How to Write the Perfect Fundraising Email [12 Templates]

With social media platforms and search engines continually updating algorithms, it has become harder to ensure that your content appears at the top of the feed or search results page and reaches the right audiences. 

However, owned channels like email provide a direct link to your donors. This reliable touchpoint offers a chance to express your gratitude to donors, provide them with updates on your work, and encourage their continued support. 

Following fundraising email best practices can take your strategy to the next level, helping you stand out in supporters’ inboxes with:

• Attention-grabbing subject lines that increase open rates
• Captivating stories that emphasize a sense of urgency
• A clear call to action (CTA) that increases your click-through rate

To help you save time and resources while writing impactful emails, we’ve rounded up our top email campaign materials. Below, we’ll highlight templates, tools, and guides to elevate your fundraising appeals, donor retention, year-end campaigns, and peer-to-peer fundraising—including tips on empowering peer-to-peer fundraisers to create powerful emails that inspire their networks to take action.

Fundraising appeals

Email donation requests are crucial for helping meet your nonprofit’s fundraising goals. These resources provide tips on how to grab the attention of potential donors, test your fundraising efforts with a soft launch, and promote recurring giving.

1. Beginner’s Guide to Email Appeals

This resource is perfect for nonprofits new to raising funds through email or for helping new staff become familiar with this donor engagement channel. 

In the guide, we review tips for crafting a wide array of nonprofit fundraising appeals for your next email campaign. From peer-to-peer fundraising to recurring giving and year-end campaigns, get the best practices you need to whip up effective donation requests. 

You can expect to find:

• A deep dive into the most common types of email appeals
• Real nonprofit examples of each appeal type
• Design tips to stand out

2. Email Templates to Soft Launch Your Fundraising Campaign

A fundraising campaign soft launch releases your campaign to a limited audience before the general public. By motivating select members of your donor base to help establish early momentum toward your fundraising goals, you foster a strong call to action for email recipients to make a real difference from the start.

These email templates will help introduce your campaign in a way that emphasizes your early supporters’ unique value and inspires them to help kick-start your fundraising effort. Learn how to introduce and encourage your strongest community members to get involved and follow up with the donors who didn’t engage with your appeal the first time.

3. Email Subject Lines to Use for Fundraising

When increasing your open rate, getting the email subject line right is crucial. It’s what hooks someone long enough to decide to give your message a real chance.

Email subject lines done right smoothly engage supporters and help bring in the revenue you need to succeed. Use these sample email subject lines and tips to optimize your conversion metrics on desktop and mobile devices.

4. Email Templates for Stronger Recurring Donation Appeals

Well-crafted recurring donation appeals are critical to building, growing, and sustaining a robust recurring giving program. To help inspire your email recipients to get on board with a subscription gift, we’ve crafted five email templates sure to resonate with any audience.

These fundraising email examples demonstrate how to weave in a personal story and center your beneficiaries to foster personal connections that drive supporters toward your donate button. They also show how to make recurring giving feel like an exclusive opportunity and demonstrate the impact of monthly donations.

Donor retention

In addition to helping get supporters to your fundraising page, emails provide an opportunity for ongoing outreach to keep donors engaged with your work. This donor stewardship encourages supporters to give again in the future because they feel like part of your community. These resources focus on how to retain donors through email.

5. The Comprehensive Guide to Nonprofit Welcome Emails

The first fundraising email you send to a new community member sets the tone for your entire relationship.

Sending a sequence of emails that introduces your nonprofit organization in a personable way increases the chances that donors return with a follow-up donation or nonmonetary contribution. That’s true whether a donor supports your cause through online giving, attends one of your fundraising events, or contributes their time as a volunteer.

Use these introductory email templates to write a welcome email series that resonates with your supporters and strengthens their personal connection to your cause.

6. Email Templates to Engage Donors Year-Round

Communicating with donors in ways beyond hard asks and campaign promotions is essential. This resource includes nine email templates to help you develop a well-rounded communications plan that balances the right mix of touchpoints with the donors on your email list throughout the year.

Check out this resource to learn about:

• Balancing between asks and delights in your outreach
• Leveraging CRM and demographics data on supporters to inform your emails
• Including digital media in your email communications
• Finding creative moments year-round that allow you to organically connect with supporters
• Sending a soft ask that keeps donors active without feeling fatigued

7. Donor Retention Email Templates

To retain donors over time and further your relationships, you must diversify your communications. With storytelling and impact, these templates will help elevate your email content and remind you to offer words of gratitude and heartfelt appreciation.

