Ep. 217: The 'Mail-Only Donor' Myth That's Costing You Revenue
EPISODE 217
The 'Mail-Only Donor' Myth That's Costing You Revenue
About the Episode:
Somewhere in your donor file, there’s a group of people that’s been labeled “mail-only.” Nobody tested it, so it just became the rule.
In this episode, I explain why that assumption costs you revenue, especially going into year-end. I share what happened when one of my club clients added email to an established direct mail program. Donors weren’t annoyed, and more gifts came in than mail alone could have produced. I also walk through the latest data from the 2026 M+R Benchmarks, Bloomerang’s Giving Signals report, and NextAfter. Email grew 16%, 69% of donors say email is their preferred channel, and nonprofits raise 30–40% of their online revenue in December alone. If your mail list and your email list barely talk to each other, this one is for you.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why mail and email get siloed by accident, and how that accident starts to feel like a rule nobody questioned
The real math: for every $1 nonprofits raise online, they raise $0.66 through direct mail. Both channels drive real revenue, and both are growing
Why "our audience doesn't respond to email" is almost never a channel problem; it's a content and cadence problem
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:
“Email is the most profitable way to fundraise online.”
“If I have 10,000 people in a direct mail list and 10,000 people via email, which one is more expensive to touch base with?”
“Donors are consumers. Consumers are donors.”
“Your campaign isn't just a letter that goes out; your campaign has a digital version.”
“Donors are already telling you what they want.”
“You have to wait another 12 months to get to December 2027. So don't wait!”
“You can't send one email and call it a campaign; that costs you a strategy.”
“The majority of your donors live in this distracted world where we need more touch points and more reminders.”
“Direct mail and digital email should work in tandem.”
“The donor that is likely to respond and give from an email you sent is the one who already trusts you enough to open your envelope.”
“It's not an email problem; it is a content problem. Your emails are boring, and your emails aren't resonant.”
“If you do social media, 1% to 10% of your social media followers will see your content.”
“Direct mail grew 9% in 2025. But email grew 16%.” M+R Benchmarks Study 2026
“For every $1 nonprofits raise online, they raise $0.66 through direct mail.” M+R Benchmarks Study 2026
“Organizations are reaching out to their donors through mail throughout the year with an average of 15 touch points.” M+R Benchmarks Study 2026
“69% of donors say that email is their preferred fundraising communication channel.” Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signals Report
“33% of donors say email is the single tool that inspires them to give.” Nonprofit Tech for Good
“Communicating consistently with donors produced a 41.5% increase in revenue.” Next After
“Nonprofits raise between 30% and 40% of all online annual revenue in December alone.” M+R Benchmarks Study 2026
Episode Resources:
Ep. 213: No Gala. No Auction. No Swag. Still Raised 81% More. with Kathy Ruiz-Carter
The Communication & Giving Preferences of 641 Online Donors - Nonprofit Tech for Good
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 00:13
Today's episode, we're going to focus on direct mail and email and how the two work together. So, whether or not you have a program that includes direct mail and email, or are really doing one or the other, I want you to dig into today's episode because there are some big costs associated with doing just one really well and the other not so much, because somewhere in your donor file, if you're doing direct mail, there is probably a group of people that have been quietly decided that are mail-only donors. They prefer to give through mail. They've given through mail for years. Somewhere along the way, without actually testing it, you or somebody in your organization just decided that's who they are. Those are their preferences, and that's that. So you send them an appeal letter a couple times a year. They don't really get much else. Maybe you assume email would annoy them or would be redundant to what they're already getting from you. You assume they don't like email. You assume they're in a certain demographic that doesn't really check email. Maybe nobody actually ever even decided this. This was just a pattern. You didn't learn that your donor prefers email. You just assumed it, and then you stop testing that assumption. You with me? So that assumption may be costing you more than you think. This is actually one of the gaps that I've seen with many of my clients inside the club, my group coaching program. Before we even get into fixing it, I want you to understand how and why it happens in the first place. And if you're in the camp, that's like, oh, do we really have to talk about email? Isn't email dead? I hate getting emails. Emails are spam. I don't want any more emails in my inbox. Email is the most profitable way to fundraise online. It is the most low expense, high impact. It beats out social media. It beats out SMS texting. It beats out anything else you could do at scale digitally, so that it might be your preference. Just like some people don't like peaches, right? That doesn't mean peaches aren't a good fruit, right? That doesn't mean they're not tasty to the majority, right? It just means it's not your preference. So