Ep. 164: From 17 to 114 Donors: Missouri’s National Veterans Memorial’s Record-Breaking Email Campaign
EPISODE 164
From 17 to 114 Donors: Missouri’s National Veterans Memorial’s Record-Breaking Email Campaign
About the Episode:
I had the pleasure of hosting Michael Murphy, Director of Development at Missouri’s National Veterans Memorial, and one of my Purpose & Profit Club® members. Michael’s story is proof that you don’t need decades of fundraising experience to see major wins with email. In fact, in his very first nonprofit role, he took one of my frameworks, Easy Emails For Impact™, and turned a $1,900 campaign into a $9,000 campaign. We talk about what it means to ditch the “dry C-suite style” newsletters, why personal, story-driven emails outperform every time, and how confidence grows when you let go of perfection and just hit send. Michael also shares how he’s building monthly giving campaigns, blending direct mail with digital, and learning to embrace new tools without losing sight of his mission: honoring veterans across generations.
Topics:
How shifting from “C-suite style” newsletters to story-driven emails multiplied results
Why Michael’s first attempts at email felt sterile and overwhelming — and what changed
How one campaign using story-driven emails jumped from $1,900 to $9,000
The power of multiple donation levels and donor-friendly options
Why replies to your emails matter as much as donations
Using volunteers’ voices to write high-performing emails
How email + direct mail is “peanut butter and jelly” for fundraising
Building a sustainable monthly giving program that feels manageable
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.” Jodi Picoult
“Write better, but also don't overdo it.” Michael
“If you want to change up your email strategy, do it.” Michael
“Donors surprise you when you give them multiple, easy ways to give.” Michael
“Email is not 'extra work' — it’s a direct path to revenue.” Michael
“The best-performing emails often come from authentic voices (like volunteers).” Christina
“Confidence grows when you release perfectionism and just hit send.” Christina
“Everything I do it’s for the veterans.”
ABOUT Michael:
This is my first role in the nonprofit sector. I began my work at Missouri’s National Veterans Memorial behind the scenes, updating and maintaining our website. Over time, I transitioned into development, taking on responsibilities in donor outreach, retention, and direct mail. I also create marketing materials for events.
Connect with Michael:
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Easy Emails For Impact™ - Turn Your Inbox into an Income Stream
Donations on Demand: Build a $5K Email Campaign System in 30 min/week
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 0:01
Welcome to the purpose and profit club podcast. We have a special guest today. We have one of my clients. We have a Michael Murphy from Missouri's National Veterans Memorial. We're talking about email today. So I cannot wait for this conversation. Let's start Michael by just introducing yourself. Tell us about the work you do for your organization?
Michael Murphy 0:21
Yes, so I work on the development side here at Missouri's National Veterans Memorial. And for those who have never heard of us before, we have the only exact replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. But we don't want to just focus on the Vietnam era veterans. We really want to expand our campus to include veterans of every generation. So moving forward, we will focus on the global war on terror, and we are going to include all those generations as well,
Christina Edwards 0:53
amazing. And this is your first this is your first foray into the nonprofit world.
Michael Murphy 0:59
Yeah, yes, it's all about networking, right? So I actually got this role because a friend of a friend at the gym knew the executive director here, and that's how I got started. I got started doing work on our website, and then I slowly picked up things, like I saw the newsletter and I thought, hey, I can do that. And then it just kind of went from there, like I just picked up bits and pieces along the way.
Christina Edwards 1:27
I love it. So to give everyone some context, Michael took Easy Emails For Impact™ my self paced course, and then went on to book a call with me and his executive director, and ultimately joined the purpose of profit club. And on that call, you said something that I was like, what say it again, which you went through, and you basically told me that you ran a campaign using Easy emails. And went from, was it like 1000 1600 to raising $9,000 Am I right on my numbers?
Michael Murphy 1:59
Yes, we went from 1900 to 9000
Christina Edwards 2:02
amazing. And I was like trying not to derail the call about joining the club, just so we could talk email for a second. So instead, we're going to talk about that today. So I have noticed, just from you coming to coaching calls in the club as well, like you are very curious. You are such a strong learner. You're an incredible action taker and implementer. So I don't I'm not surprised that you had success with email, but let's maybe kind of start with like, why were you interested in email fundraising and what were you able to accomplish? Kind of give us. Give us. Where you started?
