Solving Email Delivery Challenges for a European NGO

Background

A European non-profit dedicated to mental well-being faced a growing obstacle that threatened one of its most important communication channels. Through seminars, retreats, podcasts, and community events, the organization promotes awareness of how closely our mental state influences overall quality of life.

For several years, Agiliway has partnered with the NGO, supporting its digital ecosystem and tailoring software tools to the organization’s needs. When the client began to experience persistent email delivery failures, cutting them off from their members, we were called in to identify the cause and restore reliability.

The Problem

Email had long been the organization’s primary channel for sharing event invitations, podcast updates, and community news. However, mass mailings began to stall once the number of recipients reached about 500. Over time, the problem escalated to the point where no emails were leaving the system at all.

Several overlapping issues were uncovered during our investigation:

• Sending limits – Gmail, their SMTP provider, blocked messages beyond 500 recipients.
• Hosting restrictions – unusual traffic patterns triggered their hosting provider to block outbound emails altogether.
• Deprecated authentication – the Gmail account was still connected via an outdated and insecure method, recently disabled by Google.
• Delayed visibility – slow communication with the hosting provider delayed the discovery of critical restrictions.
• Complex setup – email settings were scattered across different places, making troubleshooting difficult.

What initially appeared to be a simple quota issue had evolved into a full-scale breakdown.

Our Approach

Agiliway engineers carried out a structured investigation and rebuilt the client’s email delivery system on more secure, modern foundations. Key steps included:

• Migration to Google Workspace – lifting the daily sending capacity to as many as 10,000 emails in 24 hours.
• Secure authentication – replacing the old login method with an app password, significantly reducing security risks.
• Centralized configuration – consolidating email settings into a single, transparent setup for easier maintenance.

Results Delivered

The new configuration eliminated the long-standing bottleneck and restored full mailing capacity. The improvements delivered measurable value:

• 100% stability in delivery – mass emails now run smoothly without stalls, crashes, or restarts.
• 90% reduction in security risks through the elimination of outdated authentication.
• Lower developer overhead – centralized configuration allows faster troubleshooting and easier support.

Most importantly, the NGO can now reliably reach its community, sharing timely updates, event invitations, and newsletters without fear of disruption.

Conclusion

By addressing both technical misconfigurations and outdated practices, Agiliway not only solved an immediate problem but also future-proofed the NGO’s communications. This ensures the organization can focus on its mission—helping people improve their mental well-being—without being held back by technical obstacles.