First, I want to shout out some new subscribers. Say hello to Marlow, Clarissa, Ryan, Ajara, Miguel, Betsy, and Jennifer. If you haven't yet (a couple of you have!) please reach out and let me know how Future Community can be helpful.
🛠️ There are a few spots in next week's Newsletter Nerd Club workshop: Let's Build You a Newsletter.
This is a 90 minute workshop built to take take you from newsletter idea to newsletter product. We'll cover goals, audience, content creation, cadence, tools, and more.
We will get work done! Space is limited. Save your spot.
This is a paid workshop. You can use the code FC-BUILD10 to get $10 off the fee.
What to learn from my membership campaign
I ran a paid membership drive for Future Community in September. My goal was 30 new paid members. Seven people joined. I'm looking at this as a huge success. Why? That's barely 40% of the goal. Well, find out why here. There are some lessons here for other newsletter operators and organizations using/talking about membership.
Swing membership around like a machete and you may cut off your support
I tend to assume that any fundraising email that makes its way to my inbox from a big organization has been well vetted and tested. I may not like it but if they're doing it then it must work. Right?
No. No. No. And raising money isn't the same as doing something that works.
Tuesday afternoon I received a fundraising email from a group who has my address but to whom I've never given money (or been a "member"). They're leaning super duper hard on the "time to renew your membership" message. So hard they might fall over the edge. Some details:
- Sender: September Membership Drive @ Cool Org Here
- Subject: Attacks on science are attacks on democracy (member status: pending)
Here's a screenshot of the top of the email. I've anonymized it a bit.
The main call to action in the text asks the reader to "renew your support" and the body is full of more bolded PENDING notices and membership card graphics.
This isn't new or exotic. It's well trod territory and I've tested some similar, if far less heavy handed, uses of "status pending" with other organizations.
The problem is this: the donation pitch is based in a lie. The lie doesn't even reflect the value, interest, or history of the subscriber.
There's also the lie or at least the nonsensical membership goal. Why 1,000? And, given that this is the first email received about this, are you really at 952? (Correction, the first email in this series came on September 25, four days before this one. It named a 1,000 donor goal but had no progress bar.)
A progress bar can create community (hey, I'm part of something!) and urgency (we're so close...we need you!). But progress is a journey, not a one-time announcement. Invite someone into the campaign, show the progress over time, keep people updated so they can be invested in why the goal and progress matter.
What I might change here
Aside from a meaningful goal (and a legitimate progress bar) I'd try to ground this campaign in meaning and trust.
- Start it on September 1st and give me a goal that has a connection to impact and why I value your work.
- Don't tell me I've donated before if I haven't. Don't tell a non-donor to renew.
- If I've donated in the past (maybe like a year ago?) then remind me of that, how important that donation is to the work, and what happens when I give again.
- If I haven't given then tell me that. Tell me about the one or two times I took action or participated in an event. Give me a familiar hook to you, the organization, and the meaning of your work to my life.
- Certainly lay out the big picture vision and the short-term needs and threats. This email eventually gets to some of that. But one has to wade through a lot of false overhead first.
I don't know how we got here but too much fundraising seems to be a zero sum game where the choices are do anything to get a donation and building long-term relationships centered in trust. Well, I do know how we got here but that's for another day.
One can do this right AND do it well.
Bright Ideas ☀️
Smart people. Big questions. Maybe even a few solutions.
1/ David Corboy runs the Alpine Eatery plant based food truck in Denver. His Alpine Eatery account on Instagram has 163,000 followers–and he talks mostly (and very pointedly) about politics. And on Wednesday over 2,000 people showed up in a Denver parking lot for an election rally he organized to help defeat a slate of ballot initiatives backed by far-right (and deep pocketed) Advance Colorado.
This is debatable (and this certainly isn't a contest) but one could say that Corboy has more influence and importance in Colorado GOTV and election messaging than most any of the state's candidates, nonprofit/c4 groups, or news organizations.
2/ A couple weeks ago I was fascinated by Emily Atkin's story about climate impacts show up (or more often don't show up) in Miami area home shopping. The open houses at the edge of disaster was just one piece in a package created by a "newsroom" of independent climate journalists. The irony is that there was no newsroom for this work. Jill Manuel has a sharp case study of the project and what the team learned, especially about the overhead of coordination and marketing that's lost when you don't have a bigger team and institutional support. There's a lot here for nonprofit organizations thinking about how they can partner with and support news creators.
3/ BlueLena works primarily with nonprofit news organizations. Their LYBUNTs: the untapped revenue opportunity in your donor database sounds dull but it's a super clear and straightforward case study on donor/member retention using automations. More people should read it.
4/ A Frame for Building Power: Talking About Extraction by Eliot Cohen at FrameWorks.
5/ The most dangerous thing in culture right now is beauty by Ted Gioia via Sunni Brown.
6/ This article about musician Michael Kiwanuka's stroke in July, 2025, at the age of 38 is sticking with me this week. It has nothing to do with content strategy, community, or fundraising. Life, plans, your art, your ideas can all change in a moment. Then there are other moments that follow. Kiwanuka talks optimistically about making music in new ways. The path continues but nothing is linear.
Events and Training
- The Pulitzer Center is accepting applications for the Climate Storytelling Accelerator. The deadline is October 9th.
Want to get your event or training out to the Future Community network? We're happy to share. Click reply and make sure we know about it.
Future Community Jobs
Dropping a few cool new roles below. Check them out. Remember, the Future Community job list, it's always on and updated.
- Managing Editor : WyoFile [Lander, Casper, or Laramie, Wyoming]
- Statewatch Editor : The Salt Lake Tribune [Salt Lake City]
- Director of Communications : Legal Services Corporation [Washington, DC]
- Chief Program Officer : Future Caucus [Washington, DC] ⏱️ October 26
- Digital Engagement Strategist : California Health Care Foundation [Oakland]
Hi. I'm Ted Fickes. I run Bright+3 where we help teams in progressive spaces create content and stories that build community so that organizations turn supporters into leaders. I also write Future Community (this newsletter) and run Future Community Jobs.