The best email marketing option for a small nonprofit

We use Mailchimp to communicate with the public via email. They sign up on our website or at an event (they have to opt in), and then we send marketing/fundraising emails about two to four times per month. It's a great way to keep people engaged and send them info that they wouldn't otherwise come across. Since our supporters span a huge age range and a region of 26 counties, it's important that we have a fast way to communicate with them. Only one person at our organization handles the Mailchimp emails for the entire org.

We integrate Mailchimp with our donor database, Little Green Light. There were some hiccups at first with getting the data transferred properly when people were signing up for our e-news through our LGL donation form (it was an LGL issue), but we got them sorted out and now it works well. I love that I can see which donors are subscribed. I wish LGL could pull data on which emails they've opened, so I don't have to do all those extra steps.

I've learned how to work with the software quirks, like building segments and limited email format restrictions (especially columns) to make emails that look really nice. We are continually tweaking our designs to capitalize on what Mailchimp does well, and testing different ways to maximize donations from our subscribers and turn them from fans into donors.