Care2's Digital Engagement Blog

Donors, volunteers, and advocates for good causes are hungry to hear from the organizations they support.

Here at Care2, it’s common for members to tell us: “I want to know how I can help.”

Many organizations have been consistently communicating with supporters throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, sending email updates and reaching out by phone to talk to their community members.

The best communication in a crisis is transparent and thoughtful. Honesty with your donors helps build lasting and meaningful relationships with the people who support you.

Here is a great example from Surfrider Foundation. In this email, Surfrider let their community know about the direct mail piece they had produced and scheduled before the coronavirus outbreak.

Many charities and nonprofits are asking: “How will my organization’s supporters respond to our fundraising appeals during this time of economic uncertainty?”

There are a lot of strategies that go into a well-developed and successful email marketing program. Some "experts" say that the most important element is that the subject line needs to be provocative. Some say the most the important strategy is to decide who the sender of the email will be and that’s what your donors will respond to. So what's the most important strategy to increase email conversion rates? Let’s dig in and look at the data...

Donald Trump knows how to generate a ton of earned media. On the other hand, his digital strategy for running for President of the United States, looks like this.

via GIPHY

Why is a Welcome Series so important for nonprofits to engage donors? 

Care2 recently released a Welcome Series Toolkit to help you navigate the important first steps in engaging potential donors for your nonprofit.

A Welcome Series is a series of emails to welcome a new email subscriber to your organization. Developing a three-part email series is a pretty solid choice, and that’s what we’ll focus on for your standard Welcome Series. A welcome email may be the single most important email you send, because it is the first impression your new potential donor will have communicating with your organization. Additionally, welcome emails are four times more likely to be opened and five times more likely to get click throughs.

 …for starters, it’s in everyone else’s pockets. 91% of adults have their phone within arm’s reach 24/7. I know that it’s tough for nonprofits to find the budget and the time to make sure your website is responsive, but your donors, volunteers, activists and even your board members expect it. You don't want these audiences visiting your site from their phones and tablets and then be forced to look at a different site because your site looked funky, and was hard to read and search for info. A funder even recently expressed this frustration to me about a nonprofit they were evaluating for a grant. 

According to the 2015 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, by NonprofitMarketingGuide.com, nonprofits are becoming more confident and more intentional about reaching out to target audiences, raising money, and retaining donors through engagement. For the first time since 2011, nonprofits have significantly increased the frequency for both email and direct mail appeals.