From Inbox Noise To Impact: Nonprofit Email That Works

Stop writing emails no one wants to open. We sat down with email strategist Amanda Nicholson to unpack why “email is dead” keeps getting repeated—and why the data says otherwise for nonprofits seeking real donor relationships and measurable results. From the first line to the final click, Amanda breaks down how to turn a crowded inbox into a steady channel for funding, volunteering, and community. If you’re ready to turn messages into momentum—more opens, more clicks, and more impact—hit play. Then subscribe, share this episode with a nonprofit friend, and leave a quick review telling us your next test.

Transcript

Sponsor Message: Firespring

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This episode is sponsored by Firespring. Firespring is a brand experience company that specializes in nonprofits, delivering integrated marketing and websites that do more than look good. From appeals and annual reports to seamless giving experiences, Firespring helps nonprofits turn clicks into real impact. Learn more today at firespring.com slash nonprofit hub. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer. Joined today by Amanda Nicholson, who is email marketer extraordinaire. And we're gonna dig into that exact topic because man, so many people are doing it wrong. And I hate to start the show on like a negative note, but I, as one who receives a lot of nonprofit emails through the course of my day, oof, there's so many things that I I wish that we could address. So that's what we're digging into today. Amanda, welcome in. Thank you for having me, Megan. I promise we're gonna end it on a much more positive note, guys. It's not gonna all be negative, Nelly. So Amanda, introduce yourself a little bit to our audience. Tell us a little bit about you and the work that brought us to the conversation today.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yeah, so I'm an email marketer. I work specifically with nonprofits and how they can use email to strengthen donor relationships and use it as an avenue for funding.

Is Email Dead Or Just Misused

Data And ROI For Nonprofit Email

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Okay, so that's what we're gonna dig into. I want to set kind of set the stage here with I was at a conference not too long ago, and I feel like all of a sudden the same discussions were starting to emerge that I heard at a conference 10 to 15 years ago about how direct mail was dead and we need to move on. And that there was a very similar tone in one of the sessions at this conference that was like, email's dead, stop doing it. Right? We're oversaturated on email, you may as well just cut your losses and stop. I personally don't buy that theory. I also don't think direct mail is dead. So I stop putting things in the grave. But um Yes, exactly. Stop killing things that aren't actually dead. Uh but that being said, are we at a place where email is still a viable option? I would assume your answer is gonna be yes, but but tell us your opinion on that.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

I would say yes, it is still a viable option. And data backs that up. I mean, there's so many reports that you can look at, nonprofit specifically, and also just business. Email still has the highest ROI, especially compared to social media. I think it, you know, it's gonna come back to what works for you because I don't think direct mail is dead either. I still very much engage with the nonprofits who send me direct mail and emails. But, you know, and and I think a lot of things in 2026 are shifting. I think people are getting tired of having so much digital noise that I think things will change. But as far as saying that any one thing, any one avenue of communication is dead, no, I don't agree with that. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, I think you can look at the MR benchmarks and I think Feather, the nonprofit email platform, they produce their own report. I'm not sure if they have one out for last year yet, but I know if they don't yet, it's coming soon, so be on the lookout for that. They always have provide really good data. So I would say keep up with the data for sure.

unknown 3:23

Fantastic.

What Makes A Strong Email Strategy

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Good. So, in your opinion, if you're starting to work with a client, what let's talk about what makes a good email? Right? What are the things that you're looking for when we're talking about an email? And and I don't mean an individual email. Let's holistically strategy-wise, what makes a good email strategy? What components need to be a part of that?

Story Openings And Clear CTAs

SPEAKER_01 3:48

So it I will say it depends. If you, you know, who you're targeting, I would say the more specific the better. Not everyone's email list looks like that yet. So if we, you know, say we're starting with a pretty small list and you email them maybe two times a month or something like that, I would say you need to have an engaging opening. I like to start with personalization a lot, maybe say their name or start with a story. Starting with setting the scene, not just like we were sitting in this place, but yeah, if you want to talk about this really cool thing that your nonprofit did recently, set the scene of what the day was like, or set the scene of what the problem was that you guys came in to solve. People love stories and they'll pick up on that and they'll be more engaged. I call it a through line if you start with a story. Start with the story. I love to bold the through line, which is the sentence or two that connects the story to where you want to lead them or what the big idea is that you want to end the email with. And that should align with your call to action. Please, please, please put a call to action in your emails. Yeah. Because there's a lot that I'll see, like, okay, signing off today, or or love this person. But you know, every email you want to send them somewhere. It doesn't have to be your donation link. It can be a blog post or YouTube video or maybe a report, um, or even just to reply back to you. You might get a bunch of responses if you do that, but then you get to hear your donors or volunteers or supporters' voices. You get to see their own language and how they're talking to you about your mission and about your work. And I think that is also really valuable whenever you look at engaging with them further and more specifically down the line. So I would say start with an engaging opening, have a through line if you are telling a story, and then always have a call to action.

