How to Build an Email List for a Non Profit
For nonprofit organizations using email services to keep volunteers informed, recruit new members and send newsletters, they must collect quality email contacts. Even when volunteers eagerly provide email addresses, the mail ends up in spam folders if recipients fail to set email filters allowing your group's messages. Asking volunteers to immediately confirm requesting email correspondence from your organization eliminates this problem. Collecting a solid email list for your nonprofit group encourages agency development and volunteer expansion.
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Instructions
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Select a list software file program to develop your email list. An effective program allows the nonprofit administrator the ability to sort email lists in various ways. List divisions include regular volunteers, newsletter recipients, and grouping addresses by the source of the email address. Grouping email addresses collected at particular venues to show related interests and affiliations. This information assists in event planning, and also in requests for donations. If your organization operates with only manual organization, use a word processing program for volunteers to input email addresses into groupings.
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Input the emails for your staff, current volunteers and donors. The first group of email addresses for the nonprofit's listing comes from your organization's foundation staff and supporters. Establish a core email file for uber supporters and keep this as your go-to email file when the organization needs quick action or response on time-sensitive issues. An insider newsletter sent to these emails also offers a chance to solicit new email referrals from your frontline volunteers.
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Host outreach tables at local and community events. Provide general information about your organization, its goals and community efforts. Develop a sign-up list for volunteers and people requesting additional information. Request an email from signers on this list. Add these email addresses to your software or word processed lists after the events.
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Add a link to your nonprofit organization's website by which visitors can submit email addresses. Also provide an option for Web users to change outdated addresses. Send a follow-up email once the address enters your system, to guarantee that the address is valid. Request the user verify that the email address was submitted and that the person is indeed interested in your organization. This provides a high-quality email contact, rather than someone with a passing interest.
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Develop a short monthly newsletter for your organization and collect email addresses from online readers and interested volunteers. The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits recommends sending a biweekly newsletter. Solicit readers for your newsletter at public outreach events. Promote the letter by posting free newsletter announcements online in chat rooms, on blogs and Meta volunteer websites, sites listing links to other individual Web locations.
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Tips & Warnings
Avoid purchasing blind listings for email addresses. Collecting email information at community events and in response to newsletter requests ensures your email correspondence arrives in mailboxes of people interested in your organization. Buying lists of email addresses provides mystery people and a number of abandoned addresses from various vendors.
References
- Minnesota Council of Nonprofits: Email Newsletters
- Go Daddy Help Center: Tips for Collecting Email Addresses
- University of Cambridge: Falcon Content Management Service; Collecting Email Addresses of Members of Directory
- "SPNHA Review"; Nonprofit Organizations and the Emerging Potential of Social Media and Internet Resources; David Miller; Jan. 1, 2010
- Urban Farm Hub; Easy Volunteer Coordination; Diana Vergis Vinh; Feb. 16, 2011
- EarthCorps-Friends of the Hylebos; Privacy Policy
Resources
- Photo Credit Photodisc/Photodisc/Getty Images
