For the Yankee Chapter, we used to send emails through MailChimp, but they put some serious limitations on the number of emails you could send with their free account this year. After reviewing several different providers and what they offered, we opted to change to MailerLite (I think you had recommended we check that one out). They have a free version that most chapters could probably be successful using. We opted for the ‘Growing business’ tier because it allowed for 3 users to have access to the account. With their non-profit discount, it winds up being about $84 a year for our chapter. I think that covers memberships up to 500 members with unlimited emails. We have the account tied to our internet domain (yankeenavhda.org), and with email security settings (spf, DMARK, and DKIM) our deliverability is pretty high. Clicks and Opens for the links to articles/events/information is probably running at around 1/2 of our membership.
I do think Facebook has been a more efficient way to communicate with our members, with events being posted there and folks indicating if they are going or interested. Friends clicking or liking articles helps to get posts out to their friends that are also in the chapter.
The combination of the email and Facebook helps to make sure we get information out to our membership as needed.
.