Some nonprofits hire companies to manage their ongoing, year-long phonathons, which seem to run like well-oiled machines.  But if you can’t afford that, do you have to abandon this event altogether? No – not by a long shot.

Although it can be a boon to your campaign to have year-around calling, many nonprofits benefit from periodic volunteer phonathon events, both for the fundraising, but also as an opportunity to bring supporters together and teach them to be ambassadors for their organizations.

Make no mistake:  All events are avenues for volunteers to shine and show their potential!  As you train your callers, reviewing the script, goals, prizes, etc. for the evening, make a point to circulate and listen.  In the beginning, all callers should start out with small donors’ names, as they practice.

While you’re listening, however, you’ll be able to discern between volunteers who can’t get beyond reading a script and those who are truly conversing with – and charming – your donors.  These people need to be upgraded immediately to calling your larger donors, since they know how to ask for larger gifts.

After your phonathon is over, these same outstanding volunteers can be recruited for other committees, or perhaps your board.

It’s essential to make your event – wherever it’s held – feel welcoming and festive to your volunteers.  This means including plenty of food, drinks and snacks.  If your organization can afford it, you may want to have a decorative theme.

Remember that social media can be useful before, during and after your phonathon:  Promoting the event and recruiting volunteers online prior to the phonathon will gain you additional workers.  Posting highlights of your progress throughout the event helps keep your momentum going – and remember to take plenty of pictures!  When the event is over, share the celebration and gratitude with everyone on all social media channels – as well as more photos.  (Remember to get permission to tag people.  Better yet, invite them to tag themselves in the pictures.)

Prizes for various levels of performance are important – although it’s a good idea to keep your goals in mind, too.  For example, if reaching a high percentage of credit card gifts is vital to your organization, don’t give prizes for pledges – only credit card payments . . . but vary the prizes based upon this theme, such as the first credit card gift each hour, the largest credit card gift of the evening, etc.

With caller ID, where you’re calling from is a careful consideration to make.  If your nonprofit opts to be identified – and has enough phones – it might make sense to have your volunteers work from your offices during the evening, using employees’ desks after hours.

On the other hand, depending upon your call list and volunteers, you might choose to have your callers each use their own cell phones.  Particularly if your call location is less likely to be identified with your organization (on caller ID), this might be a better alternative.

Although some would argue that each volunteer can simply make such calls in their own home – on their own time – with a list and their cell phone, this doesn’t lead to the camaraderie that is felt when people come together and share an evening of helping an organization they care about.

It also doesn’t allow staff to handpick their new talent from eyewitness experience.  Additionally, when supporters are called, they may have specific questions for volunteers that only a staff member can respond to.  It’s best to have such a person on standby.

Because people’s schedules are so full, it will take a lot of work to arrange a phonathon – and a lot of work to convince people that it was worth it . . . so that they will do it again in the future.

However – done well – a phonathon can still pay off as a worthwhile investment: in funds, goodwill ambassadors, and future officers for your organization.

______________________________________________________________________________
Keep the base of the pyramid strong

Similar posts

How Many Kinds of Phonathons Are There, Anyway?

Evaluate Your Strengths AND Weaknesses

If You Keep Doing What You’ve Been Doing

Managing a successful workplace campaign means giving people an opportunity to become engaged in multiple ways with your nonprofit, ranging from quietly turning in their envelope, giving online or attending various events.

First, don’t assume that all employees know everything about your organization, its mission, etc.  As with any other population, your organization has a variety of people in a state of flux:  some people have been working there since the beginning of time, and probably know more than you do, while others are somewhere in the middle, and still others might have just started working there just last month.  Have a variety of activities and appeals so that each set can feel engaged.

For the veterans, probably the initial mention that “It’s staff giving time” during your opening campaign staff meeting will be sufficient; however, reminders are always important to help busy people, so an email or two can boost your participation rate with these people.

The residents on the other hand, have lived in “the neighborhood” for a while at least, and heard this appeal at least a few times now.  You’ll have to make some effort to break through the clutter of the past to make an impact – particularly if you are going to increase the participation rate, not to mention the average gift.

