Is your crisis plan missing a step?

In October 2025, the federal government shutdown disrupted Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for families nationwide.

At Food Bank of the Rockies in Colorado, new donors arrived faster than any team could plan for.

What saved the moment was an automation launched a few weeks earlier, and they shared their wins at Engaging Networks’ Community Conference in DC last month.

The problem
Between mid-October and mid-November 2025, Food Bank of the Rockies brought in 10,000 first-time donors (!!!).

Emergency donors are notoriously hard to keep.

The fix
A few weeks before the shutdown, the team had worked with agency partner Raise the Roots to launch a five-email series in Engaging Networks for anyone making a first gift.

It was built for stewardship, with one email every other day:

Because the structure already existed, the team kept the automation, the email order, the emphasis on donor impact, and the survey.

What changed was the copy: it shifted from acknowledging the emergency to sharing fresh examples of how gifts were used, like stories from Thanksgiving food distributions.

The survey asked donors why they gave.

Rather than adding the shutdown as a choice, the team added an “Other” option with a comment box so donors could explain in their own words.

That comment box brought in hundreds of responses.

Gift officers used them to understand why people were giving.

That’s real-time donor research during a news event, for the price of one form field.

The results
Email click rates rose to 2.71% during the shutdown, up from a 1.74% overall average.

Survey response rate climbed to 9.51% (up from 6.06%) after updating the content to fit the moment.

As of September 30, 2026, about 18% of the donors who first gave during the shutdown had given again.

The food bank expects that number to climb heading into year-end giving season.

How to build your welcome series before you need it
Build it now. A series built ahead of time is ready the day emergency donors arrive.

Give every email one job. Donors won’t always read them all, so each one has to stand on its own.

Check back a few months later. In January, the food bank asked shutdown donors to rate two statements: “I feel confident that my gift was used as best needed” and “I expect to make a gift again in 2026.”

I LOVE this idea.

Let new donors hear from you more often. The food bank wasn’t worried about fatigue, because these people had just given.

Worries about frequency are often overblown anyway, IMHO. One nonprofit sent 33 emails for a single campaign, and fewer than 1% of subscribers opted out.

Treat your welcome series as a living document. Evergreen content has its place, but you should have a plan to update it as needed, especially when a big moment hits. 

The last thing you want is an outdated petition landing in a new donor’s inbox.

The bottom line
My favorite part of this story is that nobody built this series for an emergency.

Year-end will likely bring a wave of first-time donors at the moment they’re paying the most attention, so if a post-gift series is still on your to-do list, now’s the time.

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

‘Til next time!
Sara