First: presenting donors with a Table of Contents as a substitute for genuine content.
It's worth noting that creating marketing emails full of links (regardless of how compelling those links are) doubles the amount of work for staff—because those links must go to web pages that often need to be created and maintained.
In my experience, the best approach is a middle one: provide your donors with real content—just make it short. (A paragraph or two at most, 2 or 3 stories at most.)
your own website remains your single greatest advantage in convincing donors to stay loyal or in drawing new supporters to your cause. Do you know what donors are looking for when they land on your site? Are you talking about it?
This underscores the importance of using Google Analytics, as well as website user surveys.
What I am not seeing, however, is credit for stewardship, especially since donors’ views on what they need from not-for-profits they support is so specific.
Interesting. May suggest increased focus on stewardship in messaging.