Fundraising phones

A young voice that carries a smile can be a beautiful—plus profitable—thing, and if that voice is linked to a computer with a telephone, it’s even more profitable.

Such is the belief at Chico State University, where very soon computerized progressive dialing will connect fundraising phone calls from student solicitors to prospective donors. The process that will raise the number of average phone contacts from the present 143 per night to 260, a 45 percent increase. Calling takes place from 6 to 9 each evening.

The calling center is the grass-roots, entry-level effort of the larger Chico State fundraising program. Public colleges’ and universities’ efforts to raise private money has moved ever more center stage during the past 15 years, as the amount of support from tax dollars has steadily dwindled, reported Bob Alber, the university’s senior assistant vice president for advancement, whose primary responsibility is cultivating large gifts.

“We’re looking for this changeover to make a big difference,” said Allen Lunde, director of the student calling center operation that he launched in 1998. Instead of working from a sheet of names, each with a phone number, brief biographical sketch, and a history of donating, the student callers will read that information from a computer screen. The computer will do the dialing.

Under the existing system, student phoners brought in $1.1 million over the past three years, Lunde revealed. They did especially well in 2004-05, when they talked to 35,000 parents, alumni and friends who gave $422,000.

The 13 separate call stations, each operated by a student, comprise the phone center located in the basement of Sapp Hall, the white, two-story mansion on the corner of Third and Normal streets. Sixty percent of the callers are women, which is representative of the 60 percent female population margin on the campus, a now uniform national phenomenon.

Working from a database of 45,000 phone numbers, the phoners average one pledge for every four contacts, Lunde said. A contact occurs when someone answers the phone and says yes, no, or maybe. About 71 percent of those who make pledges make good on their promises, and those pledges average $63. The callers ask for a specific amount, depending upon the average giving history of who is being called. Opening requests range from $100 to $1,000 and usually work downward. Donors “earmark” 43 percent of their gifts, and most are for scholarships.

“Stanford callers start with a $10,000 request,” Lunde said, “but [one needs to] consider the overall wealth profile of their alumni, friends and parents.” Naming some specific figure is always better than just asking for a donation, he explained.

As might be expected, Lunde and Alber select a “Caller of the Year.” Gabe Shapiro two years ago brought in $60,000, the highest total ever for a single caller, and he’s back on the phone again this year. Erin Goldfarb, who won the honor last year, graduated and left Chico. Managers looked to her, as they had looked to Shapiro, as a “go-to” person who volunteered to help with extra duties outside of the job and took extra shifts when needed, Lunde said.

“We try to enlist freshman if we can,” Lunde said, “and see if we can keep them all four years.” Fifteen percent of the recruits do stay all four years, he said, but 1.5 years is average.

Callers start at $6.75 per hour, can work up to $8.50, and can earn an unlimited amount in bonuses.

Once on board, the new callers are given three different scripts to learn—one for regular donors, one for lapsed donors and one for those who have never donated. At the same time they are encouraged to improvise or ad lib, which allows their young personalities to shine through and thus make them as appealing as possible to the parent, alumn or friend of the university they have on the line.

“We’re trying to develop relationships and a habit of giving, so telemarketing is a dirty word around here,” Lunde said in reference to the hard-sell tactics of phone solicitors