When appealing to the newbies, this is your first chance to introduce them to the campaign, so tell the story right!  Why should they give to the staff campaign, anyway?  While you know it’s important to have a high rate of participation to apply for additional funding, your opening pitch should always focus on the mission of your organization, as it would with any other population.  (What will this gift accomplish?)

It’s tempting, when there are so many campaigns to focus on, to give little effort to the staff campaign and just move on to everything else, but getting staff on board can serve to increase your overall number of ambassadors significantly.  Don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth . . . positive or negative.

Give your workplace campaign the same importance as any other, and go the extra mile – solicit a corporate sponsor that might cover the cost of a special staff outing, meal or event.  If this time isn’t feasible, consider soliciting a variety of prizes to be awarded throughout the campaign.

Even small nonprofits with limited staff and budgets have implemented this strategy to bolster morale during their workplace campaigns.

Noreen* was able to give away incentives specific to her office, with management buy-in, such as having heads of departments available to work for other employees for a day, doing their jobs, such as filing, data entry, answering phones, delivering mail, etc.

“That was a real morale booster!” Noreen recounts, “But other prizes were popular, too, such as an extra vacation day, or a free executive parking space.  Most importantly, it got more people engaged and excited, talking about who might win the prizes.  Ultimately, our giving and participation went up, too – but the campaign wasn’t seen with the drudgery it had been in the past, simply because of these prizes . . . and, I think, management doing things such as filing and working reception!”

While you want to have enough visibility & events so that everyone can participate, take care to have the means to protect people’s anonymity, as well as see to it that you don’t make anyone feel pressured or shamed into giving.

Some people’s past experiences with staff giving are very negative, leaving them feeling resentful, because – either at their current or previous workplace – they witnessed supervisors directly or indirectly pressuring employees into donating to “the cause.”

Each person’s financial situation is different, and nonprofit employees in particular often don’t make a great deal of money, so creating a festive environment that focuses on your mission and overall (dollar) goal is a better strategy, versus lamenting how your participation goal is still lacking.

Owen* recounts how his mother deposited an empty envelope into the church collection plate every week, so that nobody would think poorly of her, lest she pass the plate without “donating.”

In fact, his mother gave quite generously to their church, by writing one large check per year.  She worried, though, that not being perceived by the congregation as giving on a regular basis could possibly negatively affect her social standing, or make her the target of speculation or gossip.  She felt it was worth the effort to give the impression with the weekly empty envelopes.  Owen still chuckles about this childhood memory today.

As with any other campaign, it’s essential to thank your donors when it’s over.  Make sure to report on the results to everyone (donating or not – prepare for next year!), and translate the overall figures into something meaningful:  “With the $XX,000 we raised, we were able to serve an additional Y,000 hot meals to Z00 homebound individuals!”

Photos and/or video of recent accomplishments are also very impactful, and remember to utilize your social media channels when delivering these messages.  (Make it easy for your new ambassadors to hit the [share] button!)

Finally, track not only your financial successes, but your personal successes.  Which staff members became more engaged or responded the most positively?  You’ll want to explore recruiting them for your campaign committee next year, but don’t wait nine or ten months to do it – ask them now about their interest and ideas.

____________________________________________________________________________
Keep the base of the pyramid strong

Similar Posts

How Do You Motivate Staff To Donate?

Evaluate Your Strengths AND Weaknesses

How Is Annual Giving Significant To Your Donors?

Have you upgraded your organization’s events, to reflect how participants now see themselves engaging?  That is, as an active shareholder, rather than a passive recipient?  Similar to social media, people expect involvement.

Social media, in fact, should be an ample part of any and all of your events.  Not only is it helpful in promoting an upcoming function, but your promotions can be used in a variety of ways, including recruiting volunteers and sponsors as well as attendees.

If you’ve been doing social media well and consistently, your supporters themselves can and will help you in the promotion of the upcoming event, too.  This amplification of your publicity can reach far and wide, particularly if your event is recurring, since regular attendees will extol the virtues of attending.

Events centered around awareness can take many forms, but when done well, can have a dramatic effect.  The Autism Awareness campaign in Michigan required many volunteers to achieve the effect of lighting the Mackinac Bridge, but made a significant impact on state participation, and ultimately increased donations.

