Donor inboxes are the gateway to giving.
Email marketing drives $36 for every $1 spent.
↳ Higher than any other comms channel.
Social media can’t come close.
Podcasts don’t come close.
PR doesn’t come close.
Paid ads? Not close.
Why this matters:
You might be letting sexier tactics take precious comms resources from what’s tried and true.
There’s a reason the greatest, biggest brands in the world still send regular, purposeful email newsletters. Because they’re focused on results, not vanity.
✔️ You own your email list.
❌ You rent your social following.
A best-selling author once said they wouldn’t trade their 2 million email subscribers for 100 million Instagram followers.
That’s powerful.
Because as long as you keep a copy of your email subscribers locally, those addresses are yours forever.
But no matter what you do or how many social followers you amass, they could vanish overnight.
Instagram can delete your account.
LinkedIn could go under.
TikTok can be banned.
Not to mention, nearly everyone receives your message when you email your subscribers. On social, less than 10% of your followers will see your post.
Get this. ⤵
Imagine you send a message to 2,000 email subscribers vs. 2,000 social media followers. This is the reach you can expect due to evil social media algorithms:
→ 435 people will open your email
→ 120 Facebook followers will see your post
→ 40 Twitter/X followers will see your tweet
Plus, most links shared on social media are never clicked. Because the algo prioritizes “zero-click content” to keep users from leaving the platform.
So if you’re promoting a new blog post, media article, or donation page, a limited social audience likely won’t click anyway.
But people 𝘥𝘰 click emails.
And there are 4.3 billion daily email users globally. That’s more than half of humanity, still growing rapidly, and roughly the same number as social users worldwide.
The takeaway:
Do both.
But nonprofits should spend 3–4x more effort on email marketing than social media.
Year after year, email remains that valuable.
Inbox impact beats social scrolls.
💪🏽💛
The Daily Bonus
Don’t know where to begin with email marketing?
Here’s a 5-step guide from Constant Contact.
The Double Daily Bonus
𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗗 𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗧:
The minimalist communications playbook:
✔️ 10-slide deck
✔️ Five-page website
✔️ Three-line elevator pitch
✔️ Monthly email newsletter
All four can be done for cheap or free. And combined, raise millions in fundraising for nonprofits.