On some nonprofit list, somewhere, someone right now is asking how they can get more traffic on their web site. And someone is answering by telling them how to put META tags in their site so they will get listed in search engines. Obviously this means there has to be a purpose for them to go to the web site that cannot be fulfilled with the email message itself. Last year, the most common question I was asked by journalists reporting on the Internet and nonprofits was about the role of the Internet in fundraising. It's not very interesting, and it's not actually fundraising.
Nonprofits know how to mobilize people on a personal level.
By using the Internet appropriately, they can do so on a scale never before possible. Understanding email will make this possible. Applied well, it will allow nonprofits to succeed on a whole level. Nonprofit Online News is a program of The Gilbert Center. Opinions and observations by Michael Gilbert or the authors.