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Add Donors to your MailerLite and Mailster Email Marketing Lists

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Version 1.2.0 of Newsletter Connect comes out today and adds support for two new email marketing providers: MailerLite and Mailster.

Never heard of them?

I’ll make a confession: neither had I! But after working on this release I have been very impressed with both products. Read on to learn what makes these two email marketing products shine.

MailerLite: Simple, Affordable with All the Features You Need

MailerLite markets itself as an affordable alternative to market leaders like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and ConvertKit. And if price is a key concern for you, MailerLite could be an excellent choice for you: their Forever Free plan includes all their features (including automation & 24/7 email support) and doesn’t require an upgrade until you hit 1000 subscribers. Once you hit that threshold it’s still pretty affordable — check their pricing to see what your monthly bill would be.

No matter which plan you are on, you have access to the full set of MailerLite features. That includes a drag and drop editor for creating emails, access to pre-designed email templates, subscriber management, popup and landing page makers, and automation. The app dashboard is clean, simple and intuitive.

Our integration with MailerLite allows you to easily start adding donors to your lists (called groups in MailerLite). As with all our newsletter integrations, you can subscribe donors to different lists depending on the campaign they donate to and you can choose whether to show an opt-in or opt-out in the donation form, or subscribe donors automatically without any opt-in.

Mailster: Powerful Newsletter Plugin for WordPress

I hadn’t heard of Mailster, but I knew it by its previous name: MyMail. The renamed and revamped product is a beautiful, rock solid newsletter plugin for WordPress.

Mailster allows you to create campaigns, manage subscribers and set up powerful auto responders, right there in your WordPress dashboard. Everything is intuitive and easy to use.

Unlike MailerLite and other subscription-based email marketing services, Mailster has no recurring fees. You buy it once for $49 and then have access to lifetime plugin updates and the ability to send as many emails as you want, forever. You can also purchase additional premium templates for your email campaigns.

Since Mailster lives in your WordPress dashboard, it’s very easy to use it alongside Charitable. With Mailster and Newsletter Connect activated on your site, you can start adding donors to your Mailster lists. You could even create separate lists for different campaigns, with unique autoresponders for each — it’s a powerful combination.

Looking for a different email marketing provider?

Do you use an email marketing service we don’t support? Let us know!

We added support for Mailster and MailerLite after customers asked for it, and we would love to continue to expand the collection of email marketing services you can use for your non-profit’s email marketing and newsletters.


If you are already using Charitable Newsletter Connect and you have activated your license, you can update to version 1.2.0 via your WordPress dashboard. You can also download it from your account area.

Not sure if Newsletter Connect is for you? Find out why email marketing is an essential tool for every modern non-profit.

author avatar
Eric Daams

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Improvement Payments

💸 Introducing Tiered Rates for Fee Relief: Match the Ask to the Gift!

Fee Relief asks your donors one short question at checkout: would you like to cover the processing fee on this gift? Until now that question used a single rate for every donation on a gateway, so a $10 gift and a $500 gift were asked for the same percentage. Fee Relief 1.3.0 lets you set as many donation bands as you like, each carrying its own rate. Why this is important:

  • 🪙 Gentler on small gifts: A fixed transaction cost is a far bigger share of a $10 donation than a $500 one, so bands let you ask for less at the bottom.
  • 🎚️ As many bands as you need: Each band carries its own percentage and its own fixed amount, and the top band runs on with no upper limit.
  • 🛑 An optional ceiling: A Maximum fee field stops any donor being asked for more than a number you choose, however large the gift.
  • 🔌 Set per payment gateway: Stripe can run on four bands while Windcave and Payfast stay on a single rate, because bands belong to a gateway and not to your whole site.
  • 🛡️ Nothing changes until you say so: Your current rates stay exactly as they are until you switch Use Tiered Rates on under Charitable » Settings » Advanced » Fee Relief.

Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams
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  • 📈 Every figure has a trend: Pick a period and the tiles and the chart move together, with each total shown against the previous period.
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  • 📤 Export the whole summary: Send the full overview out as CSV or PDF, ready for a board pack or a funder report.
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Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams
Feature New

🎟️ Introducing Charitable Events: Sell Tickets Inside Your Campaigns!

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  • 🎟️ Every ticket is a donation: Ticket sales run through the gateway you already use and count toward the campaign goal, with everything managed under Charitable » Events.
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Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams
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Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams
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💰 Accept Recurring Donations with Windcave and Charitable

A donor sets their gift up once on Windcave’s secure payment page, and Charitable bills every renewal after that on schedule. Why this is important:

🏦 Organizations banked in New Zealand or Australia: monthly giving on the gateway your bank already set you up with, with no second processor to onboard.
⛪ Churches taking regular tithes and offerings: congregants set their own schedule once, which is the simplest way to launch recurring church giving without a separate platform.
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Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams