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Fundraising Emails to Help Those Struggling During the Pandemic

Beefree team
Beefree team
Jun 11, 2020
Fundraising Emails to Help Those Struggling During the Pandemic
Fundraising Emails to Help Those Struggling During the Pandemic

Fundraising emails can go a long way in raising both financial support and general awareness for a cause. But often, they can be extremely tricky to write. How do you ask people for their money without coming across the wrong way?It’s a delicate balance. So today we’re sharing some tips and fundraising email examples from a handful of brands that did it right. Take a look at these fundraising emails and get some ideas on how you can help people — whether you're looking to help those hurting due the COVID-19 pandemic or whether you want to contribute to Black Lives Matter efforts or other causes.

Fundraising emails can go a long way in raising both financial support and general awareness for a cause.

Rework your mission statement

This is a great time to revisit your “why,” tweaking this statement to make it specific to the pandemic or anti-racist endeavors or any other cause. JDRF, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, did a great job of recasting what it stands for in light of COVID-19. The foundation clearly explained that COVID is impacting fundraising efforts and that T1D patients might be in need during this time. Similarly, if you’re fundraising for something other than the pandemic, communicate to your donors and readers how the pandemic is affecting your efforts.Subject line: Last chance to close this gap (and double your income)

fundraising email example

Add a deadline

Creating a deadline for donations can give your fundraising email a sense of urgency, motivating people to give now before it’s too late. Jabari Brisport does this in their subject line, body copy and CTA, telling readers that “we’re down to the wire” and “we can do this!” This is a common strategy in messages about the last minutes of an e-commerce sale, and it works for fundraising emails, too.Subject line: Only 5 hours left

fundraising email sample

Create a sense of community

If the hurry-up-and-donate fundraising email template doesn’t appeal to you, aim to create a no-pressure environment instead. That’s what Care/of did, sending a calm, pastel email that reminded readers we're all in this together. The email mentioned how Care/of is starting the fundraising internally and then ended with a soft CTA asking readers to donate if they’re able.This isn’t a “better” choice than creating a sense of urgency — both approaches can be effective. Make your decision based on whichever tone is more appropriate for your brand, and on what’s worked for you in the past.Subject line: Help us support NYC health workers 

fundraising email template

Explain what the money will be used for

Before donating their hard-earned money, people want to know what that money is going to be used for. Chalait spelled it out: Its cafes were closed, staff members were struggling financially and 100% of funds raised would go straight to those employees and their families. It’s essential to be transparent about where the money is going as you craft the copy of your fundraising email campaign.Subject line: Support our staff and take advantage of free shipping 

fundraising email

Don't forget your fundraising email subject lines

These fundraising email subject lines sourced from our inbox all have a few things in common. For one, they’re specific, explaining what your money will do or what you can win. Second, they use terminology like “we,” making you feel like you’re part of the effort. And finally, they’re short and concise. Take a look:

  • Help end brain cancer with your gift
  • Help us make an impact for every mother
  • Your support got us here — we need you again
  • Raise more, save more with our fundraising program
  • Earn up to a $750 gift card during the Fashionable Fundraiser

Share stories

Storytelling is a powerful and effective tool to use in your fundraising emails. Our brains are wired to immediately connect with stories. So when you share a true story of the people you’re helping, your readers will be drawn in. Hot Bread Kitchen adopted this approach by telling the story of one of their donors — Masa Gong, who could personally relate to the kitchen’s mission and raised money for the nonprofit.Subject line: Rebecca, be a Hot Bread Kitchen champion and fundraise for breadwinners. 