Michael Murphy 2:42
Okay, oh, that's a big one, yeah. So, like I said, this is my first role in a nonprofit. So when I took over, we had constant contact. Before I was so lost and I was thinking, like, what am I doing? Am I fundraising with this? Am I keeping in touch with donors? Why am I sending out these emails? And I was really confused. And at some point I had this idea of, like, Oh, hey, we do, like, a direct mail newsletter twice a year. Why don't I do an email monthly newsletter? Yes, yes. And so that's kind of how the emails got started, and then I was doing that once a month, and I was wondering, like, how could I make it better? How can I make it more engaging? And I know I saw you at give con, yep, so maybe that's how I got on your email list, and I stumbled across your easy emails course, but I feel like I'm really just talking you up. But after I did the easy emails course, email was fun, like you talk a lot about mindset and before, when I was writing the emails, it was very like they came from a C suite, like this month we are doing, you know, whatever it was. But then I just changed it to more like a first person talking to a friend, yep. And it just it was more fun. It was like the writing was more fun, yeah, because maybe before I was worried about formatting the email and what it should look like, and I was formatting first, and then I was writing, but I took your course, and then I would just open up a Word doc and start writing, yep, whether I want to or not, one of my favorite authors has this saying that she goes by, you can edit bad writing. You can't edit a blank page
Christina Edwards 4:47
so good. You have to tell us the author. Jodi Picoult, okay, amazing, yeah,
Michael Murphy 4:55
but no, so that's what I do. And then sometimes when I don't feel like writing like one. Think it started like it just kind of flows out, and it might go a completely different direction than I thought it was going to.
Christina Edwards 5:11
it's the ritual of writing that gets you through the place. So where I was many, many years ago, was like, I'm not good at it. I'm not a natural born writer. I'm not. This is not for me, when you just start writing, even from that place of like, just getting over the hump of all the self doubt and all the self talk. And for you, it sounds like too removing the formalism. I call it like AP style, like press release style, where it's like, very corporate, very generic. When you give yourself permission to not write that way, and then also to do it imperfectly, you guys, it makes it so much easier to write, right? And then I've since read your either your emails, they're terrific, like I've looked at your content, it's great. And so like, yeah, say more. Say more.
Michael Murphy 5:59
It's almost like I have my college writing instructor in the back of my head saying, like, yes, vary your sentence structure, do all of this. But then it's also like nonprofits were supposed to write at a seventh grade reading level. So I have these two competing like voices in my head of like, write better, but also, like, don't overdo it. I don't know if that makes sense, because, you know, I've got a friend who works in journalism, and I'm like, Why did you go to school for journalism if we're supposed to write at a seventh grade level, right?
Christina Edwards 6:35
Like all of it. But I think that's like, everything is always changing and always evolving, and the headlines she would have written 10-20, years ago wouldn't get clicked. Now they have to be like, punchier. They have to be like, just the whole format of what we want to read and consume has changed too. And so I think like iterating and giving yourself again permission to do it differently is so essential. And it sounds like your audience, your subscribers, rose to the challenge there of like they did. Like, tell us about that. Tell us the reaction so, and maybe a bit about the campaign you ran,
Michael Murphy 7:12
the reaction first. So I'm sending weekly emails now, and like, I just sent one yesterday about it's called mid Missouri Express, and it's this group of veteran service organizations that like pool together resources, and they pay for a charter bus to come here from the middle of Missouri so the Vietnam era veterans can visit the wall and have that experience. And when I sent the email out about it, like, hey, if you've never heard of this, like, this is what it is. I included some photos. I had people reply to the email. That's it, yes, and yes, I did not have people replying to the email before. So that that alone is like, that is
Christina Edwards 7:59
like your lead gen pool. Y'all, those are your most warmest donors, more warmest evangelists, potentially volunteers like they're just so warm when they hit reply, they're going out of their way because they feel seen, they feel connected to your organization. That's such a great success metric. That's awesome.
