Is it wrong for not-for-profit organizations to send volumes of follow-up mail and overwhelm inboxes with messages after a donor has given their first donation?
That question comes from a reader we’re calling Sheila who recently made a cash donation to a group she admired and soon found her mailbox and inbox flooded with follow-up solicitations.
My first response to Sheila’s question was: What did you expect?
Nonprofits want your money. That’s not a character flaw. It’s their operating model. If someone gives once, it’s not surprising for the organization to ask again.
At first glance, Sheila’s concern seemed a nonissue. A donor gives. A nonprofit asks for more. End of story.
Then I thought more about what happened to Sheila. Within minutes of her donation, her inbox alerted her with a thank you. Appropriate. Then came a message suggesting she could make even more of a difference with a second gift. By nightfall, she’d received a survey, a newsletter she hadn’t known she’d subscribed to, and an invitation to join a circle of larger, more consistent donors.
By week’s end, Sheila wasn’t feeling appreciated. She was feeling pestered.
The issue isn’t whether nonprofits should follow up. They should. Donors are their lifeblood, and building relationships is appropriate. A thank you, updates on how contributions are used, and occasional appeals all make sense.
But when does “follow-up” become “flood”?
Organizations rely on data that encourages more outreach, not less. If repeat donors are more valuable, and engagement increases retention, the temptation is to communicate frequently. It’s easy to send a stream of messages without asking how it feels on the receiving end.
That’s when the question of how much is too much arises.
A single donation is not the same as consent to ongoing, high-volume solicitation. Yet many organizations act as if it were. The line between stewardship and saturation gets blurred, and donors who intended to support a cause find themselves managing an unexpected relationship with their inbox.
Organizations might start by asking themselves if they would be up front with prospective donors about their communications practices, including their email habits. Would they really want to tell a donor that they will be in touch every day or so whether the donor likes it or not? If not, nonprofits may want to reexamine the frequency of their solicitations.
Beyond being thoughtful to donors, nonprofits should recognize that donors who feel overwhelmed may unsubscribe, disengage or decide their initial act of generosity has come with too many strings attached. In trying too aggressively to secure a second gift, organizations risk losing the donor altogether.
My initial instinct reaction may have been to shrug off Sheila’s question as the natural order of fundraising, but I’ve come to appreciate her concern The right thing isn’t for nonprofits to stop communicating, but they should do so by being clear with donors how they will communicate and then do so with moderation.
Tell donors what they can expect. Give them choices about how often they receive solicitations. Nonprofits may be wise to resist treating every act of generosity as an invitation to inundate a donor’s inbox.
Sheila still supports the organization. But she also has unsubscribed to their emails that simply took up too much of her inbox and her day.
Nonprofits depend on donors. Donors like Sheila depend on nonprofits to know when enough is enough.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
(c) 2026 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
No comments:
Post a Comment