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5 ways nonprofits can raise money with newsletters

Use subscriptions, premium content, peer-to-peer and more to bring in new and increased revenue with newsletters.

5 ways nonprofits can raise money with newsletters

Welcome 👋 Rebecca B (and just Rebecca), Hannah, Niani, Sefiya, Danielle, L, Jill, Angelique and Marcella. Good to have you here! Reply and say hello if you haven't yet. Today we're talking about newsletter revenue for nonprofits. There are a bunch of new Future Community Jobs, too, if you want to hop down there.

On the blog: What organizations hoping to survive (and thrive) in a time of chaos can learn from evolutionary biology.

Newsletters and fundraising

You can reach people and bring them into conversation with newsletters or really any communications product focused on a clear and concise audience.

Email newsletters have a couple strengths tied to their freedom from platform restrictions: you can vary length, use of text and visuals, get better engagement metrics, and can be far more sure your communication will land in front of someone.

But let's talk about money. Because nonprofits and other organizations face harsh realities and resource constraints. Any dollar spent on communications needs to be doing some fundraising work.

Here are five ways newsletters can help nonprofits raise money and find new revenue. You can decide if/how any of these have a fit in your work though I'm happy to talk with you about that.

[1] Subscriptions (aka monthly donors)

Newsletters should offer subscribers consistent, unique, and useful content. This is content worth paying for and people will pay for subscriptions. Substack is built on paid subscriptions (though you'll be getting ads soon enough).

Not everyone will pay for newsletter subscriptions (or your newsletter subscription). But you can expect 1 to 5 percent of subscribers to pay. A social good nonprofit can also offer benefits, impacts, and plain good vibes that add value to a paid subscription offer. This is something that many regular nonprofit monthly donor programs are missing.

[2] Premium content

We're not talking about paywalled content though that's always an option and could make sense in some cases (some membership and/or news organizations).

A good newsletter is meeting the needs of an audience that gets value from your content. They are engaged, interested, and trust that you deliver something they need or just enjoy.

This makes it possible to offer higher value content that could be delivered through higher cost subscriptions or simple one off purchasing or subscription access. Perhaps you have census, economic, ecological, or research data that could source a newsletter for specialist subscribers willing to purchase reports or pay more for your analysis. Heatmap, a newsletter about climate change policy and politics, offers Plus and Pro premium options that include analysis, data, and more.

[3] Improved or new donors for your regular fundraising

Newsletters, with their focused and/or personal voice, can be a way to reach new audiences or better engage existing audiences. These new and/or engaged folks are prospects for first donations and upgrades.

This is also a reason why nonprofits should consider running newsletters in/on their existing email or eCRM platform. You want to be able to see the relationship between newsletter subscribers, their engagement, and if/how they engage with other communications and fundraising products.

[4] Support for peer-to-peer fundraising

Newsletters deliver focused content to a focused audience. They also provide a more community-driven content platform than standard email calendars and content. You can write about people and events.

This makes newsletters a good platform for supporting peer-to-peer fundraising programs and communities.

[5] Supporting large prospects: foundations and major donors

We're talking thought leadership here. A newsletter can consistently demonstrate your organization's analysis, research, and handle on policy, organizing, community leadership and more. It is an easy way for people in foundations, media, politics and other spaces to get to know your people and your work.

It can be tough to directly correlate revenue with a thought leadership newsletter (though I'd love to see a "Click here to make a $250,000 donation" button). The rewards can be high, though.

Sidenote: thought leadership can be a good way to reach potential staff, board and volunteers.

[6] Bonus idea: Advertising

The idea of putting paid ads in your nonprofit newsletter is sure to give most of you the ick. But, you know what, it's your newsletter. And it's going to your audience of people who trust you. So you have complete control over who advertises in it. As well as a strong understanding of your audience. This means that newsletters can be valuable advertising platforms.

Tread wisely here, of course. But we're not talking about turning nonprofit newsletters into homes for clickbait banner ads. There are many ways to work advertising and partnerships into newsletter content. Check out the link in Bright Ideas below for more on newsletter ads.

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The links below fall into the category labeled "depressing reading about AI."

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