Oh, email! For many individuals and organizations, email has transformed both the quantity and quality of human communication. Simultaneously intimate and public, email is a daily symbol of the potential and danger that technology promises. To some, email is a simple and sublime medium to communicate in the modern world. To others - and often the same people- it is a reviled and bottomless pit of unwanted spam that infuriates and frustrates.
Nonprofit organizations of all sizes and budgets are exploring how to integrate email into a comprehensive communications and fundraising strategy. Some are far along the road of doing so; others are just starting out. This article provides an overview of why and how to use email in your fundraising program.
The Benefits of Email
Email is a flexible and easy-to-use medium for both the sender and the receiver. Email is important precisely because it's regular, constant, and often the way most people engage with the Internet. It's fast, cheap, easy to use, and informal. There's also that quality of its being "viral" - that is, email is content that's easy for your readers to pass on by forwarding. As many organizations can attest, this can exponentially expand your network and reach.
Email brings immediate response, allowing us to gauge how well we're reaching our constituencies. The benefits of that immediacy go both ways: now your community can have more access to you and provide the gold of any good relationship: a dynamic feedback loop.
Email can also provide content in its own right. The voice, style, presentation and format are all critical to your success. Email is fast, but that doesn't mean that you can jot off emails without foresight and the help of an editor.
On the other hand, the same virtues of email also highlight its limitations. While it's fast and easy, it's also rather "disposable," as it's easy to delete. The very quality of immediacy can negate its power and impact. When sending email, we are dealing with the dreaded domain of unwanted email or "spam," a sensitive issue for many email users.
That "send" button warrants perhaps more caution and respect before we use it. From a communications point of view, it's important to be sensitive to when it's appropriate to use email, and when the phone or regular post mail is better.
Email is about Cultivating Relationships
Using email for fundraising is much more than literally soliciting for support. It's about cultivating relationships, keeping the feedback loops intact, and thereby ensuring a stronger base of support. Email is a versatile tool that can be leveraged to greatly enhance - and complement - all aspects of donor and member relations.
The range of how email can be linked to your overall fundraising efforts is wonderfully broad: from collecting email addresses on your website to a carefully executed online fundraising campaign that uses email as its central vehicle. As a core component of a broad stakeholder communications strategy, email can be the glue to hold your donor relations together and create traction in your communications to yield wonderful results.
Finally, email is not intended to be a substitute for "live" relationships - meeting with your donors and other supporters, whether one-on-one or in group settings. What email does is add another method to be in touch with people. So be careful not to start depending solely on email as an all-purpose fundraising communication vehicle.
This article was originally published in the Jan/Feb 2004 edition of the Grassroots Fundraising Journal.
Source: Groundspring ITS Topic 12
