3 Steps to Revive Your Nonprofit's Email List

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), where I’m director of engagement, faced a daunting challenge a couple of years ago: How to re-engage the many folks who were not reading or acting on our emails. It’s a common problem for nonprofit organizations and beyond, and one that’s crucial to address.

Here’s how we tackled our "dead" email list:

First, we segmented our "inactives:"

• We defined "inactive" as anyone who’s never donated (online or off) and hasn’t opened, clicked or taken any action from an email in the last 12 months.
• We segmented the "inactive" people on our list.
• We excluded them from "regular" email campaigns and messages.