watch where you take on your personal preferences and making them your own because I was on Facebook recently and I got served this Facebook ad and it cracked me up. I was like, "You guys got to be kidding me! So this particular organization was selling SMS texting to nonprofits. So they're a texting platform, right? So you can text your donors, and they said like click here. So they had some sort of opt in where it was like click here to receive, you know, our free resources on the best ways to reach your donors through texting. Y'all ready for this? When you click there to opt in to learn about their SMS texting text message platform and the way donors most love text messaging. Do you know what it asked for? It asked you to subscribe to their email newsletter. I was like, you guys have to be kidding me. You aren't even using your own platform. You're not even using texting to promote texting. Instead, they were using email because why? They wanted to build up their email list. Which, as a strategist, it was like you should absolutely build up your email list. But it was wildly ironic that they were like, "Please subscribe to our email list so you can learn about SMS texting. You with me? Okay. So now that I've anchored you into email is not bad. Email is not over. Let's keep going. So most organizations. Actually, segment direct and and digital without really choosing on purpose. They're not choosing that as a strategy. They inherit it. So the direct mail donors get mail, email donors get email. A lot of times, I'll hear, "Well, we just don't have email addresses for our direct mail segment, right? Just because you don't doesn't mean you can't in the future.
Christina Edwards 05:21
That's a lot of the work will will unwind in the club. So the two lists end up barely talking to each other. No one actually sat down and decided this was the smartest way to fundraise, the smartest way to reach people. It just was how the system got built. And once that separation exists, it starts to feel like a rule instead of an accident, which is what it really was. So, channel preference in this case isn't a fixed identity. It's actually just a habit that nobody's tested. I saw this play out with one of my club clients recently. They had a strong, established direct mail program, loyal donors, consistent gifts-the kind of file that most organizations would be thrilled to have. But much of those male donors weren't getting meaningful email during campaigns and in between campaigns, right? For that retention process, for social proof, for showing your impact, nobody had layered the two together, and. And as a result, the two audiences were very disconnected. And think about it: it gets more expensive to reach out to one segment versus the other. So if I have 10,000 people in a direct mail list and 10,000 people via email, which one is more expensive to touch base with? Which one is more expensive to say thank you? Here's a letter from somebody in one of our programs. I would love to share with you. Which one is more expensive to say we're currently $25,000 into a 50k match? Here's why we need your support now. The direct mail-it is very expensive, and it is getting more expensive. Direct mail is not bad, but I want you to think about it, which is you can't nearly have the frequency you need, and many donors need, and many prospects need when you are using just direct mail. So we added along email as a reinforcement to direct mail campaigns. So bringing in those audiences that were siloed out, and having more touch points per campaign, the outcome, case you're wondering, is not, oh well, donors must be annoyed. Now you're just bugging them. Now they're hearing too much from you. No, the opposite happened. More gifts came in in these campaigns than a mail alone campaign could have ever produced. More revenue showed up, revenue that wasn't there in the direct mail only campaigns. So the lift there came from active donors, not from cold names, but bringing them in together because we need more touch points. Donors are consumers. Consumers are donors. I want you to think about what if that brand, my most favorite place to buy clothes, what if that brand only sent me a mailer twice a year, right? I only heard from them twice a year. I'd probably forget how much I love them if I wasn't actively seeking them out. Donors are consumers, consumers or donors. So that reinforcement is really, really clear, and that's the part that most people miss. It's not just we need more donors, we need more leads in our file. It's about not leaving your best, most engaged donors half reached, touched occasionally throughout the year. Now the data backs this up. The 2026 M and R benchmark study, which is the industry's really biggest annual look at nonprofit fundraising data, supports this pattern. Now direct mail isn't dying. It showed that direct mail grew 9% in 2025. But listen, email grew 16% So both channels are growing. Neither is replacing the other. Unfortunately, maybe for you, I don't know if you're thinking, "Great, now she's saying I have to do both. Yes, but there is a way you can do that. At scale, and in fact, can I tell you how much easier it is to do some high-touch, high-converting direct mail mailings throughout the year, couple throughout the year, and email throughout the year on a consistent basis? I teach this process in my programs than it is to plan the gala, than it is to apply for endless grants you never get like this. You guys, this is how you buy your time back. This is how you grow at scale.
