174 – Write Volunteer Emails Volunteers Actually Read (and Love)

August 7, 2025

Episode #174: Write Volunteer Emails Volunteers Actually Read (and Love)

In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson shares expert tips on how to craft volunteer emails that truly connect and convert. From attention-grabbing subject lines to warm, welcoming salutations and easy-to-read content, Tobi breaks down the key elements that make emails more engaging and effective. 

You’ll learn why personalization matters, how to structure your emails for maximum impact, and the small details, like a creative sign-off or a compelling P.S. that can make a big difference. Plus, Tobi offers practical strategies like A/B testing your subject lines, using email tools for smarter communication, and ditching the dull bureaucratic tone that turns readers off. 

Whether you’re trying to recruit new volunteers or keep your current team engaged, this episode will help you write emails that get opened, read, and acted on. 

Volunteer Emails – Episode Highlights

• [01:00] – The Importance of Volunteer Emails 
• [02:53] – Crafting Effective Subject Lines 
• [06:29] – Creating Friendly Salutations 
• [08:13] – Writing Readable Body Copy 
• [15:20] – Creative Closings and the Power of PS 

Volunteer Emails – Quotes from the Episode

“Why do subject lines matter? Well, sometimes they’re your first and even only impression. If folks don’t open your email, then they don’t get the information. So, it’s so important that we spend some time thinking about that subject line. Sometimes we just put a subject line in and hope it gets opened. But, we need to be very strategic here.” 

“Being friendly and fun in your emails is important because then you’re expressing a certain mood that volunteers can get on board with.”  

Helpful Links

• Volunteer Management Progress Report  
• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #173 – Is Your Volunteer Website Turning People Away?  
• Subject Line Checker 
• Use AI to Improve Emails 

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #174 Transcript: Write Volunteer Emails Volunteers Actually Read (and Love) 

Tobi: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and today I want to talk about a very essential part of communicating with our volunteers. Last week I talked about websites and how to create volunteer recruitment. Webpage hub pages, what needs to go on them, how we can make them convert better, what are the strategies for that? 

This week I really want to talk about our emails, our volunteer emails. I get a lot of email. I spend a lot of time on email and I. Sometimes these very cryptic messages from folks in our support in inbox. Sometimes it’s things like, hey, I didn’t get the download. We have like 20 or 30 free downloads. 

I’m like, which one? Or, hey, how do I sign up for your course? Well, which course, right? So, if these are any indication of the ways we’re communicating with volunteers, we got some work to do. So, whether you’re adept at writing volunteer emails or you feel like you could use a little bit of improvement, I think I’m going to give you some tips today that might help. 

I want to talk about writing volunteer emails that get open, read and acted upon. I know sometimes we feel like people aren’t opening our emails, they’re not responding, they’re not really vibing with our emails. So, I want to talk about subject lines, how we create. Subject lines that get emails opened. 

I want to talk about how we create friendly salutations, not just the generic, dear so and so, I want to talk about readable body copy. How can we chunk out information so that people can scan it and respond to it? Creative closings, we don’t. We can go beyond our generic warmly or sincerely or regards and then the secret power PS, those PSS get read and I want to talk about what we might put in those PS’s. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. How to write better volunteer emails that volunteers actually read and love. How about that? So, let’s get started. The first tip I want to talk about is subject lines for volunteer emails that get open. 

Why do subject lines matter? Well, sometimes they’re your first and even only impression. If folks don’t open your email, then they don’t get the information. So, it is so important. That we spend some time thinking about that subject line. Sometimes we just put a subject line in and hope it gets open. But we need to be very strategic here. 

And if you have low open rates, for example, to your volunteer newsletter, or people aren’t responding and opening your emails, then we need to work on the subject line. Three quick, clear principles around writing subject lines. They need to be clear. They need to be clever. Short is sweet’s part curiosity or relevance or urgency. 

And I want to give you a few subject line examples. Can you lend a hand this Saturday might be one we miss you and then insert the person’s name Really? Creating subject lines that folks will open often if we include their name in that subject line. And that’s pretty easy to do with most software today. 

You can just personalize it by including their name and if their first name is in their in your database, then it’s a good to go. You also want to. Really give people deadlines. So, if there’s something people must respond to, say action needed, respond by such and such date. Sometimes I like to pique interest, like open such and such is inside, right? 

