Missions to Movements
Missions to Movements is the nonprofit marketing and fundraising podcast that helps you grow recurring donors, scale monthly giving programs, and build digital campaigns that convert.
Hosted by Dana Snyder—speaker, strategist, and founder of Positive Equation—this show is packed with actionable nonprofit growth strategies, social media tips, and fundraising best practices.
Each week, you’ll hear how organizations are increasing donor retention, building thought leadership, and using digital fundraising to drive real impact. If you want to learn how to attract monthly donors, master nonprofit marketing, and transform your mission into a movement, this podcast is for you.
Missions to Movements
Boost Donor Engagement Before Year-End: This ONE Nurture Email Sparked 268 Replies
We explore the power of nurture campaigns as a critical strategy before launching year-end appeals. Sharing personal stories and gratitude before making asks creates deeper connections with donors and significantly improves engagement metrics.
• Previous bonus episodes covered LinkedIn thought leadership, making monthly giving the centerpiece of events, and getting featured in holiday gift guides
• Nurture campaigns should share stories and milestones without making asks
• Dana's personal case study of a National Nonprofit Day email generated 268 replies
• Simple, heartfelt gratitude emails with small engagement incentives build relationships
• Nurture emails boost deliverability metrics – subsequent emails reached 56-60% open rates
• Creative incentives can include digital guides, playlists, coffee gift cards, pins, or stickers
• Partnerships with local businesses can provide gifts for engagement incentives
• Interactive calls-to-action where supporters can choose gifts or share personal stories work particularly well
• Try implementing a nurture challenge with plain text, story-driven emails before year-end appeals
If you enjoyed this mini-series, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The call for speakers is now open for Monthly Giving Summit on February 25-26: https://www.monthlygivingsummit.com/
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This year, on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, join the conversation: share your favorite nonprofit’s campaign, volunteer for a cause you care about, share an act of kindness, or encourage your audience to do the same.
Use #GivingTuesday, tag @GivingTuesday, and visit GivingTuesday.org/Participate to get involved and inspire others!
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Welcome to the final bonus episode of this series. This is Missions to Movements. I am Dana Snyder and you are listening to an unedited version of the show, where the past three Mondays I have been just giving some short solo episodes on things that I think are important to think about with year end coming up. So we talked about LinkedIn thought leadership. We talked about events making monthly giving the primary centerpiece for the events that you have coming up, so there's continuous revenue beyond that one event and we talked about public relations and specifically how to get your organization, your monthly giving programs, featured in holiday gift guides. And today I wanted to share a story and kind of my own personal case study, but really a story and focus on nurturing. So question for you is do you have a nurture campaign planned before your year end appeals go out? I'm asking this because I was on a VIP intensive call recently and, of course, we're talking about all acquisition and we're talking about a lot of their end-of-year appeals are drafted, and so we were talking about email and direct mail and SMS and I asked what text messages in that series are touch points planned for nurturing, for telling stories before these asks go out, and there wasn't anything planned, and I think this is such a beautiful opportunity right now. It is the perfect time to shine a light on all the incredible work that you've done this year and, whether you are a team of uno or 200, to sit down, reflect on the stories, the moments, the milestones that have mattered this year and start to figure out a cadence of sharing them, of sharing them. Sharing emails that don't have an ask but an opportunity for your audience to lean in and connect with you before you ask them to give. So one of the ways that you can do this and you can do this really through direct mail, sms.
Speaker 1:I'm going to share an example of an email that I did recently with the nurture email and so on national nonprofit day, which was on August 15th it's a Sunday. So I sent out an email on a Sunday and it generated 268 replies. I had a specific call to action to reply. I'm going to read you the email and I just want you to think about how could you do this in your nonprofit, and I'm going to share some examples for you to brainstorm with too. So National Nonprofit Day obviously it was relevant culturally. It made sense to my audience because you are nonprofit professionals. The subject line said my audience. Because you are nonprofit professionals. The subject line said because you deserve to be celebrated, smiley face. This is what the email said Happy National Nonprofit Day. It had the first name or, if I didn't know the person's first name, I had put in world changer exclamation mark. I packed my first suitcase for a mission trip when I was 12. Danced for 12 hours in college to raise money for kids at Children's Miracle Network and I started my very first job at Take Stock and Children of Sarasota County and cried reading a story about the when Angels Play Foundation. And that's the moment I left my corporate job and never looked back.
Speaker 1:Nonprofits aren't just part of my resume, they're part of me, and if you're reading this, I know they're a part of you too. Maybe you run after school programs or protect local green spaces or make sure no family goes hungry. Whatever your mission is, whatever it looks like, your work matters. You might not always get the thanks you deserve, but I see you and on National Nonprofit Day, I want to say this Thank you for the impact you've had on my life. Thank you for the impact you've had on all of ours. As a small token of appreciation, I'd love to gift you something A free audio book code to my book, the Monthly Giving Mastermind, plus a coffee on me to start your week out.