Christina Edwards 10:33
They also found in this report that for every $1 nonprofits raised online, they raise 66 cents through direct mail. So both are driving meaningful revenue, and I find that organizations that are more established with strong direct mail programs have they come to me and they have strong direct mail programs and there is still so much opportunity there to maximize because many of y'all's direct mail programs are very old school in the way in which you're communicating with donors and so one of my favorite things is is to weave in the strategy we teach this million dollar donor and million dollar campaigns process inside the club, and in that we will uplevel your direct mail strategy, and we teach you how to use that same strategy across your campaigns. Your campaign isn't just a letter that goes out; your campaign has a digital version.
So in the study, it also cited how organizations are already reaching out to their donors through mail throughout the year with an average of 15 touch points. Now that is across active and lapse donors, and one of my favorite things to do is to reengage those lapsed donors through a comeback campaign. And my second favorite thing to do is to actually weave in that comeback campaign through digital and direct, digital and direct to use them both. So it's not about just peppering your direct mailing list with 15 asks a year. That is not the nuance here. That is not the strategy here. It is a mix, and you don't have to hit 15 is not the magic number. But that does show you the opportunity for growth. Now I've seen this happen across many of my clients, where email and direct reaches donors at different moments in different mindsets, nonprofits who treat these as complementary, not interchangeable, see stronger results. It's not one or the other; it's a both and. It's a both and. Now, donors are already telling you what they want. Donors are telling you. You might be arguing with that reality, saying, "But I don't like it, or I can't do it, or I don't have time, or I got to plan the gala, or isn't it just better to apply for some more grants? No, email wins across every generation. Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signals report that. That 69% of donors say that email is their preferred fundraising communication channel. Email, not anything else. Email, the top choice overall, leading preference in every single generation surveyed. So stop saying, "Well, our audience skews older, younger, middle aged, whatever your insert demo age is, stop saying and that generation doesn't write doesn't check email. You're just wrong. The data doesn't doesn't support that assumption. And in fact, I would argue if you're like yes, Christina, we are actually seeing like no one likes our emails. We've heard feedback on our emails, our audience isn't reading your our emails. Guess what? It's not an email problem. It is a content problem. Your emails are boring. Your emails aren't resonant. Your emails are sterile. Your emails are buttoned up or ominous. Right? That is the issue. It is not the it is not the channel; it is your way in utilizing that channel.
