An email list that starts with advocacy first

This is a feature in our Partner Profile series, where we highlight world-class email programs growing their lists on Civic Shout.

Last summer, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill and cut Medicaid by trillions.

For the digital team at Caring Across Generations, a national organization fighting to make care affordable and accessible, the first email after the vote was one of the hardest they’d ever written.

They’ve spent nearly four years answering the same question: how do you keep people showing up when the news won’t stop? 

Their answer has shaped everything about how their email program works.

Advocacy is the whole point
Advocacy emails are the program at Caring Across Generations. Everything else works around them.

Online petitions, public comment submissions, advocacy forms, calls to Congress. The list responds strongest to these emails.

The emails that hit hardest have a specific target and a direct way to take action. 

A recent public comment campaign on proposed Medicaid work requirements had all three: a federal comment portal, a firm deadline, and a complex proposal the team distilled into plain language.

Their audience skews caregiver, people who are financially and systemically under-resourced. Leading with donation asks would ignore the reality of who’s on the other end of the email.

The stories that outperform everything else
The team has found that story-based emails from people directly impacted by care policy consistently outperform standard sends. 

Medicaid content in particular beats industry benchmarks on conversions, especially when the email leads with a caregiver’s own words.

That insight drove a major campaign effort around the Protect Medicaid fight. Caring Across Generations collected thousands of personal stories from supporters about what cuts to care would mean in their lives.

Those stories showed up across the campaign’s biggest moments. 

At 24-hour and 60-hour vigils on the steps of the Capitol, both live-streamed to over 40k viewers online, and in coalition partner events and op-eds.

Showing up during hard news cycles without making the moment about your organization is one of the hardest calls in digital right now, which makes putting the voices of people living the consequences front and center all the more critical.

Fundraising earns its spot
When Caring Across Generations does fundraise via email, the timing is intentional. 

The ask comes after a win or a milestone, so supporters already have context for why they’re being asked and where their donations will go.

The team’s rule of thumb: fundraise on programs your audience has already seen in action, or better yet, has already been a part of. 

Sometimes that means playing the long game, but the trust it builds compounds.

The team’s guiding principle is that people on progressive email lists are searching for authenticity, connection, and a reason to hope. 

If that’s not baked into the strategy, the rest of the program is missing the point.

How to make advocacy work harder in your program
Give advocacy emails real estate on your calendar. If your sends are overwhelmingly fundraising, test one advocacy email per month with a specific target and a real deadline.

Advocacy emails drive clicks because there’s a real action to take, and those engagement signals feed directly into your sender reputation and deliverability.

Let impacted voices lead. Your next appeal will land harder if the story comes from someone living the issue.

Sequence your fundraising after the action. When supporters have already signed, called, or commented, the donation ask has built-in context.

Consider testing the sequencing of an appeal before, during, and/or after the advocacy campaign.

The bottom line
There’s something worth paying attention to here: an email program built around action, where the fundraising works because it’s never the first thing out the door.

If your supporters came to your list to make a difference, your program should reflect that before it asks for their wallets.

Check our events list for more or reply to this email to submit one for consideration.

‘Til next time!
Sara