fundraising email best practices

Provide an incentive

Offer an incentive in your fundraising emails for people who donate. Many organizations will have different “tiers” of prizes or perks available based on how much people raise. Sunday Riley promised a thank-you gift for anyone who fundraised for a benefit 5K, adding that the first 1,000 people would receive something extra, too. Gifts like these not only encourage donations — they strengthen those all-important customer relationships, too.Subject line: Calling all fitness levels (yes, you)

fundraising email ideas

Say thank you

When your fundraising email campaign is over, remember to send a follow-up thank you email. This message should specifically state how the money was used and what impact was seen. After a big fundraising push, the mission manager at Thrive Market sent a simple plain text message thanking donors and sharing the results.Subject line: Thank you! $65,000 raised for COVID-19 relief

fundraising email thank you

Wrap-up: Use these fundraising email templates

Did these fundraising email ideas spur thoughts of your own? Get started with our fundraising email templates. The Support Fundraising email template, created by designer Andrea Dall’Ara, is specifically meant for fundraising during the pandemic. This free email template utilizes a simple interface with lots of room for you to share the information your customers need to give to a good cause.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

You can also use a blank template or an industry-specific email template from our catalog, which has hundreds of email templates ready to edit.Use these tips and templates to create a fundraising email campaign and mobilize your customers to give back.

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Fundraising Emails Cover

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We’ve all been there: You craft the perfect email, hit “send”, and just as you settle into the satisfaction of a job well done, someone slacks you: “Hey, something doesn’t look right with that campaign.” 

If this sounds familiar, you should know that you’re not alone: According to the 2025 Really Good Email Survey “90% of email marketers say they have a history of noticing mistakes in their emails after they’ve hit the send button.

This becomes especially common when your team constantly juggles multiple campaigns or makes edits until the last minute. Sadly, even the smallest mistakes don’t just slip through the cracks; they cost you.

Luckily for us all, mistakes can be avoided. And no, not by lighting a Pre-Send Protection Candles™ and hoping for the best. But rather by equipping your team with the right tools that work with your team – not slow them down. Let’s talk about it!

Building your team’s safety net for mistake-free emails with Beefree 

When everyone involved in the email creation process is aligned and supported by smart systems, executing mistake-free emails becomes second nature. Instead of scrambling to do damage control, you’ll want to set up the tools and processes that help your team focus on what they do best: creating emails that connect, convert, and confidently represent the brand.

In this article, we’ll discuss how you can use Beefree to: 

  • Reduce human errors 
  • Implement systems of checks and balances 
  • Establish guardrails & frameworks for on-brand email design

1. Catch mistakes before they happen with Smart Check

Missing links that lead nowhere? Forgotten subject lines? HTML emails that get clipped in Gmail? It’s easy to make little mistakes that derail your campaign’s performance. 

Learn more about Smart Check → 

Beefree’s Smart Check automatically checks your designs and alerts you of any red flags so you can fix them before they cost you opens, clicks, or conversions. Think of Smart Check as your built-in QA partner who will catch:

  • Missing links
  • Heavy images that could slow down email load times
  • Missing subjects & preheaders that impact engagement
  • Missing alt text on images that hurt your email’s accessibility
  • Large HTML files that might affect deliverability (or get clipped in Gmail)

2. Keep every email on-brand with built-in guardrails 

Most of us don’t nail the perfect campaign on the first try. Great emails are a team effort. However, when multiple teams are involved in the email creation process, branding can quickly go off the rails. 

A misused font, clashing colors, or buttons that are too small to click don’t just make emails look disjointed—they can damage your brand’s credibility.

With Beefree’s Advanced Style Kit, you can set clear, predefined guidelines for fonts, colors, spacing, and more—so every design starts on the right foot. Once configured, all new emails automatically inherit your brand styles, reducing the need for constant oversight and minimizing errors.

Advanced user permissions let you lock down specific design elements, giving you full control over what can (and can’t) be edited. That means anyone on your team—regardless of design expertise—can confidently create emails that look and feel like your brand.

3. Empower your team to create with confidence with reusable content

When your team isn’t bogged down by the cumbersome process of creating content from scratch (or fear of going off-brand), they can move faster—and with far more confidence.

With Saved and Synced Rows, you can provide your team with pre-approved content blocks—like headers, footers, and other commonly used design elements—that they can use in their designs without creating them from scratch. That ensures design consistency, eliminates redundant work, and makes email creation a lot faster.

