One idea a week about the audience you already have.
A short letter about the people already on your list, and what it takes to turn them into first-time givers, monthly partners, and buyers of the work you sell to fund the mission.
Once a week, about three minutes to read.
Start with the next one.
We sell one thing and you already know what it is. If it's ever a fit, book a call. I won't spend the letter selling it to you.
Start to finish, so you can decide before you hand over your email address.
The second gift is the whole business
Most ministries I look at have a first-gift problem they think is an acquisition problem.
It usually goes like this. You run a campaign, it works, a few hundred people give for the first time. Next year you run it again and the number comes out about the same, so it looks like growth. Mostly it's you replacing the people who left.
Pull the number yourself. Of everyone who gave their first gift twelve months ago, how many gave again? For most of the organizations we look at, it sits somewhere between twenty and thirty percent. Which means seven out of ten people who believed in you enough to send money once never heard from you in a way that made them want to do it twice.
The reflex is to send more. More appeals, more updates, more year-end. That's not the fix, and your team doesn't have the hours for it anyway.
The fix is that a first-time giver shouldn't get the same email as a monthly partner of nine years. Right now they almost certainly do. The person who gave forty dollars last Tuesday gets the same appeal as the person who's given every month since 2017, and the same pitch for your book as the person who bought it in March. Both of them can tell.
You already know this. You'd never do it across a table.
So, one thing worth doing this week. Find out what your first-gift retention rate actually is, not the overall donor retention number your CRM puts on the dashboard. It's almost always worse than the headline, and it's the one that tells you whether next year is growth or replacement.
Then we can talk about what to send them.
Brad
One idea per email.
Not a roundup. One specific thing about retention, personalization, or the offers you sell, and enough of my reasoning that you can argue with me about it.
Things I've actually built.
What I see inside real ministry email programs and websites, including the parts that didn't work.
Something you can go do.
Most of them end with something you could try this week without a budget, a vendor, or a meeting.
A weekly pitch.
We sell one thing and you already know what it is. I'll mention it when it's relevant, and if it's ever a fit you can . I'm not going to spend the letter chasing you for it.
A roundup of links.
You have enough tabs open. If I point you somewhere else, it's because the idea needed it.
Re-engagement games.
No are-you-still-there emails and no re-sends with a fresh subject line. If you stop opening it, I'd rather you unsubscribe than get chased.
It's written for one person: whoever is responsible for the money coming in at a Christian nonprofit or media ministry doing $3M and up a year. That's the giving, and for a lot of you it's also the books, courses, events, and memberships you sell to fund the mission. Director of Development, VP, or the executive director wearing that hat. If you're the marketing lead who has to live with the system day to day, you'll get more out of it than anyone.
If you want fundraising theory, general marketing advice, or a weekly summary of what other agencies are posting, this isn't that.
Send me the next one.
One idea a week about the audience you already have. If it stops being worth three minutes, one click unsubscribes.