How many times have you read an article about how important it is to keep your donors informed? If you’ve worked in the nonprofit sector for any length of time, the answer is probably more times than you care to admit. Keeping your donors informed about your organization, its mission, and its impact is essential to maintaining their support. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. When it comes to keeping your donors updated, most charities have room for improvement. A recent study showed that charities with the highest engagement from their donors also had among the lowest percentage of unopened emails from those donors. If you work at a charity or fundraising organization, hopefully, you already know this… But just in case you need a friendly reminder: It’s pretty important to keep those giving partners in the loop! So we’ve put together some helpful tips regarding how to write to donors effectively.
Donors Want to Know the Impact of Their Giving
This is particularly important when you’re writing to major donors. The more engaged your major donors are with your organization, the more likely they are to have specific ideas about how their money should be spent. That’s why you see many major gift campaigns specific to one project or initiative. So before you send out that email to your donors, make sure you’ve got a good understanding of what they want to see happen with their money. You might also consider including a specific request for funding in your email. This can help you cut down on the number of emails you have to send out. You can create a single email with an embedded request for funding that can be sent out to multiple people. Doing so can help you hit more contacts at once and get your message out to a wider audience.
Be Clear and Concise
Unfortunately, many people are skimming their emails these days. And some people may be reading your emails while they’re on the go. That means you only have a few seconds to catch their attention. That’s not a lot of time! So make sure you’re being clear and concise in all of your emails. That doesn’t mean that you can’t use a few words. It just means that you should be clear and concise in all of your emails. It’s important to keep your emails short—most people prefer to read emails that are less than 50 words. But it’s also important to include the information your donors need. You don’t want to make your emails too long, but you also don’t want to make them too short. If you’ve only got a few seconds to catch your readers’ attention, you don’t have a lot of time to do that.
Use Images and Videos
You might recall the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, it’s true. In fact, including an image in your email can increase the chances of someone reading it by up to 50%! Including images and videos in your emails can help keep your donors informed about your organization. You can use images and videos to illustrate your mission and vision for the future. You can also use images to showcase your current projects, as well as highlight the impact of your donors’ contributions.
Make It Easy for People to Give
One of the best ways to keep your donors informed is to make it easy for them to give. That means including donation links, donation statements, and other options for donors to give in every email. Remember, every person who receives your email is a potential donor. That means that even if someone doesn’t give to your organization right now, they could become a donor in the future. And if you make it easy for them to do so, they may become loyal supporters.
Summary
When it comes to writing to donors, the basics are important. You want to make sure your emails are short, clear, and concise. Include images and videos, and make it easy for people to give. And remember, these tips can apply to any type of communication you have with donors. Whether you’re sending out an email, writing a blog post, or sending a text message, these basic tips will help you keep your donors informed.
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