Crafting a donor email can be tricky—how do you ensure it grabs their attention, gets opened, and inspires them to read on? Did you know the average reader has an attention span of eight seconds? And you have only two seconds to grab their attention and get them to read on, so your email communication has to be top-notch!
Donor emails are necessary to any successful multi-channel donor relations stewardship and engagement strategy, and I want to help you reach your donors and inspire them to engage with your organization further. I’ve gathered a few of my favorite donor emails to inspire and help you take your own emails to the next level. So, let’s get started with these seven examples of emails donors would love to see in their inboxes:
First Time Donor
Who wouldn’t love to open their email inbox and see these two smiling faces? Child Fund International does a fantastic job welcoming first-time donors with this email. The imagery grabs your attention, and the language is both powerful and donor-focused. Phrases like “you did it” and “you provide” make donors feel like an important part of their mission. As a bonus, they include a link to a heartfelt video that draws donors deeper into their mission.
Giving Day
You can instantly feel the team spirit when you open this Giving Day email from the University of Florida. The bold imagery and direct "You" language immediately grab your attention. The short and clear message allows donors to quickly understand the day's success while emphasizing that the main goal is to say, “thank you.” I love that they tease future updates about the overall impact. This approach is a great way to spark donors' curiosity, and keep them engaged for the next email.
Milestone
At the Donor Relations Group, we love behavior-based emails that recognize donors, and this one-year anniversary email from the University of Tennessee Knoxville is a perfect example. Even Smoky couldn’t agree more that this email is #1! The clean and classic design, paired with the bright orange header, pops against the white background and immediately grabs your attention. The clever play on words adds a fun touch. The email is short and sweet but still feels personal because it celebrates a meaningful milestone.
General Thank You
The American Red Cross makes it immediately clear that it is reaching out to thank its donors. The organization does an excellent job of defining its purpose and showing how donations have impacted communities across the country through various types of disasters, including how they have helped those communities. I particularly appreciate that it offers donors a way to stay involved by including a link to follow the journey of its emergency response teams after a disaster.
Special Occasion
Special occasions, like holidays, are the perfect time to email donors to boost their engagement and express gratitude. This holiday email from the LSU Foundation makes the most of that opportunity by offering donors a unique way to connect with the campus community. It includes two recipes that serve as an activity for donors and showcases one of the university's programs. The email takes it a step further by including a video of one of the LSU AgCenter agents in the kitchen making the recipes. Watch out, Food Network!
Engagement
Emails can be a wonderful disruptor in your donor’s inbox. Cornell University does a creative job of that with this beautiful “calm” email, which highlights some of the university’s natural beauty at its Botanic Gardens. I appreciate how this email might evoke special memories for donors from their time at Cornell, and for non-alumni donors, it can provide some peace and beauty in their day. This is a fantastic way to interact with donors and foster their connection with the university.
Video Message
Video can be an engaging way to connect with donors. While it may not necessarily boost email metrics, it is an effective disruptor in a multi-channel communications strategy. This personal email from UC Davis features a clear subject line and a strong call to action. It uses video to highlight the impact of their Giving Day. The video is just 50 seconds long, perfect for our “less-than-goldfish” attention spans. The video presents impact figures and details, helping donors grasp their role in the collective success of the day. Beyond Giving Day, this video approach could be employed to share other impact statistics and information with donors, such as scholarship impact and annual report highlights.
Now that you have seen some of my favorite donor emails, here is a quick guide to crafting compelling emails for your organization that will surely get noticed by your donors. Email expert and author of Mailed It!, Ashley Budd, shared some of these strategies with Lynne Wester during our 2024 webinar, A Conversation About Nonprofit Communications.
Build Trust
The most important element of an email is who it’s from. Ensure the sender is recognizable and encourages a sense of trust. The recipient should feel connected, whether the sender is an individual person or an organization. In addition, you can build donor trust through clear, authentic communication that fosters transparency, not just through email but through a solid donor communications strategy that leverages various communication channels.
Make It Clear
The recipient should understand the purpose of your email within two seconds. These tricks can help you achieve clarity:
Clear Purpose: Define your purpose for the email and tailor everything to convey that message.
Strong Subject Line: Write a standout subject line that clearly states what the recipient will gain from opening the email. Avoid overly clever or ambiguous phrases.
Engaging Preheader: Provide a brief summary or highlight the main takeaway to entice the reader.
Focus on Engagement, Not Just Design
While good design should be clean, sharp, and evoke emotion, it should not be the focus of your email. Instead:
Use concise, casual, and relatable language. Tools like the Hemingway Editor app can help simplify your writing–text should be written on a 7th-9th grade reading level. Other applications like Grammarly can assist you with tone and style, among other uses.
Include a call to action to increase clicks and drive engagement.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion should always be at the forefront of our communication. Don’t overlook this important aspect in your email strategy. Ensure your text is inclusive, shows empathy, and welcomes all readers.
Test, Tweak, and Track Your Success
Experiment with A/B testing to find what works best for your audience. Vary subject lines, preheaders, images, and more to increase engagement between various donor segments. Leveraging case studies and real-time feedback will allow you to refine your work. In addition, this data-driven approach can also help secure leadership support for your email strategy.
Using these guidelines, you are ready to create meaningful donor emails. Focus on trust, clarity, and engagement to help you craft emails that your donors will look forward to reading.
Do you have your own outstanding donor emails you'd like to showcase? Share your samples with us at samples@donorrelations.com, and you may be featured as one of our next DRG Heroes!
Written by Stacey Halphen
Stacey brings more than 10 years of expertise in donor relations within higher education. She has driven impactful stewardship initiatives, including creating elite impact reports for scholarships, endowments, and faculty funds, managing acknowledgment programs, launching a university-wide scholarship system, and leading a donor-focused gift administration program.
