Fundraising Email Guidelines from MIT Annual Giving

The downloadable PDF is at this link.

Last updated September 2024

The Basics: Crafting your email

Sender Name:

• Try and choose a sender the audience is likely to know (like the director of your program, a beloved professor from your department).
• Add context if possible. Examples:
  • Sally Kornbluth, MIT
  • Sally Kornbluth, MIT President
• Avoid long titles in the sender field. Sender Names with more than 20 characters are likely to get cut off.

Subject Line:

• You can use subjectline.com (create a free account or use Incognito mode) to test the effectiveness of your headline, get tips on how to improve, and suggest stronger alternatives.
• Avoid spam trigger words when possible
• As of August 2024, here are some best practices:
  • Keep the subject line short, ideally under 50 characters (some recommend aiming for ~20 characters)
  • Try to grab attention
  • Try to use shorter words
  • Create some urgency with time-related words (“today”, “deadline”, “time is running out”)
  • Use punctuation – one exclamation point is ok (multiple is not advised)
  • Use appropriate capitalization. If you have one word in all caps, it shouldn’t be the first word used
  • Use “you”/“your” instead of “us”/“our”
  • Consider including a relevant emoji Copy-paste from a site like emojipedia.org (which also shows how emojis render for specific browsers and phones).
• As of September 2024, here are some things to avoid:
  • The word “help”
  • Capitalization in 2nd half of subject line
  • Using important words (like “today”) in 2nd half of subject line instead of the 1st (more likely to get cut off)

Email Preheader:

• Optional – appears in the email preview under the subject line in someone’s inbox
• Align the content of the preheader with the subject line copy
• Stick to 80 characters or less, longer than that will likely get cut off on mobile

Email Text:

• Keep your email within 250 words.
• Avoid spam trigger words when possible
• If possible, include urgent language (“give by x date”, “we only need x more donors to reach our goal of $xxx”)
• Write with an active voice
  • Passive voice: Funding still needs to be found for this project.
  • Active voice: We need donors like you to step up and support this project.
• Use a warm, friendly tone. Keep the jargon minimal, without talking down to your reader.
• Address the recipient as “you” whenever possible to help keep them engaged.
• Highlight the impact of support when possible: “Your gift of $100 today will help provide things like XXXXXX”
• If you are not including a preheader, first sentence should be a hook
• Include one clear call to action—for a solicitation, that is directly asking them to give and giving them a direct giving link in your email to make the giving process as simple as possible
  • Make sure to include a call to action in the first paragraph, as well as later in the email
  • Use a distinct giving link provided by Annual Giving to track donors and dollars to your email (compared to other sources)
  • We recommend a direct link to the giving form with your fund(s) already selected to make giving easy and reduce clicks.
  • Include at least two giving links – it increases your click through rates and the likelihood someone will give. Here are a few ways we like to do that:
    • Hyperlink the relevant call to action text (“make your gift”, “give today”, etc.)
    • Include a colorful giving button

Email Graphics

• Include relevant visuals that make sense with the text you’re using.
• Images should meet the following requirements:
  • Resolution of at least 72dpi
  • Width of 600-650 pizels
  • File size 1MB or less
  • .png or .jpg file format
• Provide alternate text – a short description of the image that displays when subscribers are unable to view your image

Bonus Tips: Finetuning your email

• Use the recipient’s name and look for other personalization opportunities:
  • Use the recipient’s name in the body of the email (“Hello Alex,”) or even the subject line (“Alex, double your gift today!”).
  • Generally if an email starts with a salutation (“Dear Alex,”) it should have a signer listed at the bottom of the email (often the same person is the listed email sender). If an email has no signatory, try using the recipient’s first name in a running sentence in the body of the message: “Alex, your generosity helps students like me participate in this life-changing program.”
• Tailor the message to your audience if you can.
  • Consider their affinity: maybe use different message or subject line depending on someone’s relationship to the program –for instance alumni might receive something different than parents. Examples:
    • “as an alum of this program, you know the life-changing impact it can have”
    • “as someone with a child who’s participated in this program, you have seen first-hand the impact it can have on their MIT experience”
  • Consider their giving behavior: maybe use a different message or subject line for people who gave to your program last year (stronger affinity) than for people who haven’t given in 2-5 years (may need more convincing). Examples:
    • “Thank you for your support last year – we hope we can count on you to renew your gift today.” vs.
    • “Thank you for your past support of this program. We hope you will consider making a gift again this year to help further X, Y, and Z at MIT.”