Michael Murphy 8:17
Maybe this is obvious and I'm just new, but plug for Bloomerang. Yeah, I didn't know that. When we get someone who replies to the email, I can forward it to BCC at Bloomerang, and it puts it in the CRM as an interaction.
Christina Edwards 8:33
Wait, we needed to, let's just click into that a little bit more, because I'm not in too much of the back end of Bloomerang. But I love that. I love that. So say it to me again so I really understand.
Michael Murphy 8:46
So any, any time we email somebody, like, if I'm just going to email one person and say, like, Hey, I'm looking forward to your visit, sure I can BCC a certain email address for Bloomerang, and then it puts it into the CRM under file. So, yeah,
Christina Edwards 9:05
no additional step, yes.
Michael Murphy 9:08
So smart. My executive director was really excited about that. I'm like, everything I do, like, this is what you're causing the day for. But yeah, yeah,
Christina Edwards 9:19
no, that's amazing, because that helps you, again, identify those warm prospects you're also seeing like, Oh, what is the type of content or the stories or the programs or the events that they like? So when you're following up with them, it's so good, so good.
Michael Murphy 9:34
It is my campaign, yeah, so I was taking your course, and like, in the back of my head, I'm like, okay, what can I do? Like, how can I use this? What's a use case? Yeah, and, you know, I mentioned we have the Vietnam wall here, well above the wall, kind of behind it. We have 70 American flags flying, and we have a flag sponsorship program where someone can, don't. Donate $125 and then we'll send them a flag, a retired flag. Okay, so I'm like, that can be my campaign. So previously it was just $100 you can get a flag. That was the entire campaign, but I was thinking about it. I'm like, you know, I can do impact statements and do different donor levels. Maybe not everyone has $100
Michael Murphy 10:27
So, yep, I did 25, 50 and then 125 and then at the 25 donor level, I said $25
Michael Murphy 10:37
sponsors one flag, because that's the cost of it. Got it $50 sponsors two flags, and then for 125 you're sponsoring five flags, and then we will send you a folded, honorably retired flag in return. Yep, and I did a lot that changed. So it's hard to say, like, oh, doing this was really what, what did it? But I expanded the donation levels. I sent multiple emails. I also sent it to social media.
Christina Edwards 11:12
Uh huh, great. We love to syndicate it out.
Michael Murphy 11:15
Yes, what I learned? Because I learned something new with every campaign. Yeah, I wanted this to be email only and like electronic because I'm a millennial, and I think everybody has Apple Pay. I've mentioned before our demographic, they like checks, sure, so we have people coming in the next day saying, Hey, I saw your Facebook post. Do you have a form? What we do. I'll get that right out to you, and then, you know, it's me, like closing the door to my office and like editing an old form to reuse it. But yeah, so the campaign that I'm sending out next month, I am doing three ways to donate. You know, click here for the form to print and mail, click here to donate now or give us a phone call. Yep, but yeah, no, it was. It was really exciting, so I pulled up the stats, sure. So before I took your course, I had 17 people donate, okay? And then after, I had 114
Christina Edwards 12:23
Wow, yeah, that is amazing. I'm curious, how long did you run the campaign for?
Michael Murphy 12:32
A month, okay, a month, one month, and then, you know, I was kind of overwhelmed at the idea of sending five or six emails, because, sure, you're basically saying, like, hey, donate to us, but in five or six different ways, right? Yep, yep. So I was thinking about it, and we have volunteers who are here every day, and a lot of them are veterans, yeah. So I did some ghost writing with permission, and one of the emails is from our 82 year old Vietnam veteran who's in the museum every Monday. That was the best performing email.
Christina Edwards 13:15
I just want to just give you all the kudos for creating that body of work that is that campaign going okay? I'm not going to send five emails that say the same thing with like a slightly different subject line. How can I go about telling this story through different voices, so smart, so smart. And also, what an honor for him too. I'm sure he was delighted to share his story.
Michael Murphy 13:40
He was, he was, yes, I did. I did that one from his point of view. And then I think the next one, I was ghost writing for our ED and it was like, you know, hey, we got all this feedback from Bob's email, and people wanted to hear, what do our other volunteers say about the flags, yep. So then I had a picture of three other volunteers standing at the wall the flags are waving behind them, and then a quote of like, what the US flag means to each volunteer. So, yeah, it was, um, it was fun.
