# Welcome Email Template

The first email a new subscriber gets. This sets the relationship. Send it from a real person, not the brand. Configure as an autoresponder on your Action Network opt-in form (Response Settings → Email).

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**From name:** [Your first name] from [Organization] — *not* [Organization] only.
**Reply-to:** A real inbox a human reads daily.
**Subject line (pick one):**
- thanks for joining — quick question
- welcome (and a story)
- hi from [first name]
- glad you're here

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Hi [First Name],

I'm [Your full name], [your role] at [Organization]. I'm the person on the other end of this email, and I read every reply.

A few things you should know about us:

**What we are.** [One sentence — e.g., "A Black-led, member-run organization building tenant power in southwest Atlanta."] We are not a nonprofit that mobilizes you when we need bodies in a room — we are an organization that you can be a leader in.

**Why this campaign exists.** [Two sentences of story — a specific moment that led to the campaign. Not "for too long, [issue]" — a scene. "Last spring, three families on my street got eviction notices in the same week. We started meeting in [host name]'s kitchen the next Tuesday, and we've been meeting every two weeks since."]

**What you can expect from us.**
- An email twice a month — once with what we're doing, once with what you can do.
- An invite to your nearest in-person gathering within the next 30 days.
- A personal reply when you write back. Not a chatbot.

**What we will not do.** We won't sell your information. We won't email you every day. We won't pretend a fundraising email is anything other than a fundraising email.

**One small ask, right now.** Reply to this email with the answer to one question:

> **What made you join?**

A sentence is fine. A paragraph is great. We'll use what you tell us to figure out the next conversation to have with you — and we will not put your name on anything public without your explicit permission.

If you want to do more right now, [link to the nearest specific event with date, time, place].

Glad you're with us.

[Your full name]
[Your title]
[Phone number people can actually text]

PS — If you'd rather just unsubscribe, the link's at the bottom. No hard feelings, no follow-up email guilt-tripping you. Our list is people who want to be here.

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## Why this email is structured this way

- **From a person.** "MdR from Common Cause Georgia" outperforms "Common Cause Georgia" by a wide margin.
- **A story, not a mission statement.** Two sentences of scene beats five sentences of abstraction.
- **Set expectations honestly.** Tell them the cadence, the kind of asks, and what won't happen.
- **One reply question.** The reply is the start of a relationship. Make answering it dead easy.
- **A real phone number.** Texting is the highest-trust channel. If you list one, answer it.
- **A graceful unsubscribe note.** A list of people who want to be on it is worth ten times a list of people who forgot how to leave.

— Module 4, *Base Building From Scratch*