Email remains the most profitable channel in digital fundraising, which is a remarkable fact given how many fundraising emails read like they were written by a committee, edited by a lawyer, and approved by someone who has never met a human being.
Benchmarking studies across the sector consistently find that email drives a meaningful share of online revenue while costing almost nothing to send. The catch is that average performance is grim: nonprofit email open rates hover in the twenties (per cent), click rates in the low single digits, and donation page conversion from email lower still. Which means the gap between an average email program and a good one is not marginal. It is the difference between a channel that pays your salary and one that merely fills inboxes.
Below are six templates covering the emails every fundraising team actually sends: the appeal, the reminder, the last-chance email, the lapsed donor win-back, the emergency appeal, and the thank-you. Each includes subject line options and notes on why the structure works. Adapt freely; that is what they are for.
The rules that apply to every template
Write to one person. The best fundraising emails read like they were written by one person to one person. charity: water famously built its email voice around founder Scott Harrison writing as himself, and countless A/B tests across the sector confirm that a named human sender ("Sarah at [Charity]") outperforms a brand-name sender for appeal emails.
Subject lines earn the open; they do not need to tell the whole story. Four to seven words, curiosity or specificity, no shouting. "Carla's 6.45am arrival" beats "URGENT: EOFY Appeal 2026 Donation Request".
One link destination, many links. Every email below has a single goal and a single destination, linked at least three times: early, middle, and in a button. Multiple destinations divide clicks and kill conversion.
Mobile first, always. More than half your list is reading on a phone, probably while doing something else. Short paragraphs, front-loaded sentences, a button a thumb can hit.
Template 1: The main appeal email
Your workhorse. Send it at the launch of any campaign.
Subject line options: "The 6.45am knock" / "One suitcase, two kids, nowhere to go" / "[First name], can I tell you about Carla?"
Hi [First name],
Last month, a woman named Carla arrived at our centre at 6.45 in the morning with two children and one suitcase.
By 7.15, they had a safe room and breakfast. By the weekend, they had a plan.
I am telling you this because that half-hour turnaround only exists because supporters like you fund it before it is needed. Not after. Before.
Right now we are raising $30,000 to keep our emergency family rooms open all winter, and I would love you to be part of it.
$40 funds one night of safety for a family. $120 funds a weekend.
[Give a night of safety →]
Winter does not wait for fundraising campaigns, and neither do families like Carla's. Whatever you can give today makes the 6.45am knock answerable.
Thank you,
Sarah Chen
Centre Manager, [Charity]
PS. Every gift before Friday is matched dollar for dollar by [Matcher], so your $40 becomes $80. Same link: [Double my gift →]
Why this works. Story first, ask second, exactly one destination. The ask amounts have handles (night, weekend). The signature is operational. The PS introduces the match as a bonus rather than the headline, which keeps the story front and centre while still deploying the strongest conversion mechanic in email fundraising.
Template 2: The reminder email
Send three to five days after the appeal to non-openers and non-donors. This is the email teams most often skip out of politeness, and it is routinely among the highest-earning sends of any campaign. Resending to non-openers alone typically adds a substantial share of extra opens for close to zero effort.
Subject line options: "Did you see Carla's story?" / "Still time to double your gift" / "Quick one, [First name]"
Hi [First name],
A few days ago I wrote to you about Carla, who arrived at our centre at dawn with her two kids and a single suitcase.
I know inboxes are chaos, so I wanted to make sure you saw it, because the matched funding that doubles every gift ends this Friday.
Here is the short version:
- We are raising $30,000 to keep emergency family rooms open all winter
- $40 = one night of safety ($80 with the match)
- The match ends Friday at midnight
[Double my gift before Friday →]
If you have already given, thank you, and please forgive the nudge; the internet has not yet invented a polite way to know.
Sarah
PS. We are at 62 per cent of target. You could genuinely be the difference this week.
Why this works. It is honest about being a reminder, which readers respect. The summary bullets serve skimmers. The apology-to-existing-donors line (even with suppression in place, some crossover always happens) converts a potential irritation into a smile. The progress figure in the PS adds social proof and a live sense of momentum.
Template 3: The last-chance email
Send on the final day of any deadline campaign. Deadline emails routinely outperform every other send in a series, and nowhere is this truer than Australia at the end of June: a striking share of annual online giving lands in the final days before June 30, because deadlines are when humans do things, and the tax deadline is the realest deadline in Australian fundraising.
Subject line options: "Match ends at midnight" / "12 hours left" / "Last call before June 30 (really)"
Hi [First name],
Short email, because the clock is doing the talking today.
The matched funding on our winter appeal ends at midnight tonight. After that, $40 goes back to being $40. Until then, it is $80.
We are $4,200 short of the $30,000 that keeps our family rooms open all winter.
[Give now, while it is doubled →]
That is it. That is the email.
Thank you for everything,
Sarah
PS. If you have been meaning to give all financial year, this is the moment your past self was counting on. Gifts made by midnight tonight are deductible in this year's tax return.
Why this works. Brevity signals genuine urgency; a long email on deadline day undermines its own message. The precise shortfall figure ($4,200) makes the goal feel achievable and the reader's gift consequential. The deductibility reminder in a June 30 send is not crass; it is service journalism for your donor's accountant, and in the Australian market it is arguably the single highest-converting sentence you can write in the last week of June.