Christina Edwards 14:20
Amazing, amazing. So how did you you sort of you already addressed some of the fear of like, oh, how many? How am I going to send more emails than maybe we normally do overall? It sounds like it was all upside. It was well received. Did you find that the data supported that in your open rates, and click through rates and things like that. Where is this Put another way? Is this something you're going to do? Again, meaning, for a different campaign, we'll do another fundraising campaign style series of emails?
Michael Murphy 14:55
Yes, I'm doing it next month. I just finished formatting the emails. So I am doing a monthly giver campaign next month, and I have five emails planned out. Love it.
Christina Edwards 15:09
So how has Easy Emails For Impact impacted like your confidence as a newer fundraiser, and has it translated into other aspects beyond email? I
Michael Murphy 15:50
it I feel a lot more confident after taking the Easy emails course, just having the ideas of what emails to send and and, you know, you call it AP style, I like to call it, you know, coming from the C suite, yep, it doesn't have to be dry material. It doesn't have to be, you know, even well thought out, like, last week I saw that we were having this campus construction for the sidewalks, and I'm like, Hey, we can get some pictures of that and send out an email. Yep. Like, it doesn't have to be like, New Yorker, long form, style, length, like, it can just be like, Hey, this is going on. I'm really excited. I wanted to share it with you. Yep, you know, and that's what I did. But before I did your course, I don't know that I would have thought that way, yeah, of like, hey, we can actually
Christina Edwards 16:56
said it was, like, newsworthy enough that it was big enough to put in an email, when, in fact, that is exactly what you should be putting in email, because it's giving people little bites, little wins, and it's answering for them. Like, don't some semblance of like, no, they're good. They've already built, they've already built the memorial. They're good. No, we're iterating. We're improving. We're working on it. We're expanding like, these are the day to day needs and more aspirational, kind of visionary needs in the next 1-3-5, years. So you're sort of leaving breadcrumbs for both when you do those little updates, yeah,
Michael Murphy 17:33
yes. And it's also like showing them, like, where their money's going exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah. But in a more subtle way,
Christina Edwards 17:42
yeah, without it being so sterile, without it being so forced, without it sounding like an annual report, yeah, absolutely.
Christina Edwards 0:46
You have a robust direct mail program. You have a lot of donors who prefer mailed checks, which we love, and I think it's it is a reasonable question to go Should I pour time into building out an email marketing strategy when everybody's kind of over here in direct mail and mailing checks. And is that even the right use? Right? So what did you find for the folks that are are happy snail mailers, or did Are they happy in the email inbox as well?
Michael Murphy 1:22
You brought up a really good point about opportunity costs for nonprofits. Of like, not only would I spend, you know, several hours on your course, I would spend several hours writing, formatting, sending emails and like, what is the opportunity cost of that? What else could I be doing? So that was a concern, of like, sending out the emails, would we get a response? And I was actually really surprised. So just anecdotally, like one donor, they are older, VFW Auxiliary. It's older women in their 70s, they replied with Apple Pay. So like, I mean, you really, you can't tell unless you try it. That's really what it is. So yes, I had reservations. I was kind of anxious to see what the response would be, but it was there, you know, 114 different transactions for that one campaign. So I'm excited to see because I've never done a direct mail campaign with an email campaign that dovetails with it. So I'm really excited to see how those two work together, and what our response is from that, I just
Christina Edwards 2:44
find that it's peanut butter and jelly. So we have clients who have, again, really robust direct mail programs, and all, all we're doing, again, as you're saying, is like dovetailing that appeal into email, and it's just a good ecosystem of reminding people about the campaign and giving people extra options to donate, and you will be surprised. You will be surprised by the people who wrote checks are not now giving online. That's so fun through Apple Pay. I love it.