Learn more about Saved Rows → 

4. Ensure your team is aligned with centralized reviews and approvals:

Creating the perfect email often takes a team of designers, copywriters, marketers, and other team members working together. But when multiple people are involved, endless back-and-forth and feedback scattered across multiple conversations and channels can slow things down, lead to miscommunication, and ultimately cause mistakes. 

With Beefree’s built-in commenting, your team can collaborate and share feedback where the work is actually happening—right inside the builder. And if you’d like to involve external reviewers into the review process, you can do that as well. 

Learn more about commenting → 

Plus, with Beefree’s built-in Approval flow, you can ensure your designs are reviewed and approved by the right stakeholders. Stay aligned with real-time notifications on design changes, lock edits on approved content, and get a clear view of project status for smoother team collaboration and high-quality results.

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5. Need an additional pair of eyes? Use the power of AI to support your team

Take some weight off your team's shoulders and use AI to support them in the final stretch. Whether it’s catching typos, flagging inconsistencies, or suggesting optimization, AI can be a saving grace when deadlines are creeping in.

For those times when you can’t remember the difference between “there, their, and they’re,  Beefree’s  AI Writing Assistant is there to help. This eager-to-learn helper can  review your copy for grammatical errors, tone of voice, and even share suggestions for making it just a bit more compelling. Our AI Writing Assistant can also seamlessly translate content or automatically generate ALT text for images to enhance the accessibility of your emails. 

Learn more about AI-powered content creation in Beefree →

The tangible cost of email mistakes

Mistakes don’t just impact performance; they slowly erode credibility. What starts as a small oversight can be a massive inconvenience for your readers, sending them straight to the unsubscribe button. As for your team, mistakes chip away at their confidence. Instead of brainstorming for the next campaign, they’re scrambling trying to figure out how to do damage control.   

When done right, email is a powerful tool for connecting with your audience. But a single mistake can unravel that connection and undermine trust.

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  • An awkward typo might signal a lack of attention to detail
  • An off-brand design can make your brand look disorganized
  • An email that gets clipped in Gmail because it’s too big means some subscribers might never see the full email content.

Design error-free emails and send with confidence with Beefree 

Beefree helps teams of all sizes create polished, on-brand emails—without the risk of costly errors. With built-in safeguards, streamlined approval flows, and collaboration tools that keep everyone aligned, Beefree acts as your team’s system of checks and balances. From first draft to final sign-off, you’ll have everything you need to send with confidence, build trust, and get results.

Try Beefree's Business for free for 15 days and get access to all of Beefree’s tools that help you catch mistakes, streamline collaboration, and send with confidence every time. Or schedule a call with one of our experts to discover everything Beefree can support your team.

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Marketo Engage is a powerful tool for marketing automation, but when it comes to email design flexibility, many users find its built-in editor limiting. Creating visually compelling, mobile-responsive emails often requires custom coding or workarounds, slowing down workflow and making it harder to execute high-quality campaigns efficiently.

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This article explores:

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Frequently asked questions on using Beefree with Marketo Engage

Can I use Beefree with other ESPs besides Marketo Engage?

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For a full list of our native integrations visit [https://beefree.io/integrations].

Are there any limitations when exporting Beefree emails to Marketo?

Yes, there are a few important limitations to be aware of:

  • Charset emojis are not supported in Marketo. Including emojis in your email content may result in an error. To prevent this, Beefree automatically replaces unsupported emojis with a placeholder. For more details, refer to the [Marketo documentation on emoji support].

Preheader text is not a native field in Marketo. However, Beefree includes it by embedding the preheader directly in the email's HTML code during export.

Additional resources and links

Why you should use Beefree with Marketo Engage

By integrating Beefree with Marketo Engage, marketing teams gain a faster, more flexible way to build high-converting, on-brand email campaigns—while leveraging Marketo’s powerful automation and analytics to track performance and optimize results.

  • Design responsive, professional emails with ease.
  • Maintain brand consistency across every message.
  • Collaborate efficiently and gain insights to improve campaign performance.

Ready to elevate your Marketo email marketing? Try Beefree today and streamline your entire email creation process.

Start your 15-day free Business trial today!

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