A Nonprofit’s Guide to CAN-SPAM Compliance

Email marketing continues to be a powerful driver of donations for nonprofits around the world. It’s estimated that approximately one-third of all online donations are a result of email marketing; and that number continues to grow!

As attractive as email marketing is for nonprofits (forty dollars raised for every one dollar spent), nonprofits should take heed to laws regulating the potential abuse of this ubiquitous medium. It should be noted that this blog addresses the regulations surrounding email marketing, and doesn’t include a full set of best-practices. To learn more about best practices in email marketing, I highly suggest exploring this blog by Bronto, the leading Email Marketing Platform to the Internet Retailer 1000. Full disclosure, I am a Bronto!

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

While SPAM is a nuisance that’s experienced all over the web (email, blogs, IMs, etc), no media has been so inundated as that of your email. In 2003, the Bush administration signed into law the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. While commonplace now, let it not be lost that these were the first government-enforced regulations of B2C online-communication.

While commonplace now, let it not be lost that these were the first government-enforced regulations of B2C online-communication.

That being said, the government regulation does not have an exception for nonprofit organizations; thus these rules apply to both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Below, I discuss a breakdown of the CAN-SPAM Act’s requirements, and some examples of its application to nonprofit email campaigns. These requirements, and additional details, can be found on the Federal Trade Commission’s guide.

Below are the seven essential requirements to maintaining CAN-SPAM compliance during your email-campaigns:

Don’t use false or misleading header information. Header information includes the From, To, Reply-To, and routing information (e.g., domain name) related to the server you’re sending emails from. The routing information should be taken care of by your ESP, if you’re using one. If you’re not using one, you should strongly consider it, as most good ESPs assist with SPAM-CAN compliance. The email addresses you use to represent your organization should have a clear tie back to your organization, represent the entity that’s reaching out, and allow respondents to email them back. Stay away from “donotreply@nonprofit.org”. For general email campaigns, I suggest something like “donations@nonprofit.org” or “donation-help@nonprofit.org”.

Don’t use deceptive subject lines. Simply put, your subject line should not attempt to mislead your donor. There are many, many, many, blogs that discuss best-practices, and suggestions, for subject-lines to improve open rates; and I recommend the three listed before. However, to be in compliance with the CAN-SPAM regulations, simply be honest in what the “subject” of your email is. It’s important to note that donors are constantly faced with illegal and malicious emails posing as nonprofits in an effort to steal people’s identity.

Donors are constantly faced with illegal and malicious emails posing as nonprofits in an effort to steal people’s identity.

Identify the message as an ad. While this one is a bit more of a formality, you must inform the client that the message you are sending is an advertisement, or solicitation for donations. This is usually a non-issue, because it’s made obvious in the email’s call-to-action.

Tell recipients where’ you’re located. In my experience, this is the most violated CAN-SPAM regulation amongst nonprofits. The FTC requires that a physical postal address be included in your emails, usually placed in the footer, to ensure that recipients can, in some way, contact your organization.

It’s important to note that many groups try to consolidate this information into an image in their footer — don’t do that. While this technically complies with the FTC’s regulations, ESPs will sometimes categorize an email as spam if its bots can’t find an address in the text of the email.

Many groups try to CAN-SPAM requirements into an image in their footer — don’t do that.

Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. In any email, donors should be afforded the opportunity to opt out of future emails from your organization. This is most easily, and standardly, done by incorporating an unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email. Ultimately, if a donor no longer wants you to solicit to them, it’s common courtesy (and law) to remove them from your list.

Ultimately, if a donor no longer wants you to solicit to them, it’s common courtesy (and law) to remove them from your list.

Honor opt-out requests promptly. Once a donor has decided to discontinue their receipt of emails from your organization, you must honor their request in a timely (10 days) and easy (applying no burden to the donor) manner. Many times, the company an organization uses to send emails schedule sends for weeks in advance. As you’ll see in the next point, it’s the organization’s responsibility to ensure that the contracted company stops sending — however this is usually done automatically.

Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. Simply put, it’s your legal responsibility to comply with the law. If you are contracting with another company, be sure you fully understand how they take steps to comply with CAN-SPAM regulations.

Conclusion

The regulations outlined above are a summary of the CAN SPAM regulation. Please take some time to get familiar with the official CAN-SPAM Rules. These regulations apply to marketing-messages only; messages of transactional nature don’t need to follow the regulations above. Transactional messages include donation thank-you messages, updates on events that the donor has already signed up for, and any-other transaction that the donor has already previously engaged your organization in.

Penalties for violating the CAN-SPAM act are quite hefty. Each individual non-compliant email carries penalties of up to $16,000, while the content of the email may itself be subject to separate penalties under separate FTC regulations.

Each individual non-compliant email carries penalties of up to $16,000.

These CAN-SPAM regulations are relevant for emails received by donors in the United States of America. If you are soliciting donors in different countries, you should become knowledgeable of the rules and regulations in place in those respective countries. Here’s a great infographic of global spam laws.

Also, if you’re interested in why it’s called SPAM, watch this Monty Python video to unlock the mystery :).