Volunteers needed. That’s very generic and people won’t open that. So really take a minute to think about your subject lines. There are several subject line checkers on the internet, so you can check them. You can run your emails, subject lines through these email checkers, and it’ll score you and give you recommendations. 

I’ll put a link to subject line.com in the show notes, but you can learn a lot by using these subject line checkers just to start to really get better at writing great subject lines. Also, sometimes you can use a question, so how would you rate X, Y, Z, or what’s your favorite X, Y, Z? You can also include emojis. You should test emojis, sometimes emojis at the beginning. Emojis, bookending each side of your subject line. Emojis in the middle, emojis at the end, and you can test those and see if those get better open rates for you. You want to avoid spammy words, you want to avoid all caps. 

You want to avoid anything that’s really vague or generic. I will tell you; I just sent a new member update and I wrote in the new member update in the subject line, open with a, an exclamation mark and it got marked as spam. And this is like the first time this has ever happened. So, it came to my inbox as spam. 

I’m like, wait, what? So, I’m hoping it went through to most of my members. But yeah, so we must be careful what we put in that if we, you don’t want to use a lot of exclamation marks. Subject lines important. If you don’t have a compelling subject line, people won’t open your emails. When you’re writing newsletters, if you just put issue 11, number two, such and such newsletter, that’s just not going to, you got to put something that’s get tell people something that’s inside that newsletter. 

All right. Second thing. Friendly salutations, so dear, so and so, or hey there, volunteer. Not very compelling. I like to use things like, hey there, comma, and the person’s first name. It’s very friendly, it’s warm, it’s personal, it’s human. Second thing you might think about is, hello, so and so. Hope you’re having a great week so you can really speak conversationally. 

You can start with gratitude. Dear so and so, thank you for all you do on the x, Y, Z team. Right? When you’re writing emails, again, you can use your email software to insert people’s first names. I pretty much, almost in every single bulk email that I’m sending, any broadcast emails, I almost. Always include first names. 

There’s no reason not to because your So software will do it and try and if you don’t know people’s names, let’s say you’re writing out to a group that haven’t yet joined, then you can do sort of more inclusive greetings. Just try not to sound robotic. Volunteers want to feel known, but there’s no reason why you can’t be more enthusiastic. 

Sometimes we. Think that being quote unquote professional is. How we should be writing to our volunteers. But remember, our volunteers aren’t our paid staff. And so being friendly and fun in your emails is important because then you’re giving a certain mood, you’re expressing a certain mood that volunteers can get on board with. 

It’s like, oh, volunteering’s going to be fun, or, oh, I can’t wait to go to this event or attend this training or help with this shift. Definitely play around with your salutations. Third thing is make sure you have readable copy in your volunteer emails. I have seen emails that are pages and pages long, just lots of text. 

And first, you want to make sure your message is easy to scan and act upon. So sometimes that means breaking down your messages into multiple emails, sending maybe one a day. With specific info on a specific topic and then being clear in that subject line, what you’re talking about in that topic. 

Best practices, short P paragraphs, two to three lines each. Nothing more than that. Using bullet points for tasks to create with checklists or updates. Write conversationally of course, like you talk to a friend and use more you than we. In your email, so scan your emails the next email and make sure it has more use in it, because volunteers want to feel like it’s about them, not about your organization. 

And then you can always highlight important details with bolds bolding. So, you can bold dates and times, you can bold specific words. So, you what you can also do. And I’m going to put a link to chat GPT. For those of you who haven’t tried chat GPT yet, you can upload, let’s say you have a dense email that you’ve been using on a regular basis to broadcast to emails. 

Or to volunteers. If you are broadcasting something that you know, you’ve been sending it forever, it’s the same canned email. You send it to new volunteers or volunteers who will come into training, et cetera, why not just cut and paste it into chat GBT and ask chat GBT to make it more friendly, conversational, easier to read and describe a little bit about your organization and the volunteers you serve. 

And I’m telling you, you will get a better. Result. So check it out. Volunteers are going to skim your emails. They are not going to read. And when folks tell me, well, if they can’t get through our stuff, then I guess they’re not the right volunteers. Do not use your emails or your onboarding process as a screening process for your volunteers. 

