6 Email Marketing Volunteer Engagement Tips (+ Tactics!)

Why Does Email Marketing for Nonprofits Matter?

Effective volunteer email marketing isn't about automation replacing personal touch. It's about creating efficient systems that enhance the volunteer experience, freeing up your time. 

Aside from reducing administrative burden, strategic email marketing can provide:

• Consistency: Volunteers receive uniform information, reducing confusion and ensuring everyone has what they need.
  
  
• Scalability: As your program grows, your communication strategy can expand without requiring proportional staff time increases.

• Better Tracking: Understand which messages resonate with volunteers through open rates, click-throughs, and sign-up conversions.
  
  
• Improved Volunteer Experience: Timely, relevant communications demonstrate respect for volunteers' time and commitment.
  
  
• Deeper Connections: Contrary to popular belief, thoughtful automation allows you to identify opportunities for personal outreach when it matters most.

When to Use Email Marketing for Your Volunteer Program

Email marketing supports volunteers at every stage of their volunteer lifecycle within your organization:

• Recruitment: Introducing potential volunteers to opportunities that match their interests and motivations.
• Onboarding: Setting new volunteers up for success with clear expectations, training materials, and first-day information.
• Engagement: Keeping current volunteers informed about upcoming needs, schedule changes, and impact stories.
• Recognition: Acknowledging contributions and celebrating milestones to deepen volunteer commitment.
• Retention: Nurturing ongoing relationships through consistent, valuable communications that remind volunteers why their service matters

How to Create an Email Marketing Strategy for Your Volunteer Program in 6 Steps

Step 1: Audit Your Current Email Practices

Before diving into a new email strategy, it’s essential to first examine your current practices. This can help you identify areas where your strategy may need improvement, gaps in your processes, and more.

When auditing your current email practice, take a look at your:

• Costs: How many hours are you spending writing the same emails over and over?
• Patterns: Which emails do you find yourself sending again and again?
• Strengths: Which messages get volunteers excited and responding? 
• Weaknesses: Which have the highest bounce or unopened rate?
  
  

Step 2: Build Your Volunteer Email List

To create your volunteering marketing strategy, you’ll next want to examine and organize all your contacts. To do that, be sure to:

• Consolidate: If you have scattered spreadsheets full of different supporter information, take the time to gather volunteer email addresses in one central database for easy access and management (typically, nonprofits consolidate in a CRM).
  
  
• Create segments: Group volunteers by interests, skills, availability, and engagement level. This will come in handy down the line!
  
  
• Clean: Lots of nonprofits have outdated contacts. Before developing your strategy, take the time to ensure you have all the necessary information for all your supporters.

Step 3: Select the Right Email Tools

Choosing the right tools is one of the most essential steps in any communication plan. 

When determining your email platform, be sure to select one that offers:

• Efficiency and Automation: Build templates or access pre-built templates so you're not starting from scratch each time. Set up automations to handle routine emails (like shift reminders and thank-you messages).
  
  
• Design and Accessibility: Create mobile-friendly emails that look great on any device.
  
  
• Integration and Data Management: Combine volunteer management and email marketing to eliminate data syncing headaches.
  
  
• Personalization and Impact: Customize emails even when sending to hundreds of recipients.
  
  
• Tracking and Improvement: Access statistics to monitor and optimize your campaigns.

Pro Tip: Want a volunteer management platform that does it all? Get Connected offers built-in email tools that seamlessly integrate with your volunteer database.

Learn more about Get Connected's Email Marketing Tools 

Step 4: Develop Your Core Email Types

Different situations call for different approaches to volunteer communication. By developing templates for these key email types, you'll create a comprehensive strategy that supports volunteers at every step.

Here are some key messages to consider creating:

• Welcome Emails: Introduce new volunteers to your organization, outline their role, and provide initial resources.
  
  
• Training and Onboarding Emails: Detail training sessions, share materials, and set expectations for new volunteers.
  
  
• Event and Activity Updates: Inform volunteers about upcoming events, activities, or changes in schedules.
  
  
• Appreciation and Recognition Emails: Recognize volunteers for their contributions, milestones, or exceptional efforts.
  
  
• Feedback and Survey Emails: Gather insights from volunteers to improve their experience and organizational processes.
  
  
• Emergency and Urgent Requests: Communicate urgent needs or last-minute changes that require immediate volunteer support.
  
