Of course you know that the more our donors hear from us (and in a variety of ways), the more connected they are with us and with our ministry. Your financial partners are either giving because they love you and/or because they click with your calling. Make sure your paper prayer letters and your eNewsletters speak to both types of partners.

Take A.I.M.

Long ago, someone offered a framework for what to communicate with our financial partners. I try to have a balance in these every year in all our communication:

1. Appreciation
2. Information
3. Ministry (minister to them, get them involved in ministry, …)

I’d include “getting-to-know each other” in addition to A.I.M.

For us, only one paper prayer letter yearly will have family news. That means most of our family news comes through visits, phone calls, letters, eMails, social media, and our blog. In order for our donors to really know us, our eNewsletters are the main way we do that.

Sending regular eMail newsletters will give you an opportunity to improve your A.I.M. and is an easy way (time-wise) to help them get to know you. (We could include social media, too, but I’ll be focusing  just on eNewsletters for this two-part series.)

You can tell I’m assuming you’re going to do this, right? Our partners have frequently commented that they love our supplemental communication through eMails. Yours will, too.

Read how to get started, or enhance what you’re already doing, in tomorrow’s post, How to Send eMail News.

Related Articles:

• Read Getting Personal for how to collect information from your donor team.
• I wrote a series of posts on how to send regular greeting cards using this new information you’ve gathered.
• I recommend keeping track of your donor’s information using the free software, TntMPD.