Your communications need to be short, succinct, and to the point. People are busy. You need to respect their time. So, it’s not about screening people. I hate when we use. Onboarding processes to screen people. We use training to screen people. You know what screen people, when people are supposed to be screened during the application process. 

It’s an entire waste of time and resources to start to assess people based on all of these other things. Do it early on. If you can. So, make sure that body copy is important. You can also highlight things with yellow highlighter in your body copy. You can include images in your body copy. You can link to videos and do a screenshot of that video in your body copy. 

There are tons of ways to make it more readable, so think about that. Really make sure your reader respects your reader’s time. Make sure the essential information is in there. No more, no less. Okay, let’s take a quick break from my breakdown on how to write better volunteer emails and we’ll be right back, and we’ll be talking about creative closings and that power Ps, so don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.  

VOLUNTEER PRO IMPACT LAB 

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It’s a clear process that takes careful attention with a. Focus on impact. In the end. You need a system in place that’s clear, standardized, efficient, and that gets results. In addition, and maybe this is the most important, you need a volunteer program design that directly contributes to your organization’s most critical goals. 

That’s where the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab comes in. When it comes to effective volunteer engagement, our bespoke volunteer strategy Success path model, which is the heart of our resources and strategic advising, will help you transform your volunteer strategy from fundamental to a fully mature what’s working now approach and all in less time with our online assessment, you’ll quickly gain clarity on precisely where to focus your efforts and we’ll provide recommendations for the exact steps needed for sustainable growth regardless of how large or small your organization is or what your cause impact area or focus is. 

Our program development and implementation support model will help you build a strong foundation so volunteerism can thrive at your good cause. If you are interested in learning more, go to volpro.net/join and we’ll share how to get started and what’s involved.  

I’m back to talk about two more essential ways of writing better volunteer emails. Before the break, I talked about subject lines and how to write them for emails that get open. I talked about friendly salutations that we want to include in our emails to help volunteers feel connected. To us as human beings. 

We talked about readable copy and how to break it down and make sure that volunteers can skim quickly and get the essentials. I will also recommend when it comes to sending emails that sometimes. And in fact, most of the time you need to send more than one. So, if you have a training coming up, break out your training information and send more than one reminder or send more than one invitation. 

Often things get lost or pushed down in our inboxes, so the fact that we only send one or a one email to, to invite people to complete a survey, you’ve got to send more than one. Now, don’t over inundate people but think about how many you need to make sure people get the information and you don’t send the same email, although you could send the same email to all the people who didn’t open the first email. 

So, if you have, if you’re sending it through your CRM software, then this is a great idea. Just send the email out again a few days later to the group of people who didn’t open the first email. You can send the same email out. So, it’s a smart way to make sure people are, your open rates are going up and people are getting the information. 

Let’s talk about creative closings in emails. In our volunteer emails. We really don’t want to sound bureaucratic, so sincerely or best if we have a canned, I’m not a fan of a canned closing that you include in your template, in your email template. Many people include their closing in their information. 

I’m love people to include their contact information, their job title, et cetera, a call to action. We often will switch out our calls to action underneath our emails. So, we’ll include often lately, it’s about this podcast and I will have an image of this podcast underneath my contact information. 

Sometimes when we’re having a promotion, we will switch that out. So, I’m not saying don’t do that, but what I’m saying is that closing where you’re saying all the best or thank you so much, or I can’t wait to see you, any of that. When we have a canned. It all it tells our volunteers is we don’t have time to speak to them as a human. 

So, it only takes you a few seconds to write that closing, so go ahead and write it. One of my favorite closings that I use with my volunteer pro members that I physically write in every time I write a message to my volunteer pro members, if I must catch up with them about renewing their membership or I’m talking with them about something else. 

My favorite closing is, thank you for being the best part of Volunteer Pro and I really mean it. So that’s thank you for being the best part of our organization. I love that. Closing with gratitude, cheering your on together in service. See you at the next event Often. I will close with, see you on the inside. 

All kinds of things. Like I said, you include your name, role, and contact info. You are a real person but just make sure we go beyond the regards or sincerely and don’t make it canned because volunteers get your emails more than once and then it really starts to feel like you’re not attending to them. 

Okay. Final thing I want to talk about today is the power PS. Your PS is one of the most read parts of your email. For some reason people got to read that PS, and so people will read it first and last. Sometimes they’ll skim down, they’ll read it, and then they’ll read the whole email. So, your PS should be used to reinforce the key action, the key call to action. 

