By Richard Lee
It’s natural for fundraisers to assume supporters are ignoring emails because their inboxes are packed.
People are busy. Attention spans are short. And everyone gets too many messages. There’s just so much noise out there!
It really is easy to blame the times we are living in for your marketing challenges.
But if you dig a little deeper into the data coming out of Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, Dotdigital or whichever platform your charity uses, there is often more going on than simple inbox fatigue.
Supporters aren’t always ignoring fundraising emails because they don’t care. They wouldn’t still be on your mailing list if there was no connection at all.
Very often they are ignoring your voice because the email didn’t do its job.
It failed to make them stop. It failed to make them ‘feel’. And it certainly didn’t make them act.
That might be a hard truth to face but it’s frequently a reality.
Fundraising is brutally competitive right now and in that kind of environment only your sharpest, clearest, most emotionally effective work will cut through.
Supporters aren’t switching off from the cause
Most supporters aren’t suddenly emotionally disconnected from your charity’s mission. They’re not sitting there making a deliberate decision to stop caring. What has changed is behaviour.
People scan. People skim. They flick through messages at speed and make near-instant decisions about what deserves their attention. If your email feels vague, padded, overly polished, or easy to ignore, it gets treated like everything else in the inbox.
That doesn’t mean your cause is weak; it means the message is.
Recent charity benchmark data shows organisations sent an average of 30 email messages per subscriber, up 31% on the year before.
Yet for every 1,000 fundraising emails sent, charities raised an average of just £58 with email accounting for only 8% of all online revenue.
The same study reported a 39% drop in revenue per 1,000 fundraising emails compared with the previous 12 months – that’s an alarming figure that should send more than a ripple of concern into senior leadership teams. Please be in no doubt, the life of a fundraiser is getting progressively harder.
So yes, inbox competition is real but weak results aren’t just about attention. Sometimes the email doesn’t land, the click never happens, or the supporter is willing but the message or the journey after the click isn’t strong enough to convert.
Professional does not make it persuasive
A mistake some charities make is assuming that sounding polished, institutional and impeccably on-brand will make a fundraising email more effective. It often does the opposite.
Supporters don’t respond to language that feels distant. They respond to language that feels real. Human. Immediate. As if one person is speaking honestly to another person about something that matters.
If an email sounds like it came from a department rather than a person, it becomes far easier to skim past. If it takes too long to get to the point, the moment is gone. And if it feels broad and impersonal, the emotional connection weakens.
The inbox is not the place for padded introductions or carefully managed corporate tone, it is the place where clarity, authenticity and emotional honesty win.
Research data from Litmus suggests people spend an average of nine seconds reading an email, with 41% of readers viewing it on mobile.
That means your message is often being judged quickly, on a small screen, while someone is half-distracted. If the email is hard work, supporters will shut down. They will simply move on. You’ve got to ‘hook and hold’ your donor at pace.
A worthy cause is not enough on its own
Doing meaningful work is not the same as communicating it well.
You can believe in the cause with everything you have. The need can be urgent, the stakes can be high, the impact can be extraordinary but the supporter only sees what you actually put in front of them.
If your email does not quickly make the need feel real, the urgency feel immediate and the action feel simple, then the power of the mission alone just won’t carry it. The cause may be compelling but the email still has to perform.
If the message is weak, the response will be weak
It sounds blunt, but it’s true.
When fundraising emails underperform, it’s worth looking first at the obvious external factors: timing, seasonality, audience fatigue, subject lines, list size, and broader economic pressure.
Sometimes those things are the reason and you should be A/B testing to decipher that conundrum.
But sometimes the simpler explanation is that the email just wasn’t strong enough. Maybe:
- It was too abstract
- It said too much
- It focused too heavily on the organisation and not enough on the person who needs help
- The emotional core was missing
- The ask was there but not in a way that made action feel urgent or obvious – you have to refine that hook and hold!
And sometimes the issue isn’t only the copy. It is the list itself.
Latest annual benchmark data shows charities lost an average of 5.1% of email addresses to bounces and 9.7% to unsubscribes. And that data is getting worse. It could be well worth benchmarking your performance to see how your charity rates.