For the Dionysus Project, their means of furthering their mission – educating the general population about the issues surrounding substance abuse and addiction – is to do so via a theatrical performance of a Greek play, with a panel discussion following.  Bringing in significantly well known actors to perform the play, as well as prominent local political figures for the panel discussion, helps bring credibility to the event.  It also ensures that more people will talk about it and promote it beforehand.

Of course, many organizations’ events are held primarily to raise funds, with a secondary purpose of raising awareness and publicity.  The Scleroderma Foundation has found a way to combine all of these – and more – with their upcoming Walk for Cure.  Not only are they actively inviting all participants to tell their stories via video, uploading them to the Scleroderma Foundation website, but they are going a step further by collecting all participants’ videos in a lobbying effort.  In the fall, they’ll be sending the entire video collection to Congress, asking for additional funding for Scleroderma research.

Be sure to use a variety of social media channels, including not only Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but consider Pinterest as an addition, since it is now the third most popular channel.  The more engaged you can get your supporters, the more educated about and invested in your mission they will eventually become.  Indeed, volunteers are typically among an organization’s best donors, because they see exactly what is happening within the nonprofit at the ground level.

The more time you invest in telling your story – and letting others tell it for you – on your social media channels before, during and after your events, the more evangelists you will acquire.

How have you upgraded your events to bring more people into the conversation?

____________________________________________________________________________
Keep the base of the pyramid strong

Similar Posts

How Has Event Management Changed For You?

Improving the Successful Campaign

Don’t Sell Yourself Short

Long gone are the days when many homes had a plethora of teenagers, young women homemakers or the retired elderly – with nothing but time on their hands, waiting to give it generously to a worthy cause, regardless of the duties needed.

Now, it’s a great deal more complicated. For one thing, you absolutely have to provide the volunteer (or intern) with a meaningful experience. It’s no longer only about what they can do for you, regardless of their age, income or social standing. If you don’t treat them well, they won’t return.

In addition, your organization must – continually – make the case that, overall, you are doing good work and providing necessary services. The prevalent community opinion is that there is a steady stream of headlines, listing various companies, politicians and nonprofit organizations that have betrayed the public trust; therefore, people are more skeptical in general and need to be convinced that both their time and funds are being used wisely.

Studies have shown that volunteers are much more likely to donate to a cause – and to give larger amounts. What, then, can a nonprofit do to bolster its volunteer ranks?

•    Make it fun: Even typically mundane tasks, such as envelope stuffing, can be more enjoyable if people are doing it together in a festive atmosphere. Schedule a regular, dependable volunteer TIME/DAY for such work, so that people can come in and socialize together while they are helping your organization . . . and find many ways to thank them during and afterward.

•    Make it convenient:  Have jobs that can be available in bite-sized segments, so that people (especially new ones) don’t feel overwhelmed, and end up opting for “none of the above.” Also have options that can be done off the premises, online, evenings and weekends, and with little training to start.

•    Offer a variety of jobs for people to choose from. People wanting to support your mission don’t necessarily all want to do it in the same way.

•    Don’t make assumptions about the types of volunteers jobs that people want to do. A psychologist by trade may not want to work on your suicide hotline in her spare time, and don’t presume that the full time accountant wishes to volunteer to be treasurer on your board. Ask people what their extracurricular interests are.

•    Don’t presume that all of your volunteer jobs need to be classified as they previously were. Many can occur outside the office altogether, such as actively participating in discussion boards, sharing your online video, etc.

•    Create a detailed means of tracking your volunteers! This can be useful for a variety of purposes. Not only will you have a reliable number of hours worked for volunteer awards, but knowing who shows for scheduled duties – and who doesn’t – is invaluable when a last minute shift needs to be filled.

•    Log what type of work your volunteers prefer, as well as some measurement of effectiveness. This can lead to various “promotions” within the ranks. For example, you may want to ask Karla* to become your next committee chair if you can determine a correlation with her participation on Facebook and Twitter, promoting your email petition campaign, and an increase of signatures each time.

Creating a well-staffed and well-trained cadre of volunteers won’t happen overnight, and it requires diligence – but it can pay off in numerous ways for your nonprofit, in terms of publicity, advocacy, workforce, fundraising and many other venues.