Sensory Detail To Build Connection

Growing A Small Email List

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So good. I just had someone on the podcast last week who does a lot of work with international organizations. And that was one of her call-outs as well, especially around like 99.9% of your donors have never been to whatever foreign country these folks are talking about. Right. And so being able to set that stage of here's what the day looks like, here's what it feels like, here's what it smells like in our neighborhood, right? And those very specific details that engage all of our senses and get us to connect with that, even if it's a US-based organization, right? It might be a city someone's never been to. It might be a part of town that someone is not familiar with with going to. Uh and so, man, those those sense connection points really do go a long way. Yes. So I want to go back to something that you had said at the beginning of that, talking about folks who may have a small email list. Yeah. I know that is true for a lot of the organizations that we work with, a lot of the organizations that listen to the podcast. If if that's somebody going, yep, that's me, right? Our our list is pretty small. Do you have thoughts or suggestions on how to grow that well? Because everything I've heard lately, even in terms of, you know, uh what we're doing on social media, is all drive to your email list. We want people on that owned land instead of rented land. And so they want to push to the email list. Do you have some suggestions for how to do that that really show people why they should be on the on your email list in general, um, or how to grow a list effectively that way?

Creative Opt‑Ins And Events

SPEAKER_01 7:35

One thing I see with nonprofits, which is pretty basic, is they often don't have a sign-up on their website. Or if they do, I have also noticed that it might be the website platform's sign up that's in there, but they use a different platform for email. So maybe somebody's putting their email in on their website, but it's not actually going to their email list. So I would say, you know, if if you're just starting out, especially, or you are restarting email, make sure that your tech is set up to where people are actually getting on there. Because, you know, if if that's not your thing all the time, it's very easy to miss that. So I would say start there to make sure anyone landing on your site and signing up is actually getting on the list. And as far as, you know, more engaging ways. I've been doing a lot experimenting with this a lot with the nonprofits I work with. Reports are always a good way to get people to sign up. If you're at events, make sure you have a sign-up sheet that asks for their email because then you can specifically follow up with them later. You know, you would have that email segment of event attendees that you could directly speak to, directly think. Exclusive updates on your email list are incentive. If people are really interested in your mission and they want to know more about it, then you can point to the email as like, hey, if you want to know everything, you know, what what we're sending out first, you know, kind of like exclusive access, like email lists use it first. That works really well. As far as depending on what your nonprofit is, maybe some sort of education guide or something that teaches your supporters more about the work you do because that's your reality all day long. But other people might not know about it. Maybe they want to support you, but they don't truly know the ins and out of ins and outs of it. So, you know, maybe some sort of guide or piece of content that tells them more about that would be a good incentive. I cannot remember the name of it. It's a national sustainability nonprofit, but they were offering coloring sheets for the season. And so that got me to sign up and print them off for my daughter and I to color. And I that is something I've not seen a nonprofit do before, and that really stood out to me. Anything like that, it doesn't have to necessarily be related to your work, but the coloring sheets were like mountain scenes, people camping, and had to do with nature and the seasoned and things like that. So I would say get creative with your opt-ins too.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Okay, so Amanda, you used a word in there that I think still eludes far too many people. And that is the word segment. Right? So we talk about any art, literally any article that you read about email and how to do email well is gonna talk about your segmentation. Um I would venture to say that most organizations that I talk to either are not doing it at all, or they're organizations who maybe on the flip side have such a large list and kind of a legacy list of people who have been on there for so long that going back through to try to segment those out is a huge undertaking of task. Um so, first of all, help us let's let's level set, help us define segmentation and then let's talk about why it's important and how to go about making sure you're doing that part correctly.

