After seeing an inspiring story shared by old friend and colleague, Jamie Raynor, about an alumna of Western Carolina University working as nurse during this pandemic, I had questions.You see, this incredible story is one of many uncovered by their Chatty Cat Phonathon callers during their recent “check-in” calls. I wanted to know how they took their phonathon remote, continuing to provide student employment during this crisis while also doing important work for the university. Here are my questions and Jamie’s answers: Tell me about how WCU is utilizing their phonathon callers during the pandemic. "Within the Western Carolina University Division of Advancement, we’re using our best callers to conduct ‘check-in’ calls with our alumni during this quarantine time. They are sharing the student experience and listening to the alumni experience during these short, scripted calls." What sort of stories have the callers uncovered and how is the university using those stories?"The callers are finding that the alumni are pleasantly surprised by the call, and many are eager to chat and share ideas, stories, and experiences. The callers flag records of alumni who are doing unique and/or front line COVID work and those are shared with me for story leads. I work with our Marketing and Communications colleagues on bringing the strongest of these story leads to them on a weekly basis. Completed alumni story profiles are used on our alumni website (alumni.wcu.edu), our social media channels, and our alumni e-newsletter. Most of the stories that our Chatty Cat callers hear are about our alumni who are teachers, nurses, public administrators, hospital administrators, researchers, and manufacturers (particularly in areas for parts for ventilators and PPE, personal protective equipment), and we’ve had some who are specialized in unique areas like funeral home owners and leaders in cruise line sanitation. The Chatty Cats have also spoken to several alumni who serve on our Board of Trustees, and those Trustees have provided very complimentary notes on their chats with these students. Overall these calls strengthen our Catamount community and allow for relationship building around a common struggle for us all. For those alumni who have said ‘how can we help’ the student callers reference one of our student emergency funds and guide the alumni to give.wcu.edu/relief for gifts." Now to get down in the weeds a bit: what technology are you using to empower the callers to work from home. How are they being trained and supervised via distance?What software are we currently using for the call center/remote calling?
Is there anything else you want to share about calling during this pandemic? "Yes, our development officers have each used this same ‘check-in’ call model to call through their portfolios, and most have followed these up with emails for next steps. Our front-line fundraisers have noted the great ability to learn more about their donors and prospects with these simple calls, and have been encouraged by the donor’s willingness to really connect over the phone. Most have been happy to have someone to talk to. Our Director of Donor Relations is mailing handwritten notes to hundreds of donors who give unrestricted gifts as an extra touch-point during this time as well. Our Alumni Engagement Office has partnered with Development Staff to create Alumni Zoom Socials, which we launched with our Triangle Alumni Club (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill area) last week. We have 16 additional Zoom social hours scheduled for the next 3 weeks to connect with our alumni." Is there anything else you want to share about fundraising during this challenging time?We have partnered with our Office of Community Service and Engagement to work with our local Jackson County non-profit organizations along with our Student Emergency Fund to raise money for COVID related needs on May 5, 2020 during #GivingTuesdayNow. We will stand up a webpage on the WCU website to share the WCU Foundation mission and student emergency fund giving link along with our non-profit partners’ mission and giving links, so our WCU alumni and friends can support our community in the area of their choice. Also, our development officers started with phone calls, emails, and handwritten notes to their donors for stewardship and prospects for cultivation but have now moved to scheduling Zoom meetings for moving the donor relationship forward towards solicitations and gift negotiations. About Jamie RaynorAs a higher education professional for over 17 years, Jamie Raynor gained early experience in academic affairs for several years before turning her focus and her profession to development and advancement initiatives. In her temporary role, she currently serves as the interim vice chancellor for WCU's Division of Advancement for Advancement Services, Alumni Engagement, and Development staff, also serving on the Chancellor's Executive Council. Her permanent role as Assistant Vice Chancellor includes the supervision of major, planned, and annual giving professionals in the development office. She also manages a portfolio of corporations, foundations, and individuals to secure major and planned gifts. Have you been utilizing the unique talents of your phonathon callers during this crisis? Why or why not? Did this case study make you feel any differently about trying it out? If social distancing measures persist into the Fall semester, how do you plan to handle your phonathon? Let me know down in the comments. And if you liked this content, please subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising. You'll get my FUNdraising Friday emails, which are jam-packed with interesting, useful, and funny content to keep you sharp and motivated! Cheers, PS - If you liked this article, you might like:
PPS - Want to use your time isolating at home to become an All-Star fundraiser? Join me for my new course, All-Star Annual Giving. Registration just opened! All-Star Annual Giving is a fully online 12-week course with 9 modules covering all areas of annual giving strategy and execution. If you want to roll into the semester with a fully fledged plan to raise more money than you've ever raised before in your annual giving programs, you need to be in this course. Building and maintaining a culture of philanthropy is hard work. It is deep work that takes years to build and moments to destroy. But having a healthy culture of philanthropy makes work more fun and makes fundraising easier. It’s worth having a periodic check-up to assess how your institution is doing.
