If you’re a nonprofit organization, you’ve got stories to tell. Events to promote. Folks to motivate. Governments to wake up. A world to change.
But all this depends on how well you can communicate your vision to others.
While there’s all kinds of marketing avenues to shore up support, nothing can beat email newsletters. Most nonprofit organizations do not have one. Or if they do, the subscription bar is not easily findable on their websites.
If that’s your story as well, it’s time for a plot change. Take it from us, without email on your side, you’re running a nonprofit on stilts: ambitious but alienated. Why should you believe us? We’re email marketing experts speaking from the other side of 5,000 successful global collaborations to date. Check it out for yourself.
In this guide, you’ll learn why your nonprofit should have a newsletter and how to create and sustain one through your journey as changemaker. We’ll share 10 nonprofit newsletter templates and explain why they work.
Benefits of Newsletter Templates for Nonprofit Organizations
A nonprofit newsletter is not solely marketing. It’s not standing on a bench and shouting out your cause; think of it more like a roundtable of committed folks.
Your goal is to to shift to a bigger table, but without losing the rapport.
Hold that thought as we share the core benefits of having a nonprofit newsletter:
- Every nonprofit starts with a story – your story. Why do you care? What’s your motivation? Since email is personal, it’s great for sharing stories. People engage with emails because they can’t zombie-scroll through endless feeds.
- The inbox is a sacred space. While social media megaphoning may have its takers, email allows you to connect with bonafide samaritans.
- Email also enables you to stand out. To the extent that you can follow email marketing best practices, you’ve got a chance to stay top-of-mind.
- Finally, nonprofit supporters want to hear from you through email. In fact, 70% of supporters prefer nonprofit communications via email.
That’s only because email is what it is. It’s personal. It’s private. It’s non-distractive. As far back as 2008, people were reading three-fourths of charity emails. More than a decade later, email marketing is better than better.
Not to mention that email still drives the highest return on investment. Considering that most nonprofits tend to be cash-strapped, this one benefit ought to hold.
So you can start with learning how to acquire email subscribers.
Now that you’re at least aware of the significance of newsletters, let’s take a look at how other nonprofits are leveraging email to engage and grow their community.
As promised, here are some of the best nonprofit newsletter examples.
10 Nonprofit Newsletter Examples
1. Give Subscribers Reasons to Say “I Did It!”
If you want people to donate, don’t just ask them to.
Instead, show them what’s in it for them. Make them feel bigger than themselves. Tell them what they’ll be doing is important. People are more likely to do something that they’re convinced is important and improves their status.
According to the self-enhancement theory, people prefer positive self-views. So you need to appeal to your potential donors’ self-worth.
And email gives you the space to do just that.
Take a cue from Road Scholar’s email below. By showing how the subscriber can change lives, their pitch is right on the money.
2. Give Subscribers Reasons to Say “I Too Did It!”
In other words, offer social proof. But instead of tacking it on to a regular email, you can craft an elaborate message around a donor/beneficiary story. The more visceral the narrative, the better your chances at securing the support of people.
Often, social proof is so much about number-mongering. While that’s not useless, it’s not valuable either. Since you want to convince potential donors by making them realize the value of their action, you’ll need good stories. Not great numbers.
When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, she was acting out a story.
In fact, science proves that storytelling fosters empathy.
“Stories are powerful because they transport us into other people’s worlds but, in doing that, they change the way our brains work and potentially change our brain chemistry — and that’s what it means to be a social creature,” explains Paul Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies.
Check out how it can be done in this nonprofit newsletter example below.
By having the beneficiary tell their story in their words, Help for Heroes brings the donors’ actions to life.
3. Give A Top-level View of Your Milestones
Have you heard the phrase: Kings go to war; soldiers to battle?
It expresses the difference between the big picture and the small.
As a nonprofit, your goal is to drive incremental change.
So, update the community on your progress along that line. Share a top-level view of monthly/quarterly/yearly milestones in your email.
This is how you keep an entire community motivated. (And that’s also a reason why nonprofits feature a progress tracker on their website.)
Check out how CARE Australia’s nonprofit newsletter template does it. It’s an annual update. The email lists all major and minor milestones of the year.
4. Share Larger-than-Life Updates to Stir New Members
On the first weekend of November, 2024, over 15,000 “water lovers” descended on the streets of London, chanting, “We Want Clean Water, Now!”
The rally included marchers from all corners of the U.K. The event was reported in the Mirror as well.
Surfers Against Sewage, a marine nonprofit, organized this march against sewage pollution.
But here’s the thing: They designed a nonprofit newsletter template to cover this.
In spite of being covered already by a major newspaper. The point? To share it with new members individually. To encourage them directly. One-to-one.
Not just to announce. Not just to bring recent converts up to speed.
Check out the email below. From copy to design, here’s a call worth responding to. Because it’s personal while being larger-than-life.