Speaker 1:Right until they run out in parentheses Just hit reply and say I got this and I'll send everything over Smiley face. So this email, right, nothing about this. I mean, I'm not a nonprofit, so nothing about this was an ask. I wasn't selling anything. This was just about gratitude. And at the very end of the email and normally when I've done this or a gift card or something, I'll just put the actual button. And I was like I'm just curious, like who's actually going to read this on a Sunday, make it all the way to the end of the email. And so I offered those two small gifts a free audio book of my book and a Starbucks gift card until they ran out. And again, all they had to do is reply. The words I got this. People were sharing stories with me, they thanked me. This was so lovely honestly to receive on this end, and how good it feels, so good to actually get a response from people when so often it's just like a push email out and you don't hear anything. So the concept of this is how do you get people to lean in this? Also, the open rates boosted my email deliverability. My last three emails, and actually a lot of the emails that I've sent since this, have 56, 60% plus open rates. So it's telling email providers Ooh, this is quality content. Let me make sure it hits that person's inbox, and this is the power of nurturing.
Speaker 1:So is there an occasion there could be a volunteer appreciation week, a program milestone, anything really where you can really create this nurture funnel for yourself? Actually, you don't even have to have a specific day that is relevant to your organization. I would just go ahead and start sending these. And what is it that you could offer as that return for a reply? I think a small gift shows thoughtfulness. This could be a digital guide. This could be a playlist. I know recently I was talking to Jess Campbell and she works with Chamber of Mothers and their monthly giving program that I'm a part of is called the Matriarchy, and so they put together like a rage playlist for moms with everything that's going on.
Speaker 1:I thought that was so clever. Is it an audio book? Is it something that's tangible, whether it's a coffee or a pin or a sticker, and I think something else that I've seen recently is let donors opt in and choose. So hit, reply and choose your free gift a pin or a sticker, or pick your favorite a shirt or a tote, or it could be even in kind of like an impact response what inspires you to give to this organization, what's inspired you to be here? Dressumber did this kind of like opt-in message brilliantly. They sent an email. This was a while ago now, but they sent an email to all of us, a part of the collective, offering people a fanny pack. Now people talk about it as a crossbody bag, but it was like their color brand and I loved opting in and it's like my mini badge of belonging and I love talking about it. Anytime somebody asks me where I got it, I share it. It's because I'm part of Dressumber.
Speaker 1:So how can you really make these replies or this engagement, this call to action, interactive? So reply and tell me your word for why you give and I'll send you a little thank you gift in return. So every reply, you're growing that relationship and you get that better inbox. So there's also some creative ways you could think about extending this into partnerships you have with local organizations. Maybe you have a local coffee shop, would they sponsor little gift cards? Is there a wellness brand that you work with that they would donate app codes, meditation app codes or yoga classes? Are there corporate partners that would work with you on co-branding some swag, whether it be a water bottle or that pin or the tote? Are there stickers that you have or pins? Again, I don't want to think about the cost and I don't want the cost to bog you down on doing this lean in exercise, but it's really the experience of how can somebody either choose something and get back to you, engage and just be a part of something really fun.
Speaker 1:So my thought, my ask to you, is to Do a nurture challenge for yourself, and you can do this. You could do this just through email. If you have SMS, you could do this through text messaging, direct mail. There's all different cool ways, fun ways that you could do this. Try and pick a time to do this. My email is plain text, super simple, that says thanks, tells a story, offers that way to lean, in that way to reply and make it something quick. And then the even cooler part was I loved personally following up with those people who responded, especially ones who left really thoughtful messages and notes. So really, the thought here of all of this is, before you hit, send on the year-end appeals.
Speaker 1:Take time to thoughtfully put together just as much effort on a nurture campaign. Send heartfelt, interactive emails. Celebrate the community that's there. Give them the choice in a way, to engage with you in a really fun way. Again, you probably have guides, maybe it's recipes, playlists, things that don't have to cost necessarily anything but can just open the door to bigger conversations, open them up to remembering you, and those conversations are what can turn, just like that email list subscriber or one-time supporter into, hopefully, a sustainer for you.
Speaker 1:So, if you try this, tag me, dm me on LinkedIn. You can reach out to me on Instagram. I always love to celebrate your creativity or feature you in a campaign, and if you do this also on LinkedIn, you can reach out to me on Instagram. I always love to celebrate your creativity or feature you in a campaign. And if you do this also, the call for speakers are open for monthly giving summit, which is February 25th and 26th, so you can sign up for that and I hope you really enjoyed this mini series.
Speaker 1:Um, if you did, I would love to hear from you. This is my nurture ask and the best way to do that is, of course, I'm recording this into a microphone, into my computer and I would love to hear back from you. So if you can drop a review on Apple or Spotify Spotify unfortunately doesn't do any like text, it's just the star so if you listen on Apple podcast, that would be amazing Drop me a note, let me know what you thought about this mini series. I hope they were helpful and, yeah, I would just love to hear back from you and I hope you have a beautiful day and fundraising season and back to our normal Wednesday weekly programming. Have a wonderful rest of your week.