____________________________________________________________________________
Keep the base of the pyramid strong

Similar posts

How Has Event Management Changed For You?

How Many Kinds of Phonathon Are There?

I’ll Do Anything EXCEPT Ask People For Money

Doris* trained her new committee members to get comfortable speaking to donors by starting them talking on the phone. She wanted them to have repeat exposure for the practice, so she designed a thank-a-thon, and it was very successful!

After Doris’ committee spent time – together – that week, chatting with donors to express their gratitude for gifts already given, it was a much smaller step later that year to have them back when it was time to call other supporters and ask them to give or renew to the organization. By then, the committee members had more knowledge of the organization and its mission, so that they could converse, rather than sound scripted or fearful.

Eventually, the most talented of the volunteers moved up to join the board and accompanied her on donor visits. However, this was not only an excellent way to start them in training, but also to reach out and touch more donors than she possibly could herself – both by thanking them and later by soliciting them!

Ethan* also ended up holding an atypical phonathon . . . by accident. While he was discussing what event he and his committee could put on next season to attract donors, learn about his organization’s mission, and ultimately give to the cause, nobody could reach consensus on the type of event that would be best.

After several more suggestions, it became apparent that most people agreed on two things:

●      The committee members were very supportive of the mission and would encourage their friends and associates to attend, contribute, etc.
●      These were extremely busy, professional people, who had full calendars, and a high attendance at any one function seemed unlikely.

Some suggested conducting a non-event, which would pay respect to people’s lower budgets in a tight economy, but it was decided that losing the personal touch would hurt the bottom line.

During the week of the phonathon, Ethan not only invested in dinner and prizes for the committee members, but he backed up these efforts with an email appeal and a direct mail piece.

Similar to software used during a marathon by individual runners, each volunteer was given temporary accounts, so that they could either send “Thank You” or “Sorry I Missed You” emails to their contacts, and it integrated with the organization software – yet it bore the name of the recipient’s friend, [johnsmith@company.org]. Because the software was accessible and user-friendly, a great many (new) names and contact information were entered into the database during this event.

Direct mail follow up also brought in a good amount of donations after the event. Either after voicemail was reached, or the constituent replied, “Send me something in the mail,” a form was filled out (and data entered into the system) and mailed with a return envelope.

Ethan says it worked out so well, the committee has decided to repeat their peer-to-peer call-a-thon for the following year.

There are also non profits that have established annual (or ongoing) phonathon events, either with paid or volunteer workers. They call current and lapsed donors, as well as non donors, and consider phonathon simply just another part of their Annual Giving program.

Fiona* takes phonathon very seriously, and has made several changes to her event that have paid off well over the years.

“For one thing,” she says, “I noticed that getting the donor to commit on the phone with a credit card right now was crucial, rather than sending them information in the mail, and hoping they’d come through. Even if they intend to, people forget. Also, our average credit card gift on the phone is higher than the gifts by mail.”

Fiona was already giving incentives to the phonathon workers for gifts acquired at $X amount or above, but she changed the incentive plan to credit card gifts only, and saw a drastic difference – within a year, the percentage of gifts on credit card had doubled, as had overall income!

Some additional factors most likely helped, she believes. For example, Fiona paid close attention to the script, encouraging callers to ask, “WHICH credit card would you like to put this on?” instead of “Would you like to put this on your credit card?”

By the same token, when asking people to contribute, Fiona would have callers mention two suggested amounts, based on giving history, followed by “HOW MUCH would you be able to contribute?” rather than “Would you be able to contribute?”

Fiona also took care to have callers track and/or verify all contact information and follow up with a direct mail piece, either thanking people or allowing them to pay by mail. She took it a step further than simply sending a reply envelope, however, and included a trackable hyperlink, encouraging people to donate online. She had also researched and learned that her online gifts were larger than those by mail.

While the nature of phonathon has changed, and no two events are exactly the same, this event still has a place in many non profit organizations. It’s simply important to adapt it to your needs and schedule, rather than dismiss it with entirely negative connotations.

______________________________________________________________________________
Keep the base of the pyramid strong