Hi Reader,

Early on at Food for the Hungry, our email marketing system and our home-built donation management system didn't talk to each other. We later put in a new donation management system and eventually built a connection between it and our email platform.

That made an automated welcome series for new donors and leads possible. Back then, getting systems to talk was a lot harder than it is today.

It would've been easy to get overwhelmed by everything a "proper" welcome series was supposed to include. So I started with one email. We automated it and got it working. Then we added a second. Then a third, a fourth, and a fifth.

That's still my advice. If you think you need a five-email series and you don't have the technology, staff, or time, automate one email. Get it working. Then build the next one.

THE BIG IDEA

Most welcome series are one email. It's a receipt with a thank-you stapled on, and then the donor goes quiet until the next appeal. That isn't a series. It's a receipt.

The first gift is the moment a donor is paying the most attention to you. Your next best chance to earn a second gift is the few weeks right after it. If those weeks are silent, you've wasted the warmest stretch you'll ever have with that person.

Here's the order I'd build it in. Say a food pantry gets a first gift of $50 on a Tuesday.

Email one goes out right away. It's a plain thank-you from a real person, with what the gift does. No ask, no donate button.

Email two comes a few days later. It tells one short story about one person your work helped. Not a statistic. One person.

Email three is an invitation to do something small that isn't a gift. Reply with why they gave. Follow you somewhere. Take a quick survey. It tells you who's paying attention.

Email four is proof. Show what the pantry did in the last month, with no ask attached.

Email five, 14 to 21 days after the first gift, is the second ask. This is the email most organizations skip, and it's the reason the series exists. By now the donor has been thanked, shown a face, and shown results. Asking at that point is a natural next step, not a pitch.

Notice that four of the five emails don't ask for money. That's what makes the fifth one work.

You don't have to build all five this week. Build the first one. Turn it on. Then build the next one. That's exactly how I did it, and it's how most small shops can do it without a big project or a new system.

Giving Tuesday is December 1, three weeks from today. Every new donor it brings in will land in whatever you have running. A one-email series is better than none. A five-email series by January is better still.

ON THE PODCAST 🎙️

We're talking year end on the Nonprofit Answers podcast this week. If you haven't started planning for year end, or if you have and your plan seems bare, check out the series on the Nonprofit Answers podcast. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcasting service.

I'm excited for the upcoming series:

• A Plan You Can Defend: Creating your fundraising strategy plan
• First 90 Days: How to hit the ground running as a major donor rep
• AI for Nonprofit Leaders: Build and execute your AI plan
• Zero to 100: Your first 100 monthly donors

3 THINGS TO TRY

TRY THIS: Write email one this week and turn it on before Giving Tuesday. Keep it to 120 words, signed by a real person, with no donate button.

TRY THIS: Draft the second-ask email and set it to send 14 to 21 days after the first gift. Tie it to what the first gift did, and name a specific amount.

TRY THIS: Send yourself a test gift on your own donation page. Count every email you get in the next 30 days. If the answer is one, you know where to start.

GO DEEPER

If you want the full system for this, I'd point you to First Year Donor Communications. It's a four-week course that shows you how to build a welcome series that turns a first gift into a second one, with the right message types in the right order. You also get full sample copy for a welcome, an impact story, a take-action invitation, a free offer, and a second-gift appeal, plus separate welcome series for leads, new donors, and monthly donors. It's $99 and built for beginners.

STEAL THIS

Here's a first welcome email you can adapt. Use it as email one, right after the first gift.

Subject: Thank you, [First Name]. Here's what your gift does.

[First Name],

Your gift of [amount] arrived today, and I wanted you to hear from me, not just get a receipt.

Here's what it does: [one sentence, one concrete result, such as "It covers a week of groceries for a family of four"].

Over the next few weeks, I'll send you a couple of short notes so you can see where your gift goes. If you ever want to tell me why you gave, just hit reply. I read every one.

Thank you for being part of this.

[Your name]
[Your title]

Send it from a real person's address, not a no-reply. The replies are the best part.

ONE NUMBER

11.3%: the share of donors acquired in 2025 who had given again by the end of Q2 2026. That's from the 2026 Q2 Fundraising Effectiveness Project report.

Nearly nine in ten new donors from last year hadn't made a second gift. That's the gap a welcome series is built to close.

WORTH YOUR TIME

​9 Emails You Can Send in Your Welcome Series. A menu of email types, from gratitude to impact story to survey to the second-gift appeal. It suggests 3 to 5 emails over 1 to 2 weeks, so pick the ones that fit and skip the rest.

​Get More Donations from Your Nonprofit Leads Through an Email Welcome Series. A five-email outline for new subscribers: gratitude, impact story, video, free offer, and a donation appeal. Useful if your series starts with leads, not donors.

ONE QUESTION

How many emails does a brand-new donor get from you in the first 30 days? Hit reply and tell me the number. If it's one, that's fine. It's where I started too.

See you Thursday,

Jeremy Reis

P.S. If a five-email welcome series feels like too much to build alone, First Year Donor Communications gives you the worksheets, sample copy, and calendar to start from. Four weeks, $99.