Email Campaign | Nonprofit
Entrepreneurship Advocacy Day
Every year, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation hosts Entrepreneurship Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. The event brings together entrepreneurs, advocates, and policymakers to discuss the issues facing small business owners and cultivate solutions from those conversations.
However, in the middle of our recruitment, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the event to be postponed and reimagined for digital platforms. Since the pandemic affected small businesses in real time, we steered the direction of the campaign to reflect the immediate needs of entrepreneurs.
My role: plan, write, and execute an email campaign using Mailchimp to recruit advocates and entrepreneurs to talk with their representatives in Congress about issues facing entrepreneurship.
Email writing samples and strategy summaries are below.
Campaign launch
Subject: Save the date — make your voice heard In Washington, D.C.
Audience: Entrepreneurship support organizations that have a history in political advocacy.
Goal: Lay out the necessary information about the trip and offer resources on Kauffman.org to give a better picture of what to expect.
Registration is open
Subject: Register now to raise the voice of entrepreneurs
Audience: Support organizations and entrepreneurs.
Goal: Reminder to register for the event.
nominate an entrepreneur
Subject: Nominate an entrepreneur to join you in Washington, D.C.
Audience: Entrepreneurship support organizations who registered.
Goal: Bring more small business owners to talk to lawmakers and increase the foundation’s network.
covid-19 response
Subject: Advocacy trip postponed; offering help for those who need it
Audience: Support organizations and entrepreneurs.
Strategy: Communicate updated event plans and provide resources to address immediate needs of small business owners as a result of the economic fallout due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
New event schedule
Subject: The trip is back on, but with an update
Audience: Support organizations and entrepreneurs.
Goal: Inform participants on the new schedule of the event and that it will be virtual.
Advocacy in the context of Covid-19
Subject: Let ‘em know: how policymakers can rebuild
Audience: Support organizations and entrepreneurs.
Goal: Provide participants with new policy topics that are updated to fit the context of the pandemic to better prepare for their policymaker meetings.
Encourage them to begin advocacy work prior to the event.
event evaluation Survey
Subject: REMINDER: Please fill out this quick Advocacy Day survey
Audience: Support organizations and entrepreneurs.
Goal: Give participants a chance to communicate their likes and dislikes about the event so we can make it better and if they plan to return to future ones.
Email campaign | Nonprofit
America’s new business plan Request for proposal
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation launched America’s New Business Plan RFP to find and fund projects that advocate for small businesses and entrepreneurship in local, state, and federal politics. Through email marketing, we recruited more than 80 organizations nationwide to submit project proposals in need of financial support that could infuse the voice of entrepreneurs into policy debates while also promoting the foundation’s new bipartisan policy roadmap to create an equitable economy, America’s New Business Plan.
My role: plan, execute, and evaluate an email strategy using Mailchimp to drive applications from entrepreneurship advocates.
The results: Increased proposals to 45 more than the year prior and created a pool of projects that represented all U.S. geographical regions.
Email writing samples and strategy summaries are below.
campaign launch: General
Subject Line: Seeking proposals to advance entrepreneurship advocacy
Audience: Entrepreneurship support organizations that have a history of political advocacy.
Goal: Cast a wide net while limiting outreach to only participants with experience in political advocacy.
Mention the basic elements of the grant and its supporting bipartisan policy roadmap: America’s New Business Plan.
campaign launch: Start us up members
Subject Line: Seeking proposals to advance America’s New Business Plan
Audience: Members of the Start Us Up coalition, an entrepreneurship advocacy group that has worked with the foundation’s policy team.
Goal: Target a relevant advocacy group that has previously worked with the foundation’s policy team.
REMINDER:
START US UP COALITION
Subject Line: Funding projects to put America’s New Business Plan into play
Audience: Members of the Start Us Up coalition.
Strategy: Deliver to recipients who did not engage with the previous email (non-clicks and non-opens). A call-to-action was added to the end to encourage sharing the opportunity with their networks.
Last reminder:
Everyone
Subject Line: Reminder: grant application closes on Dec. 6
Audience: All previous campaign recipients that engaged with our email campaign through replies, clicks, and opens.
Goal: Boost the number of applications and provide a basic structure of the application process so recipients feel less intimidated.
announcement of winners – Email Template
Below is an email template for the foundation’s program officers to personally send to grant recipients. It includes media do’s and don’ts, boilerplate language, pre-made social posts, and quotes from associates.
Audience: Finalized grant recipients.
Goal: Provide easy-to-use language for grantees to create media releases and share to their networks.
