Who reads them? Newsletter data for the new and skeptical

👋 Hello Tara, Chase, Heather, Kate, and Mark. Welcome to Future Community.

You still have time to join us at Newsletter Nerd Club - Wednesday at noon Eastern. Sign up here.

Who reads newsletters, anyway?

One of the brilliant people registering for tomorrow's Newsletter Nerd Club dropped a question into the sign up form:

• Who reads them?

Totally valid question. Most people will tell you they get too much email and don't read it all. Most people will also tell you there are too many TV shows, too many bands, and too many books. They can't even keep up with the ones they want.

So WHO(!) really, is subscribing to and reading email newsletters? We went looking for data that answers the question and most of it is generic fluff about email. We already know everyone uses email. But here's some of what seems useful:

Beehiiv puts together an annual State of Newsletters Report. The latest edition (January 2026) shows that newsletter senders sent over 28 Billion emails on the Beehiiv platform in 2025. That's up from 15.6 B in 2024. Of course that's a business growth story, not just a "everyone loves newsletters" story.

More interesting (to me) is that they show open rates of 41+ percent and a click through rate of 3.23% on those 28 Billion emails. Good numbers across that much email. That said, year to year click through rates dropped. Here's their chart comparing basic metrics from 2024 and 2025:

Not all open rates are so shiny and nice. Mailmodo shared a Mailchimp stat that the average open rate for email newsletters across all industries is 21.33%. That's a big difference. Open rates can be useful but do come will all sorts of asterisks.

Mailchimp, unfortunately, doesn't break out newsletter volume in its benchmark reporting. It also doesn't report on newsletters as a category. Instead, data is sorted by client sector (non-profit, health care, politics, etc.). Overall, non-profit email metrics reported by Mailchimp can be seen here:

Meanwhile, M+R (in their 2025 Benchmark report) found that click through rates on newsletters grew 3% though OVERALL nonprofit newsletter click rates were at a paltry 1.2%. Eek.

Paltry, yes, but second only to advocacy email (2.5%) and welcome series (1.6%) click through rates.

Are newsletters a bright spot for nonprofit email? Meh. I'm seeing potential but not progress. A low bar means lots of room to grow.

In February, Pew Research Center shared results of research into how Americans use newsletters as a source of news. Most nonprofits aren't thinking of themselves as news sources (or are they?) but this has some good data to consider - like 30% of Americans get their news from an email newsletter at least "some of the time."

Pew was looking primarily at newsletters as a sources of news and journalism. There are a lot of large and growing email newsletters focusing on news sensemaking and reporting (e.g. Aaron Parnas, 1440, Nice News, and countless more big and small that are newsletter only or tied to a podcast, news organization, or social media first entity).

What do you think? A lot of people are reading email newsletters. It seems that engagement may be dropping (as with email in general). And that nonprofit newsletters are scarce or underperforming. In general, there simply isn't a lot of useful benchmark data for newsletters by sector, particularly for nonprofits.

We'll talk about some of this, particularly as it relates to newsletter and email list growth, at tomorrow's Newsletter Nerd Club.

We don't record these. They're a conversational space for questions, ideas, and sharing challenges. We do share notes back with participants–along with any slides, links, resources.

Bright Ideas

Good reads and more...

• Potential Energy released a new report/research on climate narratives. Clarity, specificity, and solutions seem important. One recommendation --> Make the consequences human: my health, my finances, and the people I love. [via Jeff Cappella]

• How Local News Reduces Loneliness by Steven Waldman in Washington Monthly. Basically, being plugged into IRL community of neighbors makes most of us feel less alone.
• Convergence Magazine is previewing Headwaters, an organizational membership/subscription program, and I'm very curious how it goes. [via Cayden Mak]
• Petromodernity and the New Normal by Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani in the LA Review of Books. Fossil fuels connect us all. And not for the better.
• The New Samizdat is Coda's introduction to its new Atlas Project which aims to create a kind of journalism that can survive attention-juicing algorithms, subvert power, and create shared information.
• Willy Vlautin's new book, The Left and the Lucky, isn't a beach read but it's my fiction recommendation for the summer. You can get a sense of it in Willy's conversation with Scott Simon on NPR back in April.

Events and Training

• Creators for Democracy is happening in Washington, DC, next week. July 1 and 2 at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. Free but register in advance.
• Public Agenda is hosting a talk with Sam Pressler and Riki Conrey PhD on July 9: What Young Men Are Telling Us: Insights from New Research. This will dig into findings from the Listening to Young Men report released in May.
• From viral content to narrative infrastructure: How movements can build power is happening from 1-2pm BST on Wednesday, July 8th.
• How can the environmental sector retain Gen Z talent? is hosted by Green 2.0 on July 16th.
• 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

I think we've hit full on summer hiring doldrums. Here are roles spotted the past few days. Many more on the full Future Community job list (don't forget the resources and links to other lists on that page).

Audience, content, journalism and news roles

• Engagement Editor : The Nation [Manhattan, New York] ⏱️ June 30

Communications

• Communications Officer : Social Media Exchange (SMEX) [Beirut, Lebanon]
• Media and Communications Manager : Transparency International [Berlin / Remote in Germany] ⏱️ July 13
• Communications Director : Oweesta Corporation [Remote]
• Digital Communications Director : Run for Something [Remote in the US]

Nonprofit organizations

• Executive Director : Transportation Alternatives [New York] ⏱️ July 6
• Support Operations Specialist : Ghost [Remote: UTC−5 - UTC+3]
• Research & Outreach Officer : Social Change Lab [Remote in the UK preferred] ⏱️ July 19
• Executive Director : Online to Offline Strategy Group [Remote in the US] ⏱️ July 12
• Senior Coordinator of Policy and Advocacy : Chef Ann Foundation [Remote in the US] ⏱️ July 9

Fundraising and Development

• Senior Development Officer : The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) [Remote in the US, Washington DC, or Geneva] ⏱️ July 6

Foundations and Philanthropy

• Program Director : The Thompson Family Foundation [New York City]
• Vice President, Programs : The Barr Foundation [Boston, Massachusetts] ⏱️ August 7

Agencies, data, politics, products & more

• Project Manager, Politics/Social Impact : Impactual [Remote in the US]

Hey. Ted here. I run Bright+3 where we give changemakers the ideas, inspiration, and tools to create content that builds stronger communities.

I also write this newsletter (aka Future Community) and run the Future Community Jobs list.