Charity E-mail Newsletters "a Waste of Time," says Obama Strategist

"Email newsletters don't get read, yet they take more effort to prepare than a 250-word email," he said. "Email is still a killer application, but only when used properly."

Gensemer urged organisations to promote their causes by adopting the digital media principles of the ‘Obama for America' presidential campaign, which raised more than $500m (£350m) in donations from more than three million individual donors online. Volunteers created more than 30,000 groups online and organised more than 200,000 offline campaign events leading up to last November's election.