Christina Edwards 16:04
We had Kathy on the podcast a few weeks ago, and she tells you the volume of emails she sends five emails a week, Monday through Friday, to her audience has a very large engaged list, very large engaged community. There's you couldn't take that and just say, "Great, now we're we're going to email five days a week for our audience, and just make it about frequency and have it perform at the level that hers performs. Hers performs at that level because of the quality of the content, because of the people behind the email, because of the connection and the trust built. So it's a both and. It is directionally how often you're emailing, who you're emailing to, and the words you're saying. Okay. So, in this same report, it does call out the channel gap, where nonprofits report leading with outreach on social media, while donors are over here saying, "Can you reach out to us on email? I barely see your social content. I follow you, but I barely get served it. That's right. The algorithm is not showing you their content, so this isn't a hunch. Donors are actually telling you the answer, their preferences, but most organizations aren't rebalancing creating a strategy that's supporting it. This matters right now in this moment because of time, the time we are in. We're in year end because of expenses. Because you're probably going to do a direct mailing or two, but that is not enough touch points. And if you do social media to support it. 1% to 10% of your social media followers will see that content. So that is not the answer to support your campaign. Email us now. I would love for you to call your donors. I would love for you to make direct us. I would love for you to take them to lunch. And you are one person. You are one person listening to this podcast. You can't do that at scale. You cannot go reach out to 10,000 donors today in your in your list, but you can email them. Email is actually what moves people to give. So 33% of donors say email is the single tool that inspires them to give. Another study found that simply communicating frequency consistently with donors produced a 41 and a half percent increase in revenue. They didn't even change the message. All they did was email more. That's from Next After. That's one of my favorites. Now, email carries year end because as we move into November and December, we've got Giving Tuesday. We've got year end, nonprofits raise between 30 and 40% of all online annual revenue in December alone. That last week of December matters deeply. We're going to talk more about that. Email is a huge part of that surge, and if you're not seeing those numbers, or you're saying, "Okay, I'm listening. We want strong numbers for email, then you need to be prioritizing email now. That priming, that runway starts now. This is the work we do inside the club where we actually warm up your donors ahead of time. I call this the pregame. We're tailgating right before they ask. We're re-engaging them. The fastest way to do this is through email. And then taking that direct mail mail piece and increasing the odds of conversion, meaning more people donate to it, and more people donate at a higher amount, because you need to raise more money than last year, not the same and not less. So we actually have two different things at play here that email will help support, and I've been talking to a lot of fundraisers and executive directors about this time of year who are saying to me, "Okay, we need some help, or you know, "I'm thinking about joining one of your programs, or we're looking at this. We have this challenge, but time's not right. Or you know, I wanted to send out this piece, or we wanted to do this campaign, but I'm really not sure. I think we're going to look at it for February. Let's look at it on Q1. You don't get a second December, right? So whatever gap exists now between your mail list and your email list, this is the month that costs you the most. It is time to warm up those people.
Christina Edwards 21:09
It is time to use direct mail in the strongest way possible, but use email in a way you never have before to make those emails count. I've told a lot of people lately, you have to wait another 12 months to get to this December, December 2027, right? So don't wait. One of my clients said to me they had a really successful sprint campaign, and they said to me, "Okay, we're thinking about doing our next sprint in January, and I was like, "What? No, no, no, no, no, no, and essentially not fundraising in the fall, in the year end. And I was like, "Hang on, we got to do something now because you do not get these numbers in January. You do not get this response rate from donors in January, February, March. Right? It is now. It is November and December, and so now is when you actually capitalize on people saying, "Oh, it's my time to give. Oh, I'm interested in giving. Oh, what charity should I give to? It's now. Now, I've already mentioned that direct mail has more of an upfront real expense, which is why I'm so passionate about every single part of it, from the outer envelope to what is on there, to the response device, to the letter, to the layout, to the design, to the fonts, to the point size. You get all of my feedback on that in the club, because you're spending so much time and actual dollars on this piece going out. Now, email doesn't have all of those upfront expenses, but it's not free. It charges you differently, right? You can't send one email and call it a campaign that costs you a strategy. You can't just say, "Well, I tried it. Email doesn't work for us. It costs you in that cadence. It