Speed Consulting: When Fear Gets in the Way of Fundraising
Scared of over-emailing? Offending your list? Here's a story from last week's Taproot Foundation nonprofit speed consulting event with some major takeaways.
Every time I consult nonprofits at this event I come away with at least one, "ooooh, that's interesting!" moment.
This session's moment went something like this:
We were talking about marketing.... which naturally turned into a conversation about fundraising.
This nonprofit had thousands of subscribers on their email list - but they didn't email to the list very often.
WHY?
They didn't want to offend. Over-email. Over-ask. Over-do it.
So, what did they do instead? Under-ask. Under-email. Under-do it.
Your email list should be comprised of people who wanted in! They opted in to hear from your organization.
So, let them in! Tell them what's working, what's not, and how they can help. Story tell. Captivate.
If you email them too much or they aren't interested in hearing from you... stay with me here... they'll unsubscribe. And, that's a good thing!
You want your community to WANT to hear from you -- otherwise, they should be on your list anyway.
There's no sense in vanity numbers... thousands of people sitting in your email database that you don't connect with or that aren't interested in hearing from you. I'll talk about scrubbing your database on the blog next. So, stay tuned. But, in the meantime, send that e-newsletter!