1) Spring board one of your “boring” stories off of a random event or date. The Chases Calendar of Events is a good resource for all sorts of random date facts. As well, the BBC’s On This Date offers interesting historical events that have happened through the years on a particular date.

For instance, on April 10th 2008, the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement was made. How many times have you had to help students make peace with one another? That stuff doesn’t always make newsletters but its a part of your day-to-day job and it’s important to communicate those things to donors who make it possible for you to do that job.

2) Tie in a current event and how it’s affecting your ministry.

I know of a couple of staff who are losing potential student leaders because they have to leave school and find jobs because their parents can’t afford to pay for college anymore. Many donors don’t even understand that InterVarsity staff spend most of their time training up student leaders! It’s not as glamourous as the 5 people that got saved last month, but probably just as relevant to you.

3) Find inspiration from your organization’s annual report.

Many, if not most, of your donors support YOU, not necessarily the organization you work for. But there are great things happening in your organization as well! Let your supporters know about those things that are relevant.

And if you are still all out of ideas, go put on a sandwich board sign for the day and generate one of those memorable, awkward sorts of stories.

If you have recipients that are complaining that your emails are getting automatically routed to their junk folder, there is usually an easy solution to this – they need to make sure that your email address and/or domain is added to their address list/preferences.

For example, if you are sending your updates using a gmail address, here’s how to ensure proper inbox delivery in some popular e-mail programs and services:

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Having great pictures in your updates to supporters is one of the best ways to get them to read your entire update, here are a few examples and tips on how to get your newsletters read!

Here is an example of a great picture taken by Katie Siemens, on staff at the Colorado School of Mines:

a) It is of a picture of the student she wrote a story about in that particular update

b) It is close-up and not straight on

c) It’s playful

Now, I am not assuming that you have all the time in the world to run around and take the perfect photo for your next newsletter/update. Having said that, here are some tips to using photos to illustrate your communication:

1) Use an inanimate object to describe an idea or event, like a picture of a brewing cup of coffee aside a story of a meeting with a student at the local coffee shop.

2) Make sure you are in the photos often. You (and your family) are your donors’ frame of reference.

3) Candid photos show ministry in action. You don’t need to have everybody smiling for the camera at all times.

4) If you do have people smiling for the camera, close-up shots where the whites of their eyes can be seen are best.

5) Simple photos without a lot of background noise stand out.

Since you have now joined the millions out there in cyberspace that are vying for the attention of your reader, here are a few tips for writing updates that will not be spammed into the junk boxes of your donor list:

1) I know you are excited to communicate the latest and greatest going on at your campus!!!!! However, do not overuse punctuation, especially the exclamation mark!!!!!!!!!!!

2) AVOID USING ALL CAPS.

3) This rule won’t apply to you as much as the rest of the world but avoid using “spammy” words and phrases like: free, your reply is needed, click here now, or your favorite and mine – enlargement.

If one of your donors complains about not receiving your email, it could be that their spam filter is on uber-high alert. Have them put your email address in their address book so that your correspondence makes it to their inbox. Also, some of your recipients might have given you their company email address, which is not always the best idea. Companies often have strict firewalls in place – you might want to ask for another email address.