July 3, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
While online fund raising gets all the buzz these days, it’s far too soon to proclaim the death of fund raising via the telephone, say the veteran fund-raising consultants Roger Carver and Tom Belford, who manage The Agitator blog.
To make their point, he Agitator’s authors posted a lengthy commentary from Matthew Guerin, a veteran telemarketer. He defends his profession while acknowledging that it has changed significantly over the past two decades. The amount of fund raising done over the phone may be way down, but it has also “grown up,” Mr. Guerin says.
The telephone fund raisers on the job today tend to be seasoned veterans who have the “ability to speak to mid- and high-level donors with confidence” while demonstrating a “true sense of the organization’s mission,” Mr. Guerin says.
What’s more, they tend to focus mainly on cultivating and recruiting major donors and marketing planned gifts, not seeking the small gifts that once were the purview of most telephone solicitations.
“To many fund raisers,” Mr. Carver and Mr. Belford write, “telephone solicitation is the neglected, even shunned, stepchild,” The practice, however, is “alive and well” so long as you “use the telephone in the right applications.”
And, of course, it helps if you don’t call during dinner.
Does your organization use telephone fund raising? Is it thriving or not? What has made it work for your group? Click on the comments link below this post to share your thoughts.
