Obtaining Homeowners Email Addresses for Newsletters/Communications

You CAN'T require email addresses or communication from your Members, unless it's in your documents.
(Don't even try it, you will be out of date in no time.)

OFFER the email communication as an alternative, in order to save on your postage.

But you still have to use snail mail to ensure that everyone gets the communication, for those who opt it.

That's the reality of it all.

I, myself, like an in-hand, hard copy, newspaper and newsletter.

there are many free copy web sites you can use. a google search will get you dozens.

However, I encourage you to focus less on those sites with their product than simply doing a search for a topic of interest to your HOA, finding some interesting information, and writing your own, quick copy. It takes a bare modicum of skill and time, honestly, to find two or three good, simple articles on the web on "burglar-proofing your home", for example. Read them and you will quickly see some common threads, (usually, almost exactly similar words), and you can borrow the ideas and write three paragraphs yourself, incorporating your own HOA and neighbors into the paragraphs, both personalizing it and making it your own creative work. It's honestly just a few minutes per article more to properly edit, personalize, add your own words/thoughts to an idea from the web than it is to cut and paste that idea itself, AND, you have added interest to the article and made it your own.

Quick example:

Cut/paste directly from source:

The two enemies of any burglar are time and visibility. The longer and harder you can make their job of entering your home and removing your property, the closer you are to being “burglar proof”. Of course in reality, there is no such thing as a 100% burglar proof home, you should still pursue this as if it were an absolute.

Six simple ways towards ensuring that the would-be burglar will be detected and hopefully caught in the act are:

Install a glassbreak detector on your home alarm system. A glass break detector will use an audio signal to detect the sound of your windows being cracked and will trigger the alarm. If the alarm is a silent response it is likely that they could be caught in the act with a fast response time.

Install locks on all of your windows. Especially make sure that the ground floor windows are locked and any other windows that can be accessed by climbing.

Redone in your HOA "style"

No one wants their home, or their neighbor, to be a victim of a crime. Burglarproofing your home can help reduce the chance that you are a victim. One key to that is to make your home look like too much work for the burglar. The longer and harder you can make their job, the closer you are to being skipped over for someone who makes their job easier. There is no such thing as a 100% burglar proof home, but you can reduce your risks by taking six simple steps.

Install locks on all of your windows. Especially make sure that the ground floor windows are locked and any other windows that can be accessed by climbing. Don't think that burglars can't reach attic windows or third floor balconies, they can. Test your windows, and see if you can 'break in'. If you can, a burglar certainly can.

Install a glassbreak detector on your home alarm system. These can be purchased through local security system vendors found in the yellow pages. While the board can make no recommendations, ask your neighbors, perhaps they have good experiences with some companies.

There: I stole from the article, but I added my own style, ideas, and words to create a new article of my own. If my HOA has balconies, mention them. If not, take that out. If there are no attic windows, second floors, etc., that's fine. Customize the list of 'burglar proof plants" to reflect those available in your area (ie, cactus in Alaska won't really work). Rephrase, repackage, and I think you will like the extra little bits of time you put into it, and your HOA will benefit with a newsletter aimed at the neighborhood, and not just a collection of free copy.

Yes, we have a website that I update and homeowners and others are visiting it. This past year we've had a pretty controversial issue with our city and planning & zoning commission, so we used it heavily to post info to our property owners and those around us. I setup 2 separate mailing lists, one specifically for our HOA and one specifically for this issue updates and we doubled our subscribers, but more from the surrounding subdivision, though a few from HOA.

For this issue, we needed to get out timely updates, sometimes mail being too slow. It's worked, I'm just looking to try and get our remaining homeowners.

A contest sounds like a great idea! We've got one of our print newsletters going out next month, I plan to write up something catchy and I'll add that.

Thanks for the idea!!!