How Nonprofits Can Write Emails Donors Actually Open

A woman wearing headphones focuses on her laptop, engaged in nonprofit email marketing tasks to connect with donors.

Nonprofit email marketing is one of the most valuable tools you have for donor cultivation. Development teams know the work of building relationships occurs long before you ask for the next gift.

But your supporters likely receive dozens of nonprofit newsletters and fundraising appeals every month, and most blur together the moment they land. So how do you make yours stand out?

The knee-jerk reaction is to send more emails. But chances are, that’s only going to lead to a bump in unsubscribes, or worse, spam reports.

So what’s the solution?

Here are a few practical strategies nonprofits can use to reinforce their mission while improving email open and click rates.

Impact vs outcome

Do your thank-you emails talk about the impact of a gift but not what happens as a result?

A donor gives $100, and your thank-you makes the impact clear, but what about the long-term outcome of that gift? Are you bridging the gap between the donation and the emotion behind it?

Show donors what really changes when they give. For example, instead of saying, “Your $25 donation feeds two pets for a week,” you could say:

“Your gift of $100 provided ten pets in need with food for a full week. One of them was Biscuits, a senior cat whose owner, Miguel, had quietly started skipping his own meals to keep her fed. He’d been too proud to ask for help, but he left our pet pantry with a month of food — and the relief of knowing he wouldn’t have to give her up. All thanks to you.”

Same thank you. Completely different email experience. Pair it with a warm, candid photo that captures the moment, and supporters won’t just read about the outcome of their gift — they’ll see it.

People give because your organization meets a need, not just because your nonprofit needs help. When you show the long-term outcome, it will stick with your audience longer.

The case for plain-text

Automating your thank-you emails is a timesaver for sure, but don’t lose the human touch. People want to engage with real people. Find ways to insert organic touchpoints into your email marketing, such as sending plain-text emails. Plain-text emails often get better deliverability and engagement, especially click-through rates, because they read like real, one-to-one messages instead of a marketing blast.

According to research and testing from HubSpot, a leader in email marketing and CRM platforms, which analyzed over half a billion marketing emails, found that the more HTML-rich an email was, the lower its open rate – with plain-text emails performing best of all.

Try rewriting your donor thank-yous without banners or headers so they read like a personal note. A subject line like “A quick thank you” will feel authentic and genuine to existing supporters.

A good rule of thumb is: if an email looks like a marketing blast, it’ll get treated like one.

Smarter Nonprofit Email Segmentation

As nonprofits grow, so do their programs, services, and audiences. While that is a good problem to have, growth can make it more challenging to send the right message to the right people.

Every supporter believes in your mission, but they don’t all engage with it in the same way. That’s where segmentation becomes one of your most valuable tools for donor cultivation.

Think about a supporter who signed up because they love volunteering but never opens donation appeals. Sending them fewer, more relevant emails increases engagement and helps prevent inbox fatigue.

Good segmentation sends supporters a clear message: We heard you. We noticed. We adjusted. According to Mailchimp, segmented campaigns achieve higher open and click rates across the board than the same senders’ non-segmented campaigns.

A “supporter” isn’t just one identity. It’s a mix of motivations, values, and emotional reasons. Organizations that understand this are the ones people stay connected to.

The Takeaway

Here’s the bottom line. Effective nonprofit email marketing is bigger than fancy design and clever subject lines. In a time when inboxes are more crowded than ever, supporters aren’t looking for more; they’re looking for less. Less spam and more impact. Show them the real outcome of their gift, not just the transaction.

To do that, you have to write like a person, not a platform, and weave in what they care about, not just everything your CRM can send. If you do this, your emails become something people want to open, read, and remember.