Automating Tags And Preferences

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah. So segmenting is basically creating a subsection of context of your email list. And you know, this could be you could have a segment just for donors, you could have a segment just for volunteers, it could even be a segment for if you host, you know, a really big event, it could be attendees from there. It is going to depend on what you do and your overall goals for your events and your email list, but yeah, it's you know, just creating a certain subsection of your email list. For pretty small lists, I would say like 1,000 to 2,000 subscribers. I wouldn't recommend starting it then. That's still pretty small, and chances are you would have really small segments. I'm a big fan of being super specific, but I feel like at that moment you might be spending a lot of time trying to segment very few people. So um I would say once your list starts really growing, then it's definitely worth segmenting, especially if you can connect it to like a donor CRM or you use a donor CRM for emailing, that can very easily connect to your donor segment and you can get really specific on times to engage with them, what to say to them, when to thank them, things like that. I think that should be the ultimate goal. But if you're just starting out, I would say just focus on producing high-quality emails and then just in the back of your mind know that as your list grows, it's going to help you in the long run to segment. But if you already have a big list and you don't have any segments and you're like, okay, that sounds like it's going to take a look at the same thing. Apparently, don't take time. Yeah. Yeah. Your email platform, it's going to depend on which one you use. But this, you can't, you can't automate this in pretty much every email platform I can think of. I don't think you can if you have the free version of MailChimp, but any other platform I think you you can set up to where you can send an email. And, you know, you can even say, like, hey, thank you for being here. We're trying to make sure that we're sending you emails you want to see. And, you know, please I maybe not identify yourself, but say, you know, click on what you're interested, or you know, what your title is. And you could say, like, donor volunteer, or based on content, like interested in reports, interested in updates, interested in events. And then you can um, once they click that in your email platform, put that as a tag that would send them to a new segment. So the technicalities of it again are going to depend on what platform you use, but it can be automated, and you can send like one to three emails trying to segment and then have most of it done for you. So it doesn't have to be this super daunting, time-consuming thing.

Real‑World Segmentation Example

Personalization: Names And Limits

SPEAKER_00 14:30

This episode is sponsored by Firespring, a brand experience company trusted by thousands of nonprofits to amplify their message, strengthen supporter connections, and grow their mission. Firespring delivers nonprofit websites and marketing that do more than look good. From appeals and direct mail to annual reports and seamless online giving, everything is built to tell your story, engage supporters, and make giving easy. The result? Real, measurable impact for your organization. Learn more today at firespring.com slash nonprofit hub. Okay, so there's a nonprofit here in Pittsburgh that I've volunteered with for years and years. I'm a donor, all of the things, right? What I have started to notice over the course of the last couple of years as they've been doing this is when they went through and did their segmentation, they were able to do it even in their volunteers by what department those people volunteer or donate to, right? So they the organization itself has programs in athletics, education, performing arts, some job readiness training, like a pretty all-encompassing program for youth. But they know now that I volunteer specifically with the performing arts department. Right. So anytime I get an email, it the photos in it are of the arts program, right? When I when there's a volunteer email that goes out, it's giving me options of volunteer opportunities within that department, right? And I noticed this change because I used to get ones, I used to get volunteer recruitment emails that are like, here's all the positions or all the things we're trying to fill in athletics and education and job readiness and in the arts. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm never gonna be the volunteer for soccer. Yeah, like that's just not like it's just not who I am as a person. And that's okay. We all have our own giftedness. I am never gonna be the soccer helper. And so nine times out of ten, I would ignore the emails because I really just didn't care and I missed opportunities down the line. But I think they've done such a good job at being able to segment here's the department that this person is connected to. And so when we talk about donations, when we talk about volunteer opportunities, we're really able to target that approach. And now it's the exact same email for donors, right? Your year-end campaign is gonna be your year-end campaign letter regardless. But the imagery changes based on those segments. And I, you know, if you go back to your sentence earlier, go back to the data, when we're able to customize like that, because man, we love things that feel like they're just for us.

Plain Text Vs Designed Emails

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yes, yes, and that's able to customize that's so important. Mm-hmm. Yep, that's what I mean by being super specific, is just like you said, whenever you feel like, oh, you're sending this just for me, not an email blast that has a million different things to where I get overwhelmed and leave the email or don't open it at all.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah. I'm curious your thoughts because I've heard some people say things like, I hate using the, you know, the little personalization thing that puts everyone's first name in there. Because I feel like people just know that it's still an email blast and it it they feel like it comes off as more disingenuous of like, I'm trying to this is going to everybody, but I'm trying to make you think that it's not. Is that your impression? Is that or is the personalization tag still super useful?

