Fundraising emails are a common thing among nonprofit organizations. It’s required for most of the donation campaigns they run for various social activities and fundraising campaigns.
But the question is how to make a fundraising campaign successful through email marketing?
If you feel clueless right now, don’t worry. This guide will have a complete breakdown of a perfect fundraising email template.
Also, we’ll show you some sample donation letters for your better understanding. Therefore, sit back and stay with us right through the end of this blog post.
Why Write a Fundraising email?
The best tool for nonprofit organizations to raise money are donation letters. They mainly adopt the strategy of asking for financial support or even gifts. They mainly do it to keep their organization functioning and ensure that their aim seems sustainable.
This type of letter mainly includes the specific need that a nonprofit organization is trying to minimize. Other than sinking funds, these letters also emphasize portraying the fundraising efforts in bringing a positive change, which encourages donations.
How to Draft a Fundraising email?
There’s no perfect readymade template that you can use for email marketing to raise funds. It is always a combination of a clear and precise message and defining the ultimate fundraising goal.
That said, writing effective fundraising emails is not everyone’s cup of tea. But that doesn’t make it impossible. To make your life easy, we included some tips and tricks that can help draft an ideal fundraising email.
Here are some tips you can follow for your fundraising campaign:
Storytelling
If your donation requests come with a storytelling element, it will take considerably less time to grab the reader’s attention.
When it is about raising money for a cause, the fundraising email needs to have storytelling elements that provoke the reader to read the entire draft.
You should always try to make it real by adding real examples that your organization made happen. It can be about a specific activation that benefited a backward community.
Here the focus should be on the community members, not the organization. The reason is that people will only pay attention when it touches their emotions. And you can’t pull it off in a better way than storytelling.
Resonate with Prospects
The main motive of your fundraising email should not be limited to fundraising. You should try to build a relationship with the prospects, which can be fruitful in the longer run.
Since email marketing is a one-to-one marketing process, it is easier to connect directly with prospects. Now, you should use fundraising as an opportunity to develop personal networks with someone who has a passion for the thing for which you are raising money.
The tonality of your message should always be personalized. And always make the prospects feel like they are essential for the cause behind raising funds.
Be Transparent about Funds
One of the common mistakes to avoid is to keep the conditions about funds undisclosed or vague. If you want to gain the trust of new donors, you need to ensure that everything is transparent between both parties.
You should be clear and precise to your potential donor about the funding gaps. Moreover, keep the communication honest, which will make the prospects confident enough to donate.
Make it Short and Catchy
No reader likes to read something very long. And as human attention span is on a lower curve, you must write the content reasonably short.
People will skim the whole thing, let alone read it thoroughly. That’s why the strategy should be to shorten the paragraphs, as it would not make the content boring.
Besides, you should avoid jargon that is hard to comprehend. Make it super easy for the donors in your whole communication approach.
Include CTA
Including CTA’s in fundraising, emails are a must. After all, you are asking for donations, so you should curate the message tactically to have the call to action.
That said, you need to try it with different approaches. Using a similar pattern would make the total approach cliche. We suggest you use it three times in between the paragraphs.
Moreover, while doing this, make sure you don’t use similar phrases repetitively.
Include Images
You must attach an image of your organization. It will visualize your organization to the potential donors and help to gain their trust. If it becomes hard for you to make customized images, then try to use tools like Hyperise editor. It can make your work easy.
Don’t Push Donation Immediately
If you ask for money on the first cold email, it might negatively affect most donors.
The strategy is to build rapport first. The first step in your fundraising email marketing strategy should inform donors about the fundraising goal. You should let your donors know about the cause for raising money.
Here, the storytelling will work best, and it will help build trust. Then, when you successfully connect with the donors emotionally, you should hook donations in the latter emails.
Two Fundraising emails Template
As you focus on online fundraising through email marketing, we gathered some effective fundraising email templates to help you understand the process.
Here are some of the effective fundraising email examples:
Email Template 1: Donation request for families of military
Hello there,
We all know life is tough, but can you imagine if you lost your loved ones in a war?
Just think of how the world would change for you if you lost your dearest one. Sadly, several families around us suffer from the agony of losing their close ones and face the harsh reality.
[Organization Name] is committed to providing counseling to military families who have lost their loved ones. [Insert amount] is more than enough to counsel a family for a year.
Please join us in helping a family by making a small donation.
[Insert donation link]
Email Template 2: Giving Tuesday
Dear [Insert Name],
Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday, the day of giving.
As a part of our fundraising effort, we aim to raise enough funds so that we can provide [Insert number] homes to [Insert Number] low-income families in [Insert country name] in 24 hours.
Your contribution will be matched when you gift home in [insert country name].
Your contributions matter because you can change the low-income families in [Insert country name] suffer.
Please, send your most generous gift to help those with desperate needs. [Hyperlink the donation link]
Also, you can use the Hyperise editor tool to make customized fundraising emails with customized images.
Structure of a Fundraising Email Template
There is no specific structure for the fundraising email templates. However, if you want a general idea, we can provide you with some essentials.
Header
It will have the name and logo of the nonprofit organization. If your organization doesn’t have any logo, try to make a good logo by using tools like Hyperise.
Contact Details
It will have the address and contact number. Besides, you may also add a website, an email address, and other relevant information.
Salutation
Address the prospective donor by name, either formally or informally.
Acknowledge the Donor
Thank the donor for their donations to the organization to date and make them feel integral in meeting different goals.
Explain the Need
You must communicate the need for fundraising. The main focus here would be the who/what requires assistance. Include a statistic and portray the situation as tragic to gain emotional attachment.
Solution
Provide fundraising to the specific problem and portray how the nonprofit works towards it.
Call-to-Action
Reinforce the total message with CTA and end it with a precise copy, which will entice the donors to donate a particular amount.
Final Thoughts
There is no better option than cold emails for raising funds for nonprofit organizations. In this regard, the strategy should always use a humane tone while approaching the email recipients.
Cold emails often have a meager response rate. That is why the ploy should always be to make it conversational and catchy.
The fundraising campaign’s success would depend on the amount raised. So, it would be better to adopt the fundraising email template that is tried and tested successfully. Also, check out Hyperise editor for customized emails, images, and videos.