Answer these questions for your institution: Board Support
Staff Support
Alumni support (or Grateful Patient support)
Fun Factor
Communications
Stewardship and Donor Relations
Other questions to think about:
How did you feel about the assessment? Where are you doing well? Where should you improve? As always, comments and questions are welcome and encouraged! Cheers, Jessica PS - If you liked this post, you might also like these:
PPS - If you found this article helpful, please comment and let me know. Also subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising so you don't miss a post! You'll get my guide to Call Center Games for Free!
Don’t get me wrong. I am a fan and advocate of automated calling software. And I’ve been spoiled in my career, working for large state universities with the resources to either outsource the calling program or to have an in-house program with appropriate calling software.
In the past, I would cringe when a colleague would tell me they were running a manual/paper phonathon. But there’s a reason why they say necessity is the mother of invention. I now work for a small independent seminary that is on a shoestring budget. This summer, I did some analysis and determined that what the program really needed was a phonathon. I decided this for a few reasons:
You really only need 3 things to have a phonathon:
CALLERS I figured out my maximize number of callers and caller hours that I could afford to pay based on a competitive hourly rate for the location (Berkeley, CA). Then I set about recruitment. Here are some of the graphics I used to recruit students callers.
I used my 3 favorite interview questions for student callers. You can read about those here. I hired 4 students and 1 graduate who wanted to volunteer her time as a service to the school.
EQUIPMENT Now I needed equipment. At first, I was thinking through how much long distance would cost and whose offices we could use in the evenings. Then I went back to drawing board: Why was thinking landlines when I preach all the time that cell phones are the future of phonathon? I decided to go mobile. I ordered simple, Samsung flip phones which had a headphone jack so we could utilize headsets. I bought these Voistek noise cancelling headphones that would work with the phones and free the caller to move anywhere in the room. I bought some of the headsets with only one ear pad and some with two. The callers overwhelming preferred the double headset. The headsets, while very affordable ($29) also had good sound quality. Here are the links for the phones and headsets I selected. (Yes, these are affiliate links. I've actually used these products and I'm sure they'll help you start a pop-up phonathon. If you purchase, I get a small percentage to keep the choice content coming here on Real Deal Fundraising. Fair trade, huh?)
These phones are already configured to work with a Verizon go-phone plan, which was far cheaper than long distance fees. They are also used phones so they are super-cheap – less than $17 each. My phonathon campaign was scheduled to be one month long so we paid for one month of prepaid phone access: $50 for each phone. Bonus: when you go to the Verizon store to sign up for your multiple prepaid, burner phone plans, you feel like a bad guy from a Law and Order SVU episode!