SPEAKER_01 18:20

It's still super useful, you know, and thinking back to the most recent data I've looked at, it's you know, if you use it in the subject line, that it's more likely to be opened. And I think in your email, it also depends on how you use it. I think if you overuse it, people start to feel a little bit creeped out, maybe. But I would say maybe if you use it once or twice in an email, I would say that's a good amount. I wouldn't say that's overuse, but as far as it being disingenuous, again, I think that goes back to how you use it.

Skimmability, Load Speed, And Testing

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Okay. Let's talk because I've seen some interesting data. Next After has a couple interesting studies about this. Let's talk heavily text and or heavily photo and format and designed emails versus ones that are more just here's a text letter style with a lot of copy in it. I think, you know, coming from a marketing background myself, right? We tend to spend a lot of time on the overly designed, lots of graphics, lots of images, lots of, you know, well-placed newsletter templates in email. But I'm curious your thoughts on that. Are you seeing a shift away from that and towards more just copy-based? What do you find to be most effective?

How To Work With Amanda

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I think that's going to go back to what your audience ultimately responds to. So you could test that for yourself and see which ones are getting more clicks, better engagement, things like that. I'm a big fan of testing to see what works for you. At least the most recent data I've seen on businesses specifically, plain text emails are performing better, but it's not blocks of text. It's when people have broken up the emails to make it more skimmable. Because realistically, people aren't sitting and reading every single word, inner emails. But if you make it easy for them to quickly skim and get the at least get the main idea, maybe bold some of the text, you know, make break it up into smaller paragraphs to where it makes it easier to read. People are more likely to keep reading it. If they see a giant paragraph or something that looks like a novel, they're probably more likely to bounce off. That's what the data has been showing. And again, there are a lot of people who are visual. So if you're including an image or video in your email, I don't think that's a bad thing. But again, don't overdo it and still make it easy to read. Because whether you have images in your email or not, people will most likely they're busy. They want to read it quickly. So also keep in mind if you include too many images or too much media in your emails, that can impact how quickly it loads. And if your email isn't loading, people aren't going to read it.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Oh, interesting. Yeah, man, we do have some short attention spans these days. Yeah. It doesn't load immediately, I'm out. I yeah. Yeah, that's really smart. Um, okay, so as we kind of wrap up the conversation, if this has really piqued someone's interest and they wanted to learn more about you and tell us about your work and how we can connect with you.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yeah. So my website is amandanicholson.com. Nicholson like Jack. No relation, but smells the same.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

What's funny is that I you I am the opposite. When I introduce myself, I have to say Megan Speaker. Not like Britney, too ease. I love that. Something like the opposite of how to phrase that.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah. And so my email work, I will collaborate with nonprofits on I have a 12-month contract option where I'm kind of your go-to email person for a while trying to um get your email list going or restarted, whatever stage you are at. And then I have campaign-specific work where if you just need more emails, more copy for a specific campaign or fundraiser coming up, I'm your girl for that. And I also have a free resource on my website. It's a five-day email challenge. And each day I send you a video with an email template to help you create an email sequence to strengthen your donor relationships before you ask them for money.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

So good. I love that. Okay. As we wrap up, the question that I have been asking everyone to kind of end episodes this year is we're looking at 2026 as the year of learning. So what's a book that you loved or that super impacted you that you would absolutely recommend people put on their reading list for this year?

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Yeah. So this, I would say this is a novel. It's the first novel I've read in probably six years that is not a parenting book or a business book or a nonprofit book. Sure. We kind of get stuck in a rut that way. Yes, it felt really good to end 2025 reading this book. It's called The Wilderness by Angela, I think her last name is Florney, is how you say it. But it is about a group, a group of friends and their relationships with each other as they go through adulthood and handle the hardships of life. And it just really got me. And you know, it was it was pretty emotional, but just to, you know, it made me think about my own relationships. And you know, we're all adults and we're all busy and we're all going through different seasons. And and how do we keep our relationships going with friends and family? And how do we stay connected in ways that are meaningful, especially now with so much noise and so much technology pulling us away from genuine connection. So yeah, I would I would recommend that.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Tell me the name of it again. It's called The Wilderness.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Okay. Add that right in. I'm always I because like you, I'm always on like professional development, uh, fundraising, nonprofit, business, leadership, etc. I do a lot of that, but uh you know, sometimes, especially in the winter, it's really nice to just like curl up with a good novel.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

So yeah, it was a it was a good little escape.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

I love that. Well, Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate all the insights, and we'll definitely put a link to your website in the show notes as well so that folks can check you out and learn more. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Megan. My pleasure. This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Spear, and we'll see you next time.