Email newsletters that people open: a guide for organisations

Social media feeds are rented space. An email list is an audience you hold yourself, and a newsletter reaches people in a place they check every day. Nielsen Norman Group's research found that users have highly emotional reactions to newsletters, in contrast to the functional way they use websites, because a newsletter arrives in the inbox and becomes an ongoing relationship.¹

That relationship cuts both ways. The same research found that only 23% of the newsletters studied were read thoroughly and 27% were not opened at all.¹ An email newsletter for NGOs, UN agencies or companies therefore has to earn attention each time. The good news is that most of what makes it work is within your control: a clear purpose, honest subject lines and content that respects the reader's time.

Before you design a template, write one sentence on what the newsletter is for. Keeping partners informed of results, recruiting volunteers and mobilising supporters for a campaign are different jobs, and a single newsletter that tries to do all three usually does none well.

Then choose a rhythm you can sustain. Nielsen Norman Group advises that a predictable publication frequency that is not too aggressive is usually best, with an exception for breaking news, because readers learn when to expect it and are less likely to mistake it for spam.¹ For comparison, the 2026 M+R Benchmarks study found that a subscriber on a typical nonprofit list received 50 messages in 2025, of which 9 were newsletters and 31 were fundraising appeals.² A monthly or quarterly newsletter can stand out in that crowd if it is consistently worth reading.

The subject line decides whether anything else is read. Nielsen Norman Group recommends including actual content from the issue in the subject line rather than just the newsletter's name or the date.¹ A vague subject line forces people to open the email to find out what is inside, and many will simply delete it.³ Later guidance from the same group adds four practical rules:³

Compare "Newsletter, issue 14, October" with "Our new report on girls' education, in brief". The second tells a busy reader exactly why to open it. Pair it with a clear sender name that people recognise, such as your organisation's name rather than a generic address.

• Front-load the subject line with keywords and keep it to about 40 characters, because many email programs show fewer.
• Do not repeat the sender's name, which already appears in the inbox.
• Avoid using the recipient's name, which readers tend to see as mass mail.
• Be cautious with symbols and special characters, which may not display in every email program.

People scan emails, so Nielsen Norman Group advises designing newsletters to support scanning.¹ Start each issue with the content recipients value most, and design for both quick reads on a phone and longer reads when people have time, rather than a middle ground that serves neither.⁴

In practice, that means three to five short items, each with a clear headline, two or three sentences and one link to the full story on your website. Make it clear whether a link leads to a video or an article. If you include a video, describe it in words, choose a preview image that shows what it is about and state how long it lasts.⁴ The same research suggests sending newsletter news before announcing it on social media, so subscribers feel they hear it first.⁴

Write as a person, not an institution. A short note from a programme lead, one photograph with a proper caption and one clear call to action will do more than a dense digest of every activity. Before sending, read the issue on your own phone and ask whether a partner who skims it for thirty seconds would know what changed and what you want them to do.

Many teams judge a newsletter by its open rate. Treat that figure with caution. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection downloads remote content in the background by default, whether or not the reader engages with the message, so a sender cannot reliably tell when, or whether, an email was opened.⁵ The open rate shown in your email platform may therefore be inflated.

Clicks, replies and list health are more dependable. The M+R Benchmarks study, which reports click-through and response rates rather than open rates, found an average click-through rate of 0.59% for nonprofit fundraising emails and 2.3% for advocacy emails in 2025.² It also found that 4% of subscribers became unreachable because of bounces and a further 12% unsubscribed over the year.² Watch these figures for your own list over time, and compare each issue with your own previous issues rather than with industry averages.

A newsletter that lands in spam is not read at all. Google's email sender guidelines require organisations sending 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail accounts to authenticate their email, avoid sending unwanted messages and make unsubscribing easy.⁶ Google advises keeping user-reported spam below 0.1% and never letting it reach 0.3%, requires one-click unsubscribe for marketing and promotional messages, and expects unsubscribe requests to be honoured within 48 hours.⁶ Ask whoever manages your domain to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, whatever the size of your list.

In Rwanda, Law No. 058/2021 on the protection of personal data and privacy lists consent for a purpose explained to the person as a lawful basis for processing, and people must be told they can withdraw consent at any time.⁷ The law also gives people the right to object to processing of their personal data for direct marketing, and the National Cyber Security Authority is the supervisory authority.⁷ Collect sign-ups with a clear explanation of what people will receive, and never add contacts from a business card pile or an event list without asking.

• One clear purpose and audience for the newsletter
• A predictable rhythm you can sustain
• Subject line of about 40 characters that names the content
• Three to five short items, each with one link
• Videos described in words, with their length
• Clicks, replies, bounces and unsubscribes tracked over time
• SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up, with one-click unsubscribe
• Consent recorded for every subscriber