We send a newsletter once a month to our wider community of users and supporters. This is done via Mailchimp.

Newsletter Process

Signups

People can subscribe to the newsletter using the form at the bottom of the homepage.

Import Recipients

Users who create new platform accounts and opt-in to the newsletter need to be added manually. A developer with database access needs to export the data using the query below. Then use Mailchimp's Import contacts function to add them to the main mailing list.

-- Export email for newsletter
SELECT u."createdAt", c.name as full_name, "email"
FROM "Users" u
inner join "Collectives" c on u."CollectiveId" = c.id
WHERE "newsletterOptIn" IS TRUE
  AND u."deletedAt" IS NULL
  AND u."createdAt" >= current_date - INTERVAL '2 months' -- Optional: to get only last 2 month's emails

Content

Content can come from a range of sources.

Examples:

• Announcing new features or improvements

• Tweets about Open Collective or a specific Collective

• Blog posts by Open Collective

• Blog posts and articles by other people

• Media like podcasts or videos of talks

• Exciting partnerships with sponsors

• Tips and ideas for Collective fundraising

• New noteworthy Collectives that joined

The general style is brief and straightforward, with opportunities to click through for more info.

Monthly stats / Leaderboard

The monthly leaderboard is a popular section of the newsletter, showing top backers & sponsors, top Collectives by new backers, and top new Collectives by donations. To get this data, use the following command and then put the data in the team Google Drive.

# Make sure to adapt the OC_GOOGLE_DRIVE env variable properly if needed.
# It must be set with the path were the data should be exported.
# Default: `${process.env.HOME}/Google\ Drive/Open\ Collective`
$  NODE_ENV="production" PG_URL="postgres://USER@HOST:5432/DB_NAME" npm run export:csv