Michael Murphy 3:14
And you know, I don't want to discourage anyone who only has PayPal for their donations. That's all that we had before. So before we got with Bloomberg and Q give, our website was only PayPal. So I think there is something to be said for having the ability to open that donation form. And you know, if you have an iPhone, for example, even if you don't use Apple Pay, it will fill in the credit card for it's
Christina Edwards 3:48
about to say, you don't have to discourage them, but I will you have to have a strong, robust donation tool. My litmus test is, can I give from my phone on my couch without having to get up and go grab my credit card number and type in anything. I think that's really, really important. And there's so many good tools out there where cost really isn't a barrier. They're very low cost to where it's costing you more donations by only having PayPal or only having, like, one way to accept payments. Yeah, so really smart and like, again, kudos to you for saying, if we're gonna do this, let's actually make sure we're set up for fully, like, high conversions, meaning we're going email first, and they're landing on a page with a beautifully designed form that is easy for people to give, that gives people a lot of different ways to give. So they can give with credit card. They can give with this, with that. I think that's really important.
Michael Murphy 4:44
Yeah, it is. And just for the donor experience, you know, I have seen other nonprofits where you have to create an account, yes, before you can donate. And so I, I created the account, and then it gave me an error. Or page with a white screen, and I couldn't do anything, and it's like, Okay, if that's the donor experience, like, yeah, we're out. People have attention spans of tick tock, right? Like, it's been 15 seconds,
Christina Edwards 5:14
let's say seven. I think, is it? Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm out, yeah, I'm out, yeah, for sure. So I think that's a really smart tip. Let's talk about the future. What are you excited about for your organization? What are you working on? What's next for you?
Michael Murphy 5:31
So next is our monthly giver campaign, which is going out, actually this Thursday. That's going out USPS, and then I'm also sending out emails for it throughout the month next month. So I'm I'm really excited to see what the responses for that. I'm really excited to grow that program, because previously we had recurring givers, but we kind of forgot about them.
Christina Edwards 6:00
They were kind of just lumps, so to any, to just any donor, yeah, yeah.
Michael Murphy 6:06
It was very much like, if they would, if we don't have their email, they would get a letter each month that said, Hey, thanks for donating. Here's a print copy of our monthly newsletter. But there wasn't any special marketing, special messaging. There wasn't, there wasn't anything special that they were getting for being a monthly giver. So I knew whatever I did for the program, it needed to be scalable and manageable, because we don't have a huge staff, so I came up with a quarterly newsletter, yeah, so I'm thinking it'll be like tabloid. So I'm really excited to do it, just to keep in touch with them, keep them updated on everything that's happening. And I'm just excited so
Christina Edwards 7:00
I smart to create a monthly giving program experience that you can fulfill, that doesn't stress you out, right, that you can do.
Michael Murphy 7:10
Yes, yeah. And this is my first role with a nonprofit. It's my first time making pretty things on a computer so I actually went to Udemy and did their InDesign course. Oh my
Christina Edwards 7:26
gosh. I told you I could just tell you're a curious, voracious learner, and then you put you don't make you, don't waste time. I love it. You're like, what do I need to skill build so smart. Keep going.
Michael Murphy 7:39
Yeah, and like, I know there's some people that love Canva. I love Adobe. I think InDesign is, I mean, I know there's people like Microsoft Office, but like publisher made me want to pull my hair out.
Christina Edwards 7:56
Like, Canva is just, it's for the masses, right? But Adobe is an amazing tool. So if you can, you, if you know how to use it, and it's, it's an amazing tool,
Michael Murphy 8:09
yeah, you know, we were talking, um, our last purpose and profit, where someone was talking about, you know, $4,000 to do a direct mail campaign. I was thinking like, I would do that myself, like not everyone can, but if you want to learn, you can easily make your own letters, like there is a native part of InDesign where you can basically, it's their version of mail Merge, and then you get window envelopes and fold it, stuff it, and they may like name and addresses on I'm
Christina Edwards 8:46
curious before, before your your role here in the nonprofit world. What were you doing before?
Michael Murphy 8:54
Oh, you won't even guess. I'm
Christina Edwards 8:56
like, is it creative? Is it I don't know from your photo, I was like, is it outdoorsy? Like, what is tell me,
Michael Murphy 9:06
I was a commercial truck driver for eight years. What?