Image source: Inbox
5. Educate Your Core Supporters/Donors
Not all of your supporters are equally interested in the work you do. While one may be a consistent donor, their motivations need not always reflect yours.
Not everyone who donates to the World Wildlife Fund are diehard zoophiles.
So, you shouldn’t be sending the same message to everyone. Rather, identify your core supporters, those who are actively interested in what you do. Those who want to be educated. Those who don’t need to hear fundraising appeals all the time.
Accordingly, you need to segment out your core tribe.
Now, this is yet another peculiar advantage of email marketing. “The reasons are obvious: segmentation creates discreet audiences we can laser-target with offers, creative, and information crafted specifically for them, at just the right time,” explains Karen Talavera, email marketer and President, Synchronicity Marketing.
Here’s how the National Audubon Society does it. Notably, this also lends credibility to your vision. It shows your commitment. Your moral compass. You’re not just out to raise funds. You want others to be informed as well as yourself.
Image source: Inbox
6. Take Care of Your Subscribers Too
Initially, you’ll be using email to spread the word. So your subscribers need not be donors. Just like in e-commerce, subscribers are not always buyers.
Keeping that in mind, you should mix up your email content.
Part of it builds upon what we covered in our last point. But in this case, since you are spreading the word, it’s not always about rocking the collection box.
Rather, you can show generosity to your potential donors, too. Without faking it. If you’re doing something you believe in, it’ll show. Marketing is not fooling. (Interestingly, this is how marketing lays bare the human complex. Dog food is for dog owners. Empathy is for all. Because empathy is a universal need.)
Perhaps this email from the World Wildlife Fund explains it best. This is only their second welcome email where the focus is on helping the subscriber. The absence of an appeal is conspicuous. The send-off is civil. Generous.
Image source: Inbox
7. Highlight Your Biggest, Most Inspiring Donors
Here’s another way of encouraging subscribers to be donors too: Spotlight some of your most inspiring donors and share their stories.
This again is an excellent way to give social proof.
Speaking of, Gartner has identified three pillars of social proof:
- Conformity: People want to fit in to gain acceptance.
- Belonging: People are more likely to act if something reflects their values.
- Trust: People trust others’ opinions when uncertain.
You can see how it applies to your nonprofit efforts as well.
Email in particular allows you to amplify this.
Check out this nonprofit newsletter template by Charity: Water. The Tiny Heroes campaign is their way of inspiring the next generation of clean water angels.
This email is fun, brilliantly-written, and well-designed.
8. Showcase Upcoming Events
Promote upcoming events related to your field so that your community members can get a chance to meet each other. Notify your subscribers on the latest updates, weekly events, community dinners, goings-on in your locality, news, etc.
This is how you keep the communication going.
You don’t wait for donors to come in clutch. You’re in it for the long haul. Change doesn’t happen overnight. You must keep the show on the road.
“Having a dedicated period where your team is not focused on fundraising is an opportunity for your organization to prioritize areas that may fall by the wayside during busier times of the year,” says Sadie Stephens at CanadaHelps.
Take the example of Hennepin Arts. Their newsletter is full of updates and weekly events. And furnished with dates and CTAs.
The email also has a distinct seasonal flavor.
Image source: Inbox
9. Display the Mud Under Your Boots
Your community is helping you drive your nonprofit. You have been sending them appreciation emails. You are also rewarding and educating the community.
Now, what about you? How is your nonprofit building on all the support it’s getting?
You must showcase your hard work, too. Not just by sharing stories and parading numbers. But by bringing your org to the forefront. At this moment, it’s not only about your beneficiaries and donors. It’s also about you.
Part of it is equally about your own staff members.
Take the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).
RNLI build their own lifeboats from the funds they receive from donors. Currently, this nonprofit operates over 400 self-built lifeboats.
AND, their newsletter features every new launch. Here’s one right here. This email shows their new lifeboat in action, explains its features, and how it helps their rescue missions. RNLI’s peculiar way of thanking their donors – adding their names to the side of the boats – also finds a place. Clearly, their emails rock, too
10. Ask Your Supporters to Count the Cost
Most people view philanthropy through rose-tinted glasses.
But as a nonprofit, you must know that philanthropy has its risks. From financial risks to ethical risks to physical dangers. You might already be informing your volunteers about this, but using email can effectively raise awareness about those risks. Because, once again, email gives you the space to do it.
Philanthropic risk can be a lengthy topic to cover. People need time to understand it and to come to terms with it. Email is convenient for such talk.
Catch this long nonprofit newsletter example from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). It lists the dangers of whistleblowing in amazing detail. And it’s only Chapter I.
Next Steps? Learn More about Nonprofit Email Marketing
So those were some of the best newsletter templates for nonprofit organizations you could come by. But this isn’t the first time we’re covering nonprofits. For more on this:
- Learn how email automation can help your nonprofit.
- Discover more nonprofit newsletter examples.
- Find out how you can use Salesforce to spread the word via email.
Susmit Panda
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