only works through much multiple touch points, an actual sequence, a strong campaign story that people are excited to get behind. That's the urgency piece. It costs you in list health. So a list where nobody is segmented or cleaned won't perform as well as one that is. Meaning you don't know the difference between your donors, your not yet donors, your lapse donors, your I don't know who volunteers. Sometimes y'all have these lists, and you're like I don't know who's on there again. I inherited that list, and so it's not your fault. But now is time to figure out the answer to that, and we can do that in a couple of different ways. Just because you don't know who those names are now doesn't mean you never will. So I have several strategies that I can work with you on where we're bringing in and we're understanding who are the people on my list. How do I get this list more engaged? My open rate's been sitting here around 20% Now what do I want to list clean? Do I want to segment? Do I want to survey? There are so many different options. Do I want to reengage our lapsed donors? So I hope you'll see that mail and email aren't actually competing for the same dollar. They're not rival budget lines fighting for your donors' attention. They're not. It's either or. Otherwise, I'm going to bug people. They're two touch points in the same relationship. You with me? And one. Once you decide your donor, quote unquote, belongs to one channel and skip the other, you're not being thoughtful. You're guessing that guest is costing you reinforcement. That guest is costing you revenue that is sitting right there in your donor file. And maybe your organization is like, yeah, but yeah, but Christina, I had donor. I let's call him Dan. Dan sent me an email saying he didn't want to get emailed ever again. He only wants direct mail. Okay, beautiful. Dan is no longer on your email list. Don't take Dan's personal preference. Dan doesn't like peaches, and make no one's ever having peaches again with me, and conversely, I may be a little more in this camp personally. Is I prefer email over printed mail? Not always, but always, sometimes. So if Christina emails you and says, "Hey, can you take me off your direct mail list? Just leave me on your email.
Christina Edwards 25:57
Don't make that something you're doing across the board at scale, people will tell you, and they when they tell you that is their personal preference, not everyone's personal preference, because the majority of your donors live in this this distracted world where we need more touch points, we need more reminders, and I hope you'll take from the today's episode that the two should work in tandem together. Direct and digital should work in tandem. And when I'm saying digital, I mean email. Social's fine, but we use social through partnerships with influencers and ambassadors. That is a good use of your social media time. What is not a good use of your social media time is spending a lot of time creating content or paying somebody to create content that no one sees. Instead, I think I've made the case for give me an hour a week for email. Give me an hour a week for dig for direct. Watch what happens. Watch what happens because when you hone in the the stories, the voice, the delivery, the frequency, you're going to see more donations come in this year. So don't wait. Do not wait. Now, if you're thinking, "Oh, my email is a mess. Ugh, my segments. Oh, my list, you do not have to have the perfect, most clean, segmented list to still do this this year to still improve your ROI, your conversion and donations this year. Because the donor that is likely to respond and give from an email you sent is the one who already trusts you enough to open your envelope. So go look at your file, not your acquisition strategy. Some of y'all are like, I just need new people, new donors, right? Yes, you do need new donors, and you are sitting on a gold mine with your with your list today as it stands. It has not been properly utilized. You have not been speaking directly, clearly enough in a way that's resonant with those people, and the opportunity to do that is right now, totally right now. So instead of being like, "Go viral on TikTok, or "We got to figure out how to buy some sort of acquisition list, I want you to go. What do I have right now? Who can I reach out to right now? What do they need to hear? And then you're going to repeat that process, and then you're going to create a compelling year-end campaign that has them from a maybe to a hell yes. That is the work we do together. So, if you want help with this, this is the work we do inside my coaching program, the Club. So, not which channel is better, or if you're like, I only have one or the other, totally fine. But how, if you have both, do we get them working together in harmony without costing you a lot of time or people power. In the club, I'm actually looking at and helping you create your actual direct mail calendar, your email retention plan, your pream plan, before, during, after the campaign. Not when it's too late to change everything, but ahead of time before it goes to the printer, so you've got the pieces already. You've got the donors, a mail program, an email list, but they're all kind of siloed out, not working together. And that's the kind of thing a strategist in the room catches that you don't catch inside your own file, where you're like, "Oh, that wasn't our donors' preference. That was just what we've been doing." So, if you want more information about the club, go to splendidcourses.com forward slash apply, and I will see you in the next one.