Nonprofits love to talk about donor-centricity. But is spamming your donors really donor-centric?

Listen, I know the drill. Everyone bends the rules here and there when it comes to selecting lists for email marketing. But I have found that (sadly) most nonprofits don’t have a written opt-in strategy and rarely ask their supporters for permission to send them emails. Yet, I think it’s incumbent upon all of us to treat our supporters nicely. That means, we should try to send considerate, highly relevant, personalized email messages that truly inspire passionate support — not spam!

Take this quiz to determine whether or not your are treating your supporters in the way they deserve:

• Does your online donation form include a checkbox for opting in to your emails?
• Does every other place that captures email addresses include a checkbox for opting in to your email solicitations?
• Did all of the donors you targeted in your last email blast really opt-in to receive that email?
• Did your last email blast offer information about the results your organization garnered using their last donation?
• Did your last email blast offer some other form of engagement? Or did the email just ask for more money?
• Did you “append” your database with emails from a third party?
• After your append, did you first use those emails to ask the people for permission to reach out to them via email?
• Did you add the necessary unsubscribe link in your last email blast?
• And, finally, does the unsubscribe page make it easy to leave the list?

…If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you are spamming your supporters.

STOP!