Supporters need a reason to care NOW
A fundraising email can’t simply explain a problem. It has to make the supporter feel why this matters today. And explain their role in the change. That is where many emails lose their force as they include information but not urgency.
They include facts but not tension; they describe the charity but not the human need at the heart of the story.
People don’t give because they have been informed – they give because something has moved them.
That might be a story about one person – the proven power of the identifiable victim effect – or it has a clear sense that a gift will achieve something specific and immediate.
But whatever form it takes it has to answer the unspoken question running through every inbox:
Why should I act now?
If your email does not answer that clearly the supporter is left with no real reason to respond. Why now? is a question I pose to teams in all of our marketing and communication projects – it has a habit of sharpening thinking.
A soft ask often leads to no action
Another reason fundraising emails fail is that the ask is often too hesitant.
Support us. Get involved. Help if you can.
There is nothing technically wrong with those phrases but in a crowded inbox are they strong enough to prompt action? Remember, you’re in a hugely, hugely competitive space.
Supporters need direction. They need to know what you are asking them to do, why you are asking now, and what their gift will help make possible.
A confident ask is not aggressive. It is respectful. It removes uncertainty.
If you want someone to donate £10 to fund a trauma counselling session, say that.
If you want someone to help a homeless veteran into safe shelter, tell it how it is.
Clarity is kinder than vagueness.
The best fundraising emails feel human
The fundraising emails that work best rarely feel like formal charity communications.
They feel personal, focused, authentic and emotionally honest.
They sound like one person reaching out to another with something important to say.
That does not mean they are sloppy or casual for the sake of it. It means they sound real. There is no jargon, no hiding behind corporate phrasing, no over-explaining, and no attempt to impress the reader with polish.
Just a clear message and a real need. A direct invitation to help. It’s the sort of treatment your trustees might flap about for being too bold… but the kind that delivers in a modern world.
Sense-check your email before sending
Before pressing send, stop and ask a few questions.
1 Will this email genuinely make someone pause?
2 Does it sound human?
3 Can a supporter immediately understand the problem?
4 Is there enough emotional weight, urgency and clarity to make action feel natural?
5 Is the ask specific enough that no one has to guess what you want them to do?
Remember, the goal is not simply to send an email. The goal is to create a moment of connection that leads to action.
I’m sure you will have heard all manner of marketing spin on courses and conferences aimed at inspiring amazing charity fundraising performance.
I tend to park that fluff in favour of a simple game of ‘say what you see’.
Look at your creative through the eyes of a busy supporter who knows nothing, or very little, about the project you are promoting. Is that visual really emotionally compelling? What does it depict? Be honest. Is it just a random person standing there trying to look sad? Worse still a file pic from Shutterstock. Do those words make you want to pledge a donation to urgently change a life or is it the same copy you ran this time last year? Say what you see…
And finally… supporters are not the problem
It is easy to say supporters are distracted, overwhelmed or unresponsive.
And yes, inboxes are crowded. Yes, competition is fierce. Yes, attention is fragmented.
But blaming supporters does not improve fundraising performance.
Improving the message might.
Improving the targeting might.
Improving the list quality might.
Improving the journey after the click almost certainly will.
The benchmark picture in the UK suggests that more sending does not automatically produce better results.
In 2024, organisations sent more email but fundraising return per 1,000 fundraising emails fell sharply.
And that’s why high-performing charity email is not about sending more noise into the world. It is about sending something that feels relevant, immediate, human and worth acting on.
If supporters are ignoring your fundraising emails that does not automatically mean they have stopped caring.
It may simply mean you have not yet said what needs to be said in a way that feels urgent, emotionally clear, and difficult to ignore – and that is where better charity email performance starts.
Discover more tips, advice and news from the team at Reach Fundraising
Sources
M+R and Rally 2025 UK/Ireland Benchmarks Study – Analysis
UK and Ireland digital benchmark data covering email volume, fundraising return, online revenue share, bounces and unsubscribes.
Charity Digital – How to structure a great fundraising email
UK charity-sector guidance referencing Litmus data on average email reading time and mobile reading behaviour.
Charity Digital – How to run an email re-engagement campaign
UK charity-sector guidance on list hygiene, disengaged subscribers and deliverability.