Total for each phone “station”: $96 Total to equip my five callers: $480 OVERALL SHOESTRING BUDGET I also spent $100 on 4, $25 gift certificates to use as weekly incentives for performance. Overall my budget looked like this:
PROSPECTS As for data, I pulled the prospects via queries in Raiser’s Edge and then used that spreadsheet to create calling sheets via a mail merge. We went through a couple of iterations to get the information in the most intuitive place for the callers but ultimately it worked well. Overall, the program raised over $15,000 which was a great return on investment and we added over 25 new recurring gift donors as well. If your institution doesn’t have a huge budget but needs the personalized contact that a phonathon program provides, you can create a “pop-up” phonathon program on a shoestring budget that is efficient and effective. Do you outsource, use automated software or have a manual phonathon? Or do you need to start a pop-up phonathon for your institution? Comments and questions are, as always, welcomed and encouraged! Cheers, Jessica Cloud PS - If you liked this post, you might also like these:
PPS - If you found this article helpful, please comment and let me know. Also subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising so you don't miss a post! You'll get my guide to Call Center Games for Free! Video is more and more a huge part of the storytelling process for fundraisers. It's a great way to communicate the impact of philanthropy in the world. But, most fundraisers aren't video professionals. Once you have your video done, what are the best practices to get your constituents to watch it? I asked my friend and colleague, Ndlela Nkobi, that question. Here are his 5 best tips for getting your message seen! Enjoy! -- Jessica Cloud, CFRE Congratulations on finishing your organization’s video! After weeks (sometimes months) of planning, shooting, and editing, you have finally uploaded your film to YouTube. Now what? How do you make sure that your video gets the views it deserves and has its intended impact? Though there are no guaranteed ways of making your video go viral, here are some steps to make sure the people who need to see the video actually see it, watch it and take action. 1. Reinforce Your Call to Action Videos are generally created to get people to take some action (sign a petition, donating, joining a mailing list . . .) and your call to action in your video is where you ask your audience to take that action. Make sure you reinforce that call to action whenever you get a chance (your website, YouTube, your platforms). The ultimate success of your video will be based on how many people take you up on your call to action. 2. Have a Great Thumbnail Pick an engaging still image to give your audience a quick snapshot of your video. That thumbnail is also the image that is generally automatically used when the video is shared on social media and on platforms like WordPress. Consider creating a custom thumbnail that could also includes words that would further draw the viewer in. 3. Pay Attention to your YouTube Descriptions, Titles, Tags The title, description and tags you use on YouTube will not only help people find your video when they search for related content but they should also draw people in to watch the video. Not everyone is going to see the video on your website so give your viewer all the information they need to take the next step in your video description. 4. Place Video on Your Website Placing your video on your website gives you much more control over how the video is presented to viewers with things like the call to action, video placement and supporting text/images/graphics. 5. Promote the Video on Your Platforms Once the video is ready on YouTube and on your website, share it widely on your various platforms (Facebook, Twitter, mailing lists, . . . ) Your platforms will be one of the main ways that the people in your community find out about your video. Don’t be afraid to repost content (especially on social media) to make sure as many people see your post as possible. Bonus action: Check Your Analytics Here is another area where you get to define what success looks like for your video (or campaign). Whether you are looking at Google Analytics or YouTube analytics (ideally you are doing both) this is where you get to see how successful you were with things like page views, videos views and how long people are looking at your video. It is also important to look at engagement (likes, shares, comments . . .) Analytics and engagement are matrices you use to help you plan for the next videos you are working on producing. About the author: Ndlela Nkobi is a filmmaker and online video content creator based in New York City and Johannesburg. He works with small businesses, nonprofits, consultants and artists to connect with their clients through the use of video. You can see his work at ndlela.tv. Ndlela Nkobi has worked for Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (Columbia University) and Third Sector New England (Boston, MA). He has worked with Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (Columbia University), New York City Department of Education, Nonprofit Consultants Network (Boston, MA) and Starr King School for the Ministry (Berkeley, CA). Hi readers, I hope you enjoyed this guest post. Do you have additional tips for how to get the most reach on promotional videos? Comments and questions are, as always, welcomed and encouraged! Cheers, Jessica Cloud PS - If you liked this post, you might also like these:
PPS - If you found this article helpful, please comment and let me know. Also subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising so you don't miss a post! You'll get my guide to Call Center Games for Free! I've named this column "Thoughts for Thursday" and mostly it gives me a weekly space to bring up whatever topics I want to discuss. But, this week, I asked myself, "What's really on my mind?" I have a few things that have been buzzing around my brain lately.
But, I'd also like to hear from you. What are you struggling with? What solutions are you lacking right now? What trends are you baffled by? What ideas are you really digging right now? Please comment and let me know. Here are some of the bees in my bonnet:
Again, what's really on your mind? Watched any good TED Talks about philanthropy and fundraising lately? Read any inspirational articles? What's the question you wish you had an answer to right now? |
Jessica Cloud, CFREI've been called the Tasmanian Devil of fundraising and I'm here to talk shop with you. Archives
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