So don’t forget, in your email copy, you can write the call to action. Like, let’s say register for upcoming orientation training, and then your PS can say, remember. Don’t forget to register for the new volunteer orientation. You can do so here. You can reinforce what’s already in the body copy. You can also add warmth. 

Just add some fun thing with gratitude. Always. We love everything you’re doing here, those kinds of things. You can also share a bonus. Like, hey, download this free cheat sheet before our training and click here. Right? So, there’s lots of ways to use that power. PS I sometimes will do a PS and a PPS, so there’s nothing wrong with adding two PS’s. 

Sometimes we do that. I do that sometimes with our Volunteer Pro Weekly member. Update emails that I send out to our volunteer Pro impact lab members every Monday that reminding them about what’s coming up, where the replays are, and I usually share some leadership tips in the body copy. So, your power PS is very, very powerful in terms of, I always include, hey, if you need any. 

Help logging into the system or have billing questions, reach out to us at wecare@volpro.net. And I use that in every PS in every Volunteer Pro Impact Lab Weekly member update email. So. You can also include sort of standing items that encourage people to reach out to your support email. So, lots of things you can put in that power PS you can do promotional things about what’s coming up. So, lots you can do. Again, everything you do with your emails you need to test. These are tiny. Changes, but as a group can start to improve your emails, once people start to get the message that your emails, I’m not that, that’s, that wasn’t a joke, but it is funny, right? 

People start to get the message very meta anyway. No pun intended, but if you keep making these tiny changes and people start to see or get the message that you’re improving your communications, they’ll want to start opening and they’ll see that there’s valuable information. Now, that’s the kind of key takeaway though, that inside your emails there is valuable information for your volunteers. 

You want to think about what you want them to do. You want to think about giving them information and. Usually you want one call to action per email. If you’ve got a lot a checklist of things to, for people to do, it’s going to feel overwhelming sometimes if they’re small items and you have 1, 2, 3 quick things for people to do. 

That’s fine, but don’t give people a mile long list. Break it into smaller chunks, and you can even preload those into, if you have your CRM software does drip emails or email campaigns, you can preload these and then you can tag email volunteers, and it can start to fire every few days or every day. So, there’s ways to do this to save time. 

So those are some things that I really wanted to help you with because I sometimes I get emails that really are quite cryptic, quite just people haven’t spent any time. And then I’m trying to figure out on my end what the heck they’re trying to ask me. So, I often must respond, and this is taking time outta my day because this person didn’t take out time out of their day to write me an email. 

That’s complete. That’s the, uh, final thing I would say, make sure that you’re not assuming people know what you’re talking about. Like, I’ll see you at the coming training. Well, which training? What day, what time? Right? So, we want to make sure we’re including the complete information, but no more than that. 

We talked about creating strong subject lines so emails can get open, creating warm salutation so people feel like you’re connecting with them as a real human to human. We talked about writing clear body copy so that people can skim and act on your information. We talked about creative closings, so again, you’re creating that sense of connection and. 

Gratitude, right? We got to always share gratitude in our emails with our volunteers. And then the powerful PS we talked about that all these aspects can make your volunteer emails shine. You’re not just sharing information. When you write emails to your volunteers, you’re setting the tone, you’re creating emotion, and that emotion can create connection. 

So, take them seriously. So, this week pick one email to improve, whether it’s a broadcast email that you send out to everyone or a single one-on-one email you’ve sent out or are going to send out. Think of ways to improve and. There’s nothing wrong with having a set of email templates that you can use as starters, but I always encourage you when you have an email template that used for a specific type of communication, that you tailor it to every volunteer, and then, hey, give us feedback. 

We’d love to hear. You can write in the comments. We’d also like you to share this episode with anybody that might be able to improve their emails as well. So, thank you so much for listening this week. This is a shorty, but so important, so I hope that you can think about how you can improve both your websites. 

I’ll put the link to the last week’s episode, but also your email communications so important. We send so many emails to our volunteers, and we often don’t think about how to make them better. So I hope this has helped. If you’d like, give us a rating. We love those five-star ratings. Share in the comments how you’ve made changes to your emails and what’s getting better. And join us next week, same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Have a great weekend, everybody.