Use our 13 templates for help crafting emails that share the right balance of information, opportunity, and personality, including guidance on:

• When to send specific messages
• Types of emails to send
• Example text for crafting emails
• Effective CTAs for different situations

Year-end campaigns

Year-end fundraising campaigns are vital to the success of many nonprofit organizations. While many supporters are in a giving mood toward the end of the year, it’s crucial to know how to stand out in their inboxes during this busy season. These year-end email resources can help take your Giving Tuesday campaign and other end-of-year messaging to the next level.

8. Giving Tuesday Email Templates

Prepare for the days leading up to Giving Tuesday (and the day of) with templates specific to this monumental fundraising event. These 10 email samples will help you rally support no matter what type of fundraising campaign you run for the big day.

This resource covers key learnings, such as:

• Creating emails with a strategic and consistent style
• Selecting emails to send donors leading up to Giving Tuesday
• Choosing the right cadence of communication for Giving Tuesday

9. Giving Tuesday Email Subject Lines to Drive Donations

Get to know the research behind email marketing to make your Giving Tuesday email subject lines stand apart. This research breaks down five best practices for crafting email subject lines before diving into six concrete examples to put to work right away. 

Get inspired by these creative ideas and experiment with tactics to catch your donors’ attention. These templates include placeholders for your organization name and other information to help personalize your messages.

10. Year-end Email Templates to Raise More for Your Nonprofit

If you’re looking to run an exceptionally successful year-end fundraising campaign, email marketing is a wonderful tool for engaging new and existing audiences. This resource can help ensure your communications stand out to your audience to produce the results you want.

You’ll find six key email templates in this guide, including:

• Giving Tuesday fundraising appeals
• Giving Tuesday thank-you messages
• Beginning of December fundraising appeals
• Year-end giving (and matching gifts) fundraising emails
• Fundraising appeals for the last few days of the year
• Matching gift appeals for previous donations

Peer-to-peer fundraising

For peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, the need for great emails is twofold. First, you need a well-developed email engagement plan to nurture and support your fundraisers’ success. Second, those fundraisers need an effective email engagement plan to rally their personal networks to give. 

The two resources below can help secure a plan for your organizational administrators and peer-to-peer fundraisers. 

11. A Guide to Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Emails

When you give your fundraisers the tips and tools they need, they’re more likely to raise significant donations. This guide provides the information you need to keep fundraisers informed, motivated, and moving toward their goals.

These fundraising email examples feature supplemented design callouts and helpful formatting tips to ensure you cover all the bases. Download this free read to prepare for your next peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.

12. Create your own peer-to-peer fundraising templates

Once you’ve developed a communications plan to educate your peer-to-peer fundraisers, you’ll want to create fundraising letter samples to supplement the experience.

When your fundraisers have less writing to do, you eliminate a barrier to fundraising and allow them to send quick appeals on your behalf via email, social media, or text. Not to mention, there are certain aspects of a great fundraising appeal—like mission details and calls to action—that your nonprofit is in a better position to write. Take care of those details for them, so supporters don’t have to do unnecessary research.

Here are a few points to include in your letter samples to help guide your peer-to-peer fundraisers toward their goals:

• Establish the arc: At a fundamental level, you want to ensure you introduce the problem that needs solving, demonstrate a solution to that problem, and end with a strong call to action that invites potential supporters to join the solution.
• Make it emotionally relevant: If you can get readers to imagine themselves personally affected, they’ll feel more empathy with those your organization serves. Highlight a real-life example of someone affected by the cause to inspire action.
• Offer a tangible impact and clear CTA: It’s crucial to support your call to action with how each donation will make a tangible impact. Correlate your campaign’s fundraising goal with a specific outcome. For example, the text for your peer-to-peer fundraisers might read: “$250 will fund a full year’s education for five children. Join me in making this happen by visiting my donation page!”
• Encourage personal connections: Show supporters how to personalize their fundraising letters. A personal note accomplishes two things: It further legitimizes the message in the reader’s eyes and helps the reader empathize with the fundraising effort’s beneficiaries.

Use fundraising email templates and resources to send messages that convert

Email is crucial for establishing a connection and fundraising. As you elevate your email strategy, remember the importance of maintaining consistent branding across your materials. Your email communications should match the same styling, voice, and tone as all other touchpoints, from your website to your donation page.

With Classy Studio, you can customize your story and brand with an easy and flexible campaign builder. Studio empowers hyperpersonalized, connected experiences across various interactions to activate your community at scale, including email campaigns, crowdfunding, embedded experiences, peer-to-peer fundraising, events, ticketing, and more.

Copy editor: Ayanna Julien