One thing you need to know about your nonprofit newsletter

Good post over at the Nonprofit Communications Blog: Five Questions about Print Newsletters. It asks: What Should Be the Focus of a Nonprofit Newsletter?

The answer: Your target audience.

There are four other questions and answers, so go see them. But if I were to give just one piece of advice about a donor newsletter, this would be it.

The reason many nonprofit newsletters fail to accomplish much is their lack of (or confusion about) their target audience.

Many nonprofit newsletters are targeted at their own staff, praising their accomplishments or driving home internal organizational goals. That's a fine thing to do, but it doesn't mean much to donors.

Others target a few elite donors, praising their good deeds (often with a photo of the handing-over-the-giant-check ceremony). Nice gesture, but largely irrelevant to the vast majority of donors.

Some even confuse their clients with their donors, telling how to use their services. Unless donors and clients are the same people, this is at best irrelevant and at worst confusing.

Whoever your audience is, focus on them. Not someone else. And if your audience is donors, use your newsletter to thank, affirm, praise, inspire, and further involve them.

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