Seven years ago, I was on a call with a few friends and decided we were going to start a nonprofit. We had the vision and the drive. The rest, we figured out as we went.
And honestly? I wouldn't trade it. Starting that organization taught me more about resilience, relationship-building, and sheer grit than almost anything else in my life. I learned how to write bylaws. I learned how to proposition and build a board. I learned that "nonstop" could be another word for "growth".
But one thing stands out more than anything else when I think about what could have made our work easier, more organized, and honestly a lot less chaotic:
Email. We had no idea how to email.
The problem with nonprofit email campaigns nobody talks about
Here's what our email marketing strategy looked like in practice: everyone on our list got the same message. Longtime donors got the same ask as people who'd signed up for a newsletter three months ago and hadn't done anything since. Board members got event reminders meant for first-time volunteers. Nobody complained out loud, but looking back, it probably felt like getting a wrong number. Technically, it reached you, but it wasn't for you.
What we needed wasn't a fancier email. We needed a way to talk to different people differently, without it taking a hundred extra hours. What we needed, in other words, was a CRM that could handle audience segmentation without a dedicated marketing team to run it.
If you’ve been avoiding building a dedicated email strategy because it feels like a lot - I get it. But I want to show you the one place I'd start if I were building that nonprofit today.
Start here: Know who you're talking to
Before you write a single word of email content, know that NationBuilder lets you send to your email list based on tags, lists, or saved filters. It’s easier than you think. Place donors in one group. Volunteers in another. New subscribers who haven't taken action yet are in a third.
That alone would have changed everything for us. We could have had a donor engagement email that actually sounded like a donor email — warm, grateful, specific — instead of a generic call to action hoping something landed.
You don't have to build this all at once. Start with two groups: people who've given, and people who haven't yet. That's it. Write differently to each. You'll feel the difference immediately.
Make your email list recipients feel seen
NationBuilder has something called smart fields. They're exactly what they sound like — fields that pull real information from someone's profile directly into your email, both in subject lines and the body. First name, last donation amount, membership status, and the name of the person who referred them. You pick from a dropdown menu, click add, and it's done. No coding, no complicated setup.
What this means in practice: instead of "Dear Supporter," your email opens with their actual name. Instead of a generic donation ask, you can reference what they gave last time and invite them to build on it. Instead of a one-size message that sort of fits everyone, you're writing something that feels — even just a little — like it was written for them.
I worked with a small nonprofit organization out of Maryland that was run by just one volunteer by themselves, putting in hours wherever they could. Together, we worked out a basic email personalization strategy and saw the difference immediately. The difference between a fundraising email that gets deleted and one that gets a high open rate is what makes your supporter feel seen. Personalized subject lines consistently outperform generic ones, and if you want to test it yourself, A/B testing is one of the fastest ways to see what actually lands with your audience.
For nonprofits who don’t have time to personally write to every person on their list, this is as close to a fundraising superpower as you're going to get. Spend fifteen minutes personalizing your next email. I promise it’s worth it.
Automate and free yourself
Once you've got your lists set up and your smart fields in place, the last thing I'd tell past-me is this: schedule your emails in advance and then let them go. And use email templates to speed up the process.
NationBuilder lets you pick a date and time, set it, and walk away. Your year-end appeal goes out on Giving Tuesday, whether or not you're stuck in a meeting. Your monthly update hits on the first of the month without anyone on your team having to remember. You can even set up a welcome series for new subscribers so they hear from you right away — no manual sending required. For a scrappy nonprofit where everyone is already wearing six hats, this is not a small thing. This is hours back in your week. This is breathing room.
Automation also helps with retention. Lapsed donors and supporters who've gone quiet are much easier to re-engage when you have a system, not a to-do list, working in the background. Tracking metrics like open rates and click-through rates over time is how you know what's working.
The honest version
We built something real with my nonprofit. I'm proud of the work we did and the people we reached. But I think about how much energy we spent just trying to keep our communications from falling apart — and I know some of that could have gone somewhere better.
If you're in it right now — tired, overwhelmed, not sure where to start with email — start small. Build two lists. Add one smart field. Schedule one blast in advance. You don't have to figure it all out at once.
The tools to improve open rates, click-through rates, and fundraising wins are there. You just have to take the first step.
Want to dig deeper? Check out other NationBuilder content on smart fields, creating email blasts, and targeting your list. And if you get stuck, our support team is genuinely good — reach out.