Nonprofit email efforts have come a long way in this century, from feeble to generally very good, largely due to the incorporation of the tactics and techniques of postal paper mail.
Overwhelmingly, organizations’ email approach is essentially mini-magazines, with lots of images (ideally captioned and clickable) and text topped with subheads and ending with “read more…”
The alternative is mini-letters. In a prior post, I try to make a case for further testing this now little-used approach. Here’s an additional slant on what we’re really doing in email…
In yet another earier post, I ask that you think of fundraising letters as an auditory, rather than written medium. Fundraising copywriters know this and write accordingly. It’s what works.
Direct marketing tests tell us what works but never why. I think it’s safe speculation to say auditory writing works because it simulates fact-to-face selling/fundraising.
Another factor is that, beyond all of our mail solicitiations, paper letters have largely been replace by telephone calls. Since, oh, 1940, people have transitioned away from letters into phone calls for most personal communication.
Some mistakenly think that email has replaces paper letters. 
No. Email is replacing phone. And …
… an email communication is conceptually identical to making a phone call and leaving voice mail.
The good news: good fundraising copywriters have a conversational writing style in their DNA. When web and email were relayed from the tech folks to the direct mail copywriters, style went along.
The result? Almost all emails I receive from nonprofits read like conversation, whether they’re on minimag format or the rare text-only.
A good thing. And getting better.