Email Newsletter: OUTbio San Diego
Running a monthly newsletter for a bioscience nonprofit
Background
While my primary role at OUTbio San Diego is social media marketing, I also took the lead on their monthly newsletter, usually sent out the first Friday of the month. The newsletter is produced using MailChimp, while the graphics are made with Canva, and it combines graphic design, copywriting, project management, and team collaboration. The most important tenets of the newsletter are consistency, branding, readability, and information, so I took it on myself to create a comprehensive content creation process, brand kit, and collaboration system. Armed with a HubSpot Email Marketing Certifcation, I took over the newsletter process end-to-end – from early-stage outlining to sending out the final draft – alongside constant partnership with the other OUTbio team members to make sure everything gets approved.
The opening of the OUTbio San Diego newsletter for June 2026. Click here or on the image for a PDF of the full newsletter.
Strategy & Execution
Goals and Intentions
A good email newsletter has to be readable, easy to skim, and pleasing to the eye. OUTbio San Diego’s color palette is bright and colorful, so I always try to precede a block of text with a bold graphic banner summarizing the key points of the copy. That way, readers can scroll through the newsletter if they’re in a hurry and still pick up the most important information, such as upcoming event details. When I write the copy, I typically adapt from a longer-form social post and edit the words down to be no more than a paragraph – no one wants to be scrolling through paragraphs and paragraphs of an email that never seems to end. If there do have to be multiple paragraphs (say, for multiple event recaps), I break up the text with photos and different alignments to keep everything from becoming monotonous. The balance between graphics, text, and photos ensure that the newsletter is pleasant to look at and well-organized in addition to being informative.
My Process
The entire newsletter usually comes together start-to-finish in about two weeks. I always start with a simple outline of what needs to be included in order – usually an introduction, a calendar of upcoming monthly events, a longer preview of each upcoming event, a recap of the previous month’s events, and a closing CTA for volunteering and merchandise. There are variations depending on the month, of course, such as volunteer spotlights, Pride Month promotions, sponsorships, and scholarship opportunities, but the core elements usually remain the same. Then, I’ll post the outline to our team Slack to gather feedback and see if anyone wants an item added or removed. One of the things I love most about working with OUTbio is the prompt communication between members, so it usually doesn’t take long to get relevant feedback.
After confirming the structure, I write the copy associated with each item. Some of the copy is recycled from social posts, while some is brand-new for the newsletter. Once the copy is done and edited, I move onto graphics – a combination of colorful graphic banners and relevant photos. The graphics need to adhere to the OUTbio San Diego style guide, which emphasizes bold colors, white Avenir Next copy, rainbow imagery, and brightly-colored glyphs and graphics (see the June newsletter graphic promoting the BIO Pride Reception for reference).
After the graphics and copy are done, I move over to MailChimp to assemble everything, typically using the previous month’s newsletter as a starting template. I add relevant headers above each section, space out text and graphics appropriately, and organize the flow in a way that will make sense to readers. This initial draft is usually done by Monday or Tuesday of launch week, and I send out a test email to the OUTbio board by Tuesday evening at the latest. Wednesday and Thursday are dedicated to edits, along with more test emails of each draft, and the newsletter typically goes live by Friday mid-morning.
By the numbers
Constant Contact lists nonprofit email open rates as around 35%, while MailChimp lists the average clickthrough rate (CTR) for nonprofit emails as 3.27%. Of course there’s no one single benchmark for these kinds of things, but OUTbio San Diego’s email newsletter is close to the average with an open rate of 32.7%, while its CTR outpaces the average rate at 4.1%. The newsletter has grown significantly in subscribers in the past year, from about 800 in June 2025 to 1,175 in June 2026, and my mission going forward is to boost our open rates and add new subscribers while reinforcing our connection with our current community.
The newsletter may be challenging because of its complex process, but it’s also relatively low-maintenance, with little variation for each month. However, with each month that goes by, I try to incorporate small changes and improvements. For example, one of my minor cosmetic improvements has been to add a bit more breathing room in the newsletter – more space between sections, wider line spacing, and fewer words and glyphs on banner graphics. I’ve also maintained a singular brand identity for those banner graphics, using the same set of colors, fonts, and symbols to create a sense of unification throughout the newsletter.
Select Graphics & Copy
These six banner images are a great sampler for the graphics I create for the monthly newsletter. Click on each image to see it more clearly and read the associated copy.
