NFC to Non-Board/Advisory Council Member Communications
Goal
NFC looks to minimize unwanted correspondences, prevent overlap, adhere to accepted email etiquette and formal newsletter policies, and act in a consistent and professional manner in regard to all electronic correspondences with non-NFC Board/Advisory Council members, or what are referred to as “passive NFC members.”
Background
Passive, non-voting, and non-participatory membership in NFC is supported via a series of paid memberships. These memberships are at the national level not state level. While state NFC board member correspondence with passive members is not prohibited, it needs to be controlled at the national level and adhere NFC policies for a number of reasons:
Prevent inconsistent, incomplete, and/or inaccurate information from being sent out.
Lessen blocked email addresses due to too much unsolicited and/or unwanted content.
Lessen newsletter “unsubscribes” due to too much unsolicited and/or unwanted content.
If passive members block our email address or unsubscribe to our newsletter, we are unable to notify them of membership expiration, donation solicitations, merchandise promotions, etc.
Policy
NFC supports a single email address, Info@NativeFishCoalition.org. This email is used throughout the NFC website and related tools:
Board and Advisory Council member bios.
“Contact Us” buttons.
National and state Facebook pages and Instagram accounts.
Newsletter.
Online store auto-notifications.
Emails to Info@NativeFishCoalition.org are automatically forwarded to the Executive Director and National Chair.
The Executive Director personally replies to all memberships, renewals, merchandise sales, and inquiries:
Where applicable, the Executive Director will CC the applicable State Chair.
This is done to give the person who originated the transaction someone to reach out to at the chapter level if they choose to.
State chairs are not to respond to these emails unless the recipient reaches out to them.
This is done to minimize overlap and so as not to appear too pushy.
In order to maintain a level of common-look-and-feel and professionalism in regard to correspondences with non-Board/Advisory Council members, with the exception of the Executive Director replies, NFC uses a formal newsletter application, Mailchimp.
This ensures that the proper contact information, website link, logo, etc., are in place.
While National NFC is willing to support state-level newsletter mail-outs when we feel it is the best way to address something, we prefer to use Facebook and Instagram at the state level as they are more effective and pulled not pushed.
National NFC sends out a bi-monthly all-NFC newsletter, as well as renewal notices, membership solicitations, and donation solicitations.
Emails are scheduled in a way that no one receives more than 2 a month.
Chapters should not maintain their own email lists.
This is due to the fact that the list would be incomplete as states are not party to all communications with NFC members, and as a result, state maintained lists would by default be incomplete.
In addition, Mailchimp, our newsletter application, has strict policies in regard to honoring “unsubscribes,” and violations of that policy such as emailing a person who has unsubscribed, can result in the suspension or even termination of our account.
Summary
NFC believes there is a direct correlation between the frequency of unsolicited communications and blocks and unsubscribes. People are bombarded with email today, many of which are repetitive, spam, or otherwise of no interest to the recipient. This results in blocking or unsubscribing when people feel that an organization, business or agency is being too pushy.
If a state chapter feels that state-level email correspondence with Non Board and Advisory Council membership residing in that state is necessary, please work with National NFC to make sure we can provide an updated contact list and newsletter template, and schedule the release in a manner that does not conflict with other correspondences.