Marketing in not-for-profit organizations has distinct hurdles as well as opportunities.

Instead of simply pushing a product or brand, you're working to advance a mission.

Objectives for not-for-profits include raising awareness of the organization and the cause, creating advocacy and community, attracting new donors, and demonstrating the impact of regular over ad-hoc donations.

Important metrics to track include email subscribers, website visits, new donors, donor retention, social media following, and engagement.

However, budgets are typically tight, resources are stretched, and every dollar must be justified.

You're also competing for attention on the same crowded platforms as big brands while trying to convey a message that's usually more complex and layered.

An important channel for all marketers, but especially not-for-profit marketers, is automated email using platforms (like Ortto) that allow users to easily build automated email campaigns and track their performance all in one place.

The following three email campaigns enable you to maximize your resources, keep your audience engaged, and inspire regular donations.

1. Nurture to Donate

The first email campaign you should create for your not-for-profit is a nurture-to-donate email journey.

If someone signs up for your emails, it's likely because your message resonates, but the work isn't done yet. The journey from initial discovery to donating to your cause is a process, and someone will likely need more information on your mission before they commit to contributing their time or money.

A nurture email campaign will help guide email subscribers to donate by telling them what your organization does, why it matters, and why supporters should care. It should provide instructions on how to get involved and a clear call to action to donate.

But you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Ortto's "Welcome and donation series" journey template is designed to be used by not-for-profit organizations to welcome new subscribers and encourage donations.

In this journey template, people enter the journey when they subscribe to your newsletter; they then receive a welcome email with information about the organization and its mission, along with a call to action on ways to get involved in the cause, including donating.

One day later, they receive an email reminding them to donate. If they donated, they will receive an email three days later thanking them for their donation.

You can easily customize the journey to suit your organization, brand, tone of voice, and communication strategy.

(Ortto users can plug-and-play the "Welcome and donation series" template here.)

2. 'Thank You'

The next email campaign you should build is a 'Thank You' campaign to ensure every donation is celebrated. Expressing your gratitude and highlighting the impact for donations—big and small—will help to keep your donors engaged and likely to donate again in the future.

Ortto's "Thank you for donation" template is a must-have email journey for not-for-profits. In this template, people enter the journey when they donate; at the same time, the internal team is notified via Slack of their donation. The donors then receive an email thanking them for their donation. One day later, they receive a second, more personalized thank you email from the CEO/owner of the organization. Seven days later, the donor receives an email detailing the positive impact their donation is having on furthering the cause.

The journey can be tailored as needed and is capable of using donation data, such as an 'amount' attribute to display the donation amount in the email and Slack notification. That type of personalization is a powerful way of talking to all of your donors, big or small, with a relevant message tailored to the impact they have made.

(Ortto users can check out the 'Thank you for donation' template here.)

3. Donor-Retention Email

You should also create automated emails that have the sole purpose of retaining your existing donors.

Your regular donors are the backbone of your cause, so it's important to stay regularly up-to-date with them so you maintain donor retention. Ortto users can easily create a dedicated segment of regular donors.

Once you have defined that audience segment, you can build personalized, automated journeys triggered by data.

For example, you can create summaries or impact reports showing the difference their contributions make, or quarterly reports on your organization's initiatives. You could also share news and articles related to your organization's cause and industry.

Ortto's "Knowledge base page visit follow-up" email journey serves as great inspiration for building a retention email campaign that uses a chat widget to engage webpage users and encourage them to explore more. (Check out this journey here.)

Final Word

Not-for-profit marketers must create rapport with subscribers, prospective donors, and regular donors to ensure a steady and sustainable flow of donations.

As resource-conscious marketers, it's essential to use platforms that enable you to harness and organize your data to optimize your marketing efforts and ensure messaging is personalized, impactful, and measurable.

Although email marketing is a powerful tool for not-for-profit marketers, there are other channels to explore, including SMS marketing, push notifications, performance marketing (paid search/social), public relations, and social media.

Ortto users can explore journey templates today. If you're not an Ortto user and you want to experiment with journeys, you can try Ortto for free or book a demo today.