ve done the work of connecting with your new email subscriber, given value, and now they know what to expect.

4) Segment Early

Every email list, regardless of industry, is naturally made up of different kinds of subscribers. These are called “segments”, and they are one of the most important elements of building a responsive nonprofit email list.

Remember this: you don’t want to send every email to every subscriber. That’s a guaranteed way to lose engagement over time. The more tailored your message is (made possible by segmentation), the better your results.

Here are a few ways to segment your nonprofit email list:

• Donors vs. non-donors
• Event attendees vs. general subscribers
• Volunteers vs. financial supporters
• New subscribers (joined within the last 30 days)

As for how you get the data to properly segment people? Invest the time in surveys, or the money in a quality segmentation tool. Over time, this is the kind of investment that will certainly pay off. 

5) Clean Your List Regularly

Nobody wants to remove email subscribers from a list. You work hard for them, and letting them go can be a tough pill to swallow. But it’s necessary. If a subscriber is never going to take the action that you want, they ruin the quality of your list. 

For example, take a subscriber that hasn’t opened one of your emails in 6-12 months. That’s a signal to email platforms that your emails aren’t worth opening, and your deliverability is going to take a hit as a result.

Here is a simple three-step process to run a few times a year:

• Run a re-engagement campaign asking inactive subscribers if they still want to hear from you (email platforms have built-in tools that make this quite easy)
• Give these people the option to stay or unsubscribe 
• If they don’t engage, remove them from your list

Want a responsive nonprofit email list? Periodically removing subscribers is an essential part of that. 

6) Track The Metrics That Matter

Always remember this: an email list of 1,000 people that want to hear from you is worth more than 100,000 that don’t open your emails. Subscriber count is great. But there are several more important metrics to keep a watch on. 

Here are the numbers you should be monitoring:

• Open rate (to see how interesting or valuable your emails appear to subscribers)
• Click-through rate (are people taking action on what you send?)
• Unsubscribe rate (a normal rate is ~0.2 – 0.3%, so watch out for sudden spikes)
• Conversion rate: (like all your marketing, your emails are meant to drive action, and conversion rate is how you measure it)

Measured email marketing is effective email marketing. Keep an eye on what’s working, and use these metrics to fix (or experiment) with what’s not.

7) Write Like A Human

How you write matters. It’s tempting to use AI at your nonprofit to create your emails (and used correctly, tools like ChatGPT can certainly speed up the process). But you never want to outsource your chance to truly connect with your email list. Remember: email is the only platform you truly own. Fail with your email content, and it’s a massive missed opportunity.

Here are a few writing tips you can implement right away:

• Use the word “you” more than “we”
• Implement more stories in your emails 
• Keep email paragraphs short and skimmable
• Use plain language and avoid “corporate jargon” as much as possible

Here’s the truth: people give to people. Not faceless organizations. Speak like a real person, and you will gradually build up a responsive nonprofit email list as a result.

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