We would like to send 'mass marketing' emails (freindly newsletters mainly) to around 600-700 contacts and leads (subscribers). We have done this using mailchimp and hubspot in the past - we moved to NPSP start of 2026. We have installed Salesforce Foundations (lite version of marketing cloud i believe).
Does anyone have a good advice/steps/tips how to do this?
Should we use salesforce to do this or another app (connected or otherwise)?
Will the email always be a campaign?
Is the marketing app different to NPSP?
Thank you!
Jonathan
#NPSP
Hi Jonathan - good news: for a newsletter to 600-700 people you can absolutely do this natively now, and Salesforce Foundations is the right tool for it. Taking your questions in order:
Is the marketing app different to NPSP? Yes - they're separate things living in the same org. NPSP is your constituent/donation data model (Contacts, Households, Opportunities). The marketing capability that came with Salesforce Foundations is a distinct product layered on top; it just uses your NPSP contacts and leads as the audience. So they complement each other rather than being the same thing.
Salesforce vs another app? Since you already have Foundations, I'd start there rather than re-connecting Mailchimp/HubSpot. Keeping it native means engagement (opens, clicks) lands right on the Contact/Lead with no sync to maintain - a big win for a small team. The main thing to check is Foundations' monthly email send allowance: for a newsletter to under 1,000 subscribers it's usually fine, but confirm the cap fits your frequency. If you outgrow it, the upgrade path is Marketing Cloud Growth (and nonprofits often get discounted licensing via the Power of Us program).
Steps: verify your sending email/domain, build your audience as a segment (the newer Marketing Cloud in Foundations uses Data Cloud for segmentation), create the newsletter in the email builder, then send or schedule. Set up an unsubscribe/preference option too - the marketing tool handles opt-outs properly, which matters for compliance and deliverability.
Will the email always be a campaign? No - the email send and a Salesforce Campaign are separate things. You create and send the marketing email to a segment; a Campaign is the object you use to track a marketing initiative and its members/ROI. You can (and often should) associate the send with a Campaign for reporting, but the email itself isn't a campaign.
One simpler alternative if Foundations' marketing feels heavier than you need: native List Email (in Sales/Service Cloud) can send a basic email to a report or campaign of recipients - fewer bells and whistles, no real automation or templating, but quick for a plain newsletter.
Hope that helps you get the newsletters flowing!