Template 4: The lapsed donor win-back
Send to donors who have not given in 12 to 24 months. Reactivating a lapsed donor is dramatically cheaper than acquiring a new one, yet most programs send lapsed supporters either nothing or, worse, the same emails as everyone else.
Subject line options: "We noticed, and we miss you" / "Was it something we said?" / "[First name], a small confession"
Hi [First name],
A small confession: I have been looking at our records, and I noticed your last gift was in [month, year].
First, thank you for that gift. It helped fund [specific outcome from that period if available, e.g. "the counselling program that supported 340 families that year"]. That mattered, and it still does.
Second, no guilt here. Circumstances change, inboxes overflow, and sometimes charities simply fail to show people what their generosity achieved. If that last one was us, I am sorry, and this email is partly a promise to do better.
If you are open to it, we would love to have you back. A gift of any size today reconnects you to the work, and I will personally make sure you hear exactly what it achieves.
[I'm back in →]
And if now is not the time, that is genuinely fine. You will always be part of what this organisation has built.
Warmly,
Sarah
PS. If you would rather hear from us less often, or about different things, just reply and tell me. A real person reads these. (It is me. I am the person.)
Why this works. It acknowledges the lapse without weaponising guilt, takes some responsibility (donors lapse at charities, not just from them), and references the donor's past impact, which reminds them of an identity they already own: someone who gives. The reply invitation in the PS turns a broadcast into a conversation and rescues relationships that a donate button alone cannot.
Template 5: The emergency appeal
For genuine emergencies: bushfires, floods, sudden funding crises, urgent service demands. Australian disaster appeals raise the majority of their income within days of the event, because emergency giving is impulsive and immediate. Your email must match that speed.
Subject line options: "Floodwater has reached the centre" / "This was not the email I planned to send" / "Emergency: what we know so far"
Hi [First name],
This was not the email I planned to send this week.
[Two or three sentences of plain facts: what happened, when, who is affected. No adjectives doing the work that facts should do. Example: "Overnight flooding has damaged our main centre in [place]. All families are safe and have been moved to temporary accommodation. Our food and clothing stores were destroyed."]
Here is what we need in the next 72 hours:
- $25 replaces a family's emergency food box
- $60 provides bedding and clothing for one person
- $150 funds a family's temporary accommodation for a week
[Give emergency support now →]
We will send you a full update within a week, whatever happens. Right now, speed is everything.
Thank you for standing with us on the hard days as well as the good ones.
Sarah Chen
Centre Manager
PS. If you cannot give today, forwarding this email to one person genuinely helps. Emergencies run on word of mouth.
Why this works. Emergencies suspend the normal rules: less story, more facts, immediate handles, explicit timeframe. The promised update builds trust and sets up the follow-up email, which in emergency fundraising often raises nearly as much as the appeal itself. It also protects you later: Australia's bushfire appeals taught the whole sector that clarity about how emergency funds will be used, stated upfront, is what keeps public goodwill when the spotlight arrives. The forwarding ask in the PS gives non-donors a job, and forwarded emergency emails convert remarkably well because they arrive with a friend's implicit endorsement.
Template 6: The thank-you email
Not technically a fundraising email, except that it is the most important fundraising email you send. See our full guide to donor thank-yous for the long version; here is the template.
Subject line options: "You did a genuinely good thing today" / "Carla's family thanks you (so do I)" / "Received, and grateful"
Hi [First name],
Your gift of $[amount] just arrived, and I wanted you to hear from an actual human being before the official receipt does.
Because of you, a family arriving at our door this winter will find it open, warm, and ready. That is not a metaphor. That is literally what your $[amount] does.
Your tax receipt is attached for your records (hold onto it for July). Your impact is not attachable, but I will send you the story of it in a few weeks, once winter is properly underway.
Thank you. Truly.
Sarah
PS. No ask in this email. Just gratitude. Enjoy how rare that is.
Why this works. It arrives fast, sounds human, restates impact in concrete terms, sets the expectation of a future update (which you must then send), and pointedly contains no ask. Donors notice. The PS says the quiet part out loud, and in testing, self-aware gratitude consistently earns replies, which is the best deliverability signal an email program can receive. (Compliance footnote: receipts for tax deductible gifts should include your charity's name and ABN, the amount and date, and a statement that it is for a gift; your donation platform almost certainly automates this. Keep that language in the receipt, and keep it out of the love letter.)
Building these into a program
Templates are ingredients, not meals. A strong campaign uses them in sequence: appeal, reminder to non-openers, last chance on deadline day, thank-you within 24 hours, impact update within six weeks. A strong program wraps that sequence in a welcome series for new subscribers and a win-back stream for the lapsed, and in Australia it hangs the whole calendar on two peaks: EOFY and Christmas, with winter appeals bridging them for welfare causes.
And one final plea from everyone who has ever audited a charity email account: test your emails by sending them to yourself and reading them on your phone, out loud, before hitting send to 40,000 people. If you would not say a sentence to a supporter across a table, it should not survive the read-aloud. The delete key is the most underrated fundraising tool in the sector.