#408 - Email's Hidden Value: Why Donors Wait

<p>I came into this thinking email was dead. Ben Smithee and Brad Duff-Hudkins from NextAfter walked me back from the ledge with 17 million email subscribers worth of actual data. Spoiler: email is fine. You're just bad at it.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.nextafter.com/about-us/ben-smithee/" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Ben Smithee</strong></a> is Chief Growth Officer at NextAfter.<a href="https://www.nextafter.com/about-us/brad-duff-hudkins/" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> <strong>Brad Duff-Hudkins</strong></a> is VP of Data &amp; Analytics. Together, they've run 8,000+ experiments on nonprofit email and published research that blows up everything we think we know about donor acquisition and retention.</p><p><br /></p><p>Downstream donors, the ones who take almost 900 days to give their first gift, return $10.29 for every dollar you spend. Instant donors return $2.38. On a list of 1,000 new subscribers, 800 never give. But 100+ become donors over time, many jumping straight to major gift levels. The real move: donors who make a second gift within six months of their first are 40% more likely to give again in year two.</p><p><br /></p><p>Most nonprofits don't have an email strategy. They have a blast. One email a month, then ramped-up asks at year-end. Ben and Brad tested adding a single cultivation email (no ask) on a Saturday to an organization sending one appeal a week. Result: 41% revenue lift, 13% conversion bump, 52% engagement increase.</p><p><br /></p><p>The hard truth: 80% of new donors don't come back. But if you get them to a second gift in the first six months, you've locked in behavior change. You've moved them from transaction to relationship.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you're managing email like a campaign instead of a relationship engine, this conversation is for you.</p><p><br /></p><p><strong>Important Links:</strong></p><p><a href="https://nextafter.com" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NextAfter Research Database</a> : 8,000+ free experiments searchable by nonprofit challenge</p><p><a href="https://hubs.ly/Q04yDdrK0" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Email Lifetime Value Study</a> : Full report with all the benchmarks</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://go.rheawong.com/big-ask-gifts-program" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">My Big Ask Gifts Program</a></p><p><a href="https://go.rheawong.com/get-that-money-honey" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_bl