Where do I go to send out mass emails? We are a nonprofit wanting to send out monthly newsletters.?

We are a non-profit business that has an email list of about 3000. We send out monthly newsletters via email, but have yet to find a place that I can send mass emails from. They set limits to prevent spamming and I don’t know how to get around that. Thanks for any help!

Indeed, most ISPs prevent mass emails because of the likelihood of blacklisting (preventing mail from any of their customers from being delivered).

So there are a few options you have here:

1. Use your web host’s built-in mailing lists. Not all web hosts will have these, but many do — most commonly something called Mailman. It’s a powerful application that lets you set up multiple mailing lists that can be easily customized — for instance, only allowing select people to post to it, as opposed to a general discussion list. It’s not super-pretty, and it may not work as well if you want to send out highly-formatted HTML email, but it also might be free!

2. Install your own mailing list on your web server. Takes a little more doing, but also free. See, for instance, PHPList.

3. Use a commercial, ad-supported email list, for instance, Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. These can be customized to make them announcements-only, so only you will be able to post.

4. Contract with a third-party mass-email host. The advantages here are a) they’ll handle delivery, so more of your emails will get through; b) if anyone reports you as spam, they’ll handle it (although they might ask you to prove you didn’t add someone against their will); c) they will often have built-in, professional-looking templates; e) many of them will allow you to “segment” your list, meaning sending different messages, or slightly different versions of a message, to people depending on where they live, how old they are, etc.

There are literally dozens of these services out there, most of them designed for small businesses. Some that are particularly good with nonprofits include Vertical Response, Emma, Electric Embers and Constant Contact.

And though I’m more familiar with Constant Contact, I’d have to recommend Vertical Response for you, because they offer free accounts to nonprofits who send out less than 10,000 emails per month.

For more information on this kind of software, check out Rootwork.org’s section on nonprofit tools.

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