Christina Edwards 9:09
Okay, yeah, this is so good. Like, some I can already tell you're going to be an amazing fundraiser. You already are, but I can, like, see the 10 Year version, right? Oh my gosh, your commercial. Okay, so then, so you are ready to be home. Is that ready to be kind of,
Michael Murphy 9:29
no. It was very like, I saw people 20 years older than me doing the same thing. Okay, you were ready to beach. And so, like, there was no growth, there was no there was no challenge. And I did this online boot camp for data analytics like SQL, Python, etc. And so Raelynn hires me, and she's like, Hey, we've got these analytics for. Website, what do we do with them? And so I looked at it, and I'm like, What am I looking at this for? If we don't have a web development team, yeah? Like, what's like, yeah, 12 people are landing on this page. But if we don't have anybody to change it, yeah, what am I doing? So then I just started looking around at like, what else could I do? So, like, yeah, I can update the website when we want to add information about the sidewalks or, you know, but it's very like, again, opportunity cost. Should I spend four hours updating this part of the website that nobody would say
Christina Edwards 10:42
that 12 people visit a month. Probably not. Yeah. Should I instead upgrade our donation tool so more people give instead of getting frustrated and give up?
Michael Murphy 10:52
Yeah? Yes, yes. So smart so yeah, that's
Christina Edwards 10:57
gosh, I love it. I love it. I love a good, non linear career path. So that's my favorite. That's me, by the way, so I love it. Thank you so so much. Was there anything else you wanted to share with our audience before I ask our last question that we ask every guest?
Michael Murphy 11:18
I would just say, like, if I can do it, you can. So if you want to change up your email strategy, do it. And you know, we've talked about this before, Christina of like, you know, you can sit there and talk about, like, all the reasons you don't want to do something, and with that time, you could instead, just do it,
Christina Edwards 11:39
call the donor.
Michael Murphy 11:40
So today's the day.
Christina Edwards 11:42
Love it so good. So we ask every guest on the podcast to share, whether it's like mantra or a belief or just a thought that they like to think on purpose it helps them in keeping forward momentum. Would you share your thought, your kind of go to with our audience?
Michael Murphy 12:00
So the reason I do everything here, whether it's an email, it's fundraising, you know, volunteer scheduling, it's all about the veterans that come here. So for the Vietnam era veterans, when they came home, it wasn't welcome home, and it wasn't, you know, like we have a volunteer who's in the museum once a week. He has PTSD from Vietnam, and when he came home, that wasn't a diagnostic criteria. It was very like, men don't cry, suck it up. Go to college, get married, have kids, move on, and so here he's able to really find that piece, and he's told me that volunteering here and interacting with veterans helps his mental health. And you know, there's veterans that come here and they'll say, you know, that name on the wall. I grew up with him. So everything I do, it really, it's really for
Christina Edwards 13:11
them. I love it. I mean, you're bringing together community every single day for people like you said, who were taught to put their feelings in a box on box on the shelf, and never, ever, kind of go there. So that's, that's really, what is the word I'm looking for, not only comforting, but healing.
Michael Murphy 13:29
Healing. It is healing. You know, our generation, I'm not sure how old you are, but you know, when I was a kid, it was the Iraq War, and people had feelings about it on both sides, but at the end of the day, we noticed, like we recognized, there's a difference in the policy and the service numbers. Yes. And, you know, I might not agree with George Bush, but I'm not going to throw food at a service member who just got back from Baghdad. 1,000% Yeah. And that's not where we were in the 60s and 70s
Christina Edwards 14:06
and in fact, not even not throw food at like, help I want to help for help them. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Thank you for that. I think that that was really important and worth, worth expanding on where can people find you? Where can we get in touch with you? Are you on LinkedIn and your organization if they want to come visit the memorial? Yes.
Michael Murphy 14:31
So our website is mn, vm fund.org, we are also on Facebook. We haven't quite figured out Instagram yet. No worries, we have one. But yeah, they can find us on our website, they can find us on Facebook, and perfect. That's where we are.
Christina Edwards 14:51
Thank you so much for sharing generously your time and your story and your now new love. For email,
Michael Murphy 15:02
yes, thanks so much. Christina.