Most year-end debriefs end with the same question: Should we send more emails next year?
It’s a reasonable instinct. More email means more touches and chances to convert.
City of Hope’s 2025 results make a case for less is more. According to their agency, Allegiance Group + Pursuant (AGP), the goal was to meet the previous year’s haul.
Then the email results came in.
The Giving Tuesday rebuild
City of Hope restructured its Giving Tuesday email program into a four-week arc, with fewer total sends than the year before, and ditched the underperforming emails.
Three weeks out, they sent a save-the-date with an early giving opportunity. Donors who gave were suppressed from subsequent appeals, sparing them the heavier volume closer to the day.
From there, the team shifted to cultivation emails built around patient stories — historically their strongest creative.
The hard fundraising push kicked off about a week prior. It was built around a 5X donor match and the campaign’s “Because of You” theme.
On Giving Tuesday, the team sent four emails spaced throughout the day and tucked an SMS between the second and third send.
A match extension email went out the day after, followed by a thank you to campaign donors.
The results
Email revenue increased 140% year over year. Gifts were up 60%, and response rate climbed 46%.
It was clear: Email drove the bulk of the campaign’s performance.
The soft cultivation asks three weeks out performed surprisingly well, and the four day-of sends captured donors at different points throughout the day.
Worth noting: The text provided a complementary lift, with revenue from SMS alone up 72%.
The 5X donor match was meaningful, but the team ran the same match the prior year. The tighter cadence and the decision to cut early underperforming sends made the difference.
How to apply these learnings to your Giving Tuesday plan
Audit last year’s sends and cut the underperformers. Sometimes less really is more.
The Museum of Science in Boston also cut the number of appeals in its annual Pi Day campaign from 10 to 5, instead strengthening messaging, and nearly tripled revenue.
Think about where SMS fits in your day-of sequence. City of Hope placed their text between the second and third email, treating it as a complementary nudge.
Treat your early cultivation as a self-segmentation mechanism. City of Hope’s Giving Tuesday save-the-date wasn’t just a warm-up.
The email helped identify high-intent donors and pulled them out of a few sends leading up to Giving Tuesday.
The bottom line
City of Hope sent fewer emails to the same list and raised 140% more.
Sometimes sending more email is the answer, sometimes not. It depends.
If your instinct after last year’s Giving Tuesday was to increase volume, it might be worth questioning that after reviewing last year’s data again.
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Quick hits
Laura Blake makes the case for owning your audience instead of renting it from platforms and algorithms, and why email remains one of the most valuable channels any organization can invest in.
Michelle Cottle wrote a NYT opinion piece tearing into Democratic fundraising emails for subject lines that read like texts from a contrite boyfriend, arguing the messaging telegraphs insecurity when it should be building pride.
Solar United Neighbors is hiring a VP of Communications and Marketing to lead a 12-person team and manage a 1.2 million-person digital list. Remote, $150-200K.
‘Til next time!
Sara