A roadmap for turning trail users into long-term supporters.

Services: Email Audit · Audience Strategy · Segmentation Framework · Email Journey Development · Mailchimp Optimization · Reporting & Analytics Setup

Selected as a 2025 Values in Action Award recipient through HOME Agency’s nonprofit initiative.

The Challenge

TART Trails has been connecting people to the outdoors in northern Michigan for over 30 years. Hundreds of miles of trails. A loyal, engaged community. And something most nonprofits spend years trying to build: a consistent email program supported by an audience that was already highly engaged.

They weren’t broken. That’s what made this interesting.

The challenge wasn’t fixing a failing program, it was helping a strong one work smarter. TART had the audience, the cadence, and the goodwill. What they needed was a clearer strategy for turning email from a weekly update into a tool that could move people from trail users to donors, advocates, and long-term supporters.

The Approach

We started with a full audit of TART’s Mailchimp program, not just the metrics, but the audience behavior behind them.

What we found was a strong foundation: high deliverability, a reliable weekly cadence, and an audience that was already engaged. The opportunity wasn’t fixing a broken program. It was building a smarter one.

Open rates showed people were paying attention. The next step was creating more intentional pathways to engagement through segmentation, audience journeys, and ongoing optimization.

From there, we developed a four-part roadmap:

1. List Health

A structured approach to list hygiene, re-engagement campaigns, and subscriber management designed to protect long-term deliverability.

2. Audience Segmentation

A behavior-based segmentation framework built around engagement signals like clicks, event registrations, and donation history to make communication more relevant over time.

3. Email Journeys

Audience journeys designed to guide supporters from first touch to deeper involvement through education, advocacy, volunteering, and giving.

4. Testing & Measurement

A reporting and optimization framework built around benchmarking, A/B testing, and ongoing performance analysis to support smarter decision-making over time.

The Results

TART Trails left with a clear, actionable roadmap for an email program that performs more strategically without increasing volume. A segmentation strategy they can build into gradually. Journey frameworks ready to implement in Mailchimp. And a reporting structure that transforms reporting into a more actionable decision-making tool.

The engagement was completed through HOME Agency’s Mission Meets Action initiative, which provides strategic support to mission-driven nonprofit organizations.

Sometimes the most valuable thing you can give a client isn’t a campaign. It’s clarity on what’s already working, and a roadmap for what comes next.