Cold Email

Why it matters

Every email to someone new can turn into something: advice, feedback, a friend, a summer job, or the name of who to email next. Everybody has an email address and checks it religiously. A spot in their inbox is free.

Worst case? No reply. Best case, a school board member, a local reporter, or an alum doing your dream job is a few sentences away. Along the way you learn to pitch yourself, write better, and find out that almost anyone is reachable.

This page is about who to email and how to make them care. For subject lines, greetings, short paragraphs, and proofreading, start with Writing Great Emails.

Practice with five emails

Do these in order. Each one is a little scarier than the last.

1. 1

   Pitch yourself

   Email yourself about what cold email could do for you: goals, questions, people you'd love to meet. Give it a subject that shares the gist and a reason to click, built around a verb: "Asking about the late-start proposal." The point is getting comfortable hitting send.

2. 2

   Email a friend

   Something low stakes you'd normally text. Formality matches context, so write it the way you'd talk to them. Try making your first line as short as it can be without losing meaning.

3. 3

   Send something you care about

   Still to a friend, but now it matters to you: a proposal, a poem, a problem at school that bugs you. Notice how your feelings show up in the words you pick.

4. 4

   Ask a stranger a question

   Your first real cold email. Find a local reporter's article about your district and ask them something about it. Introduce yourself, show you read it and cared, ask your question. Value your ideas more than two minutes of their time.

   Greetings for people you don't know:

   Outside the school systemHi Dana, Teachers, principals, board membersHi Ms. Reyes,

   If they sign off with their first name, you can follow their lead.

5. 5

   Take the plunge

   Something personal: a small ask, a story, a shot in the dark. An alum, a school board member, the author of a study your teacher assigned.

You won't hear back from everyone. Trust your value and keep going. A few emails a week beats twenty in one night.

Find the person

There's an email behind almost everything you read or watch. The district website lists board members. The local paper lists its reporters. Your counselor knows alumni. Authors and researchers usually list a contact, and a creator's manager usually has one too.

When you have a name but no address, search in this order:

A worked example

When our founder Ben was building a writing course, he wanted a climate writer (call him Steve) to record a short video for students. Finding Steve's address took three minutes: Steve's own site first, then a public profile where he'd listed it.

Cut until it hurts

Ben's draft opened with "I'm emailing because." It said nothing, so it went. Do the same to your own first line: for each phrase, ask whether cutting it loses any meaning. If not, cut it.

Don't reread it a dozen times. Send.

Make them care

People don't have short attention spans. They have short decision spans. The first few sentences decide whether they keep reading.

Skip anything that sounds spammy ("free," "buy now"), pandering, or demanding.

Getting to someone important

Want the superintendent, the mayor, or a state legislator? One cold email can work. A path usually works better.

• Map the circles. Who makes the decision, and who do they listen to?

• Talk to two or three people who know them: a teacher, the PTA president, a board member. They can tell you what the person cares about, and some will offer to introduce you.

• Mention who you've already talked to ("I spoke with Mr. Lopez, who thought..."). It shows you're serious.

• Pitch what they personally care about, not just what their office does.

• Watch for competing interests. The person you get handed off to might not want extra work, so make yes easy for them too.

Here's that in action. Ms. Alvarez is on the school board. Maya, a junior, watched her speak at a board meeting:

1. 1Who you are and how you found them
2. 2The specific connection, with a link
3. 3Why talking helps you both
4. 4An easy, specific ask

Emailing at scale

Sometimes you need a lot of people, like 100 alumni for a scholarship fund. Ben would still rather send 10 targeted emails backed by real work than 100 generic ones; going broad only beats going targeted when you don't have much work to show yet.

Make it a habit

Ben's rough math:

Don't expect most strangers to reply. A few good replies is a win.

After your first five, pick a focus for the next five: a summer job, advice on a career, feedback on a proposal. Then teach a friend. For extra credit, rewrite one email four ways (passive-aggressive, enraged, impassioned, despondent) and notice what changes, word by word.