  
• Newsletters: Share regular updates about your organization’s impact, upcoming opportunities, volunteer spotlights, and behind-the-scenes stories.

Step 5: Create and Automate Your Content Calendar

Once you have your core emails written, it’s time to determine when you’ll send these emails. A well-planned content calendar ensures that your messages are timely, consistent, and aligned with your volunteer journey:

• Map Out Key Volunteer Touch Points: Think onboarding, training, upcoming events, and moments of recognition. Align your emails with each phase of the volunteer experience.
  
  
• Go Beyond Recruitment Asks: To truly create a seamless volunteer experience and foster a relationship with volunteers, establish a cadence that extends beyond just sending recruitment emails (such as sending updates and newsletters).
  
  
• Set a Realistic Cadence: Decide how often you’ll send each email type. For example, onboarding emails might go out weekly, while newsletters may be monthly or quarterly.
  
  
• Plan Around Key Dates: Add major events, volunteer drives, holidays, and recognition weeks to your calendar.

Once you have your emails written and in place, set up workflows to automatically send emails based on actions or dates (e.g., after signup, before an event, on a volunteer anniversary).

Need a platform that does this for you? Get Connected offers the ability to automatically notify supporters at any point in the volunteer lifecycle.

Learn more about Get Connected's Automated Notifications 

Step 6: Monitor, Measure, and Refine Your Strategy

Creating effective volunteer emails is an ongoing process. Once your emails are live, it’s essential to track performance and continuously improve based on data and feedback.

Here’s what that process looks like:

• Track Key Metrics: Monitor open rates, click-through rates, and response rates to gauge engagement.
  
  
• Test: Try different subject lines, layouts, or calls-to-action to see what resonates best.
  
  
• Tweak: As you test and track key metrics, make adjustments where needed, whether on messaging, timing, or even what segments you send messages to.

Best Professional Email Marketing Tips For Volunteer Programs

Want to really nail your email marketing? Make sure your strategy follows these tips:

• Always Add a Personal Touch: With the right software, you can use volunteers’ names, mention their recent involvement, or reference their interests.
  
  
• Automate with Care: Use volunteer management tools to automate repetitive messages—like welcome emails or event reminders—but write them like a real person would.
  
  
• Craft Catchy Subject Lines:  The subject line is the first impression your email makes, so it should be clear, inviting, and concise. A strong subject line gives readers a reason to open the email by teasing the value inside, setting the right tone, and sparking curiosity.
  
  
• Make it Easy to Take Action: Every email should have a clear goal and an obvious next step—even if it’s a newsletter. Whether you're asking volunteers to sign up, share something, or attend an event, use clear, actionable language and make the call to action visually easy to find.
  
  
• Keep it Skimmable: Many volunteers read emails on the go, so make your content easy to digest. Use headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs to break up dense text.
  
  
• Be Consistent: Consistency builds trust and sets expectations. Whether it's an email newsletter cadence or regular check-in, stick to a reliable schedule.
  
  
• Include Visuals: Adding relevant photos, graphics, or short videos can make your emails more engaging and help tell your story more effectively.
  
  
• Give Thanks Often and Sincerely: Gratitude builds lasting relationships. Regularly express appreciation for your volunteers' time, support, and impact—even in small ways throughout your communications.
  
  
• Think Outside the Box: There are plenty of creative ways to recruit volunteers. Send emails that are funny, or appeal to volunteer motivations (skill-building, socializing, etc.). Some of the best volunteer advertisement examples stand out with a little something unexpected.

Your Next Step: Simplify With the Right Technology

Taking your volunteer email communications to the next level becomes dramatically easier with the right tools. While you can implement many of these strategies with basic email platforms, purpose-built volunteer management systems like Get Connected offer significant advantages.

With Get Connected, nonprofits can access:

• Everything in One Place: Manage volunteer profiles with contact information, opportunities, hours, and communications from a single dashboard.
  
  
• Smart Automation: Set up triggered emails based on volunteer actions, eliminating manual follow-ups.
  
  
• Targeted Messaging: Easily segment your volunteer base by interests, skills, and history for more relevant communications.
  
  
• Built-in Templates: Access pre-designed email templates specifically created for volunteer programs.
  
  
• Time-Saving Integration: Eliminate the need to sync data between separate volunteer management and email platforms

Ready to transform your volunteer communications?  Book a free demo to find out how Get Connected—the all-in-one volunteer management software—makes connecting with volunteers simple and seamless.