Strengthen Annual Giving with Call Time Techniques for Success​

We’re at Week 20 and we’ve been dedicating our One Hour A Week to connecting with people. Congratulations, we are halfway through Cultivation Season! This course is designed for you to draw on your own experience a lot, so I held off on call scripts until now. For more than a month you’ve been doing outreach and it’s likely that you have talked with the people you know better – which leaves those you don’t know as well, or at all. Here are the tactics I use for phone call success.

Prepare: You Could Reach Voice Mail, A Gatekeeper, or Your Prospect

Especially now, your call is likely to go to voice mail. I’ve been making calls recently on behalf of an organization, just to check in with people and see how they’re doing, and only one in 10 calls connects to a live person. Be equally ready to talk in real time as you are to leave a voice message (which you will reinforce by email).

Basic Voice Mail Script

Hi, this is Lisa Verges, calling from ABC Foundation

I’m hoping we can connect for a quick conversation. I’ll try you again (name the time frame, one and a half business days away, so if I’m calling Monday afternoon, I’d say Wednesday morning)

If you’d like to call me back before then, that would be great, you can reach me at xxx-xxx-xxxx

Again, this is Lisa from ABC, and my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx, thanks so much.

At the end of the workday when you called, if the person hasn’t called you back, send a short email to reinforce your voice message:

Hi Chris, I didn’t catch you by phone this (morning/afternoon) and I’m hoping we can connect for a quick conversation. I’ll try calling you (in a day and a half, state the time frame), or if you’d like to give me a call back, you can reach me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Thank you,

[your email signature]

Talking to Gatekeepers

This is becoming a thing of the past, but you still have to be ready for it. Reaching a live gatekeeper – whether that is a receptionist, administrative assistant, or a family member – creates an opportunity for you to make a positive impression on someone who can influence how your live message is presented. Being warm and respectful will color the tone this person uses in passing along your message. Listen to indicators that the person is in a rush, with one foot out the door or handling a busy switchboard (I’ve done that job), in which case brevity is the prudent approach:

“Hi, I’m calling for Chris Jones. This is Lisa from ABC Foundation.” If you get a quick “Unavailable” response without an option to leave a voice mail, go with “Thank you, I’ll try again later” and stop there.

If you’ve reached a gatekeeper who has a little time, be prepared to answer the typical gatekeeper question: “Will she know what this is about?” or “Is he expecting your call?” State your purpose as briefly as possible, say thank you, request a call back, leave your number; if you didn’t catch the person’s name, ask for it, and say thank you again. Write down that name! If you end up calling back and talking this person again, greet them personally, say thank you, and ask their guidance about how best to connect.

Pro Tip: If you’ve just left a string of voice mail messages, take a breath between calls so you don’t get too far into a leaving-messages groove. You don’t want to sound surprised or unprepared to talk when your person answers the phone.

They Picked Up! Now What?

Respect their time: “Is this a good time for a quick call?” Either they say YES – or you find a better time and call back then.

Set the tone with a positive label: “You’re one of our best volunteers/most loyal donors” – we all enjoy hearing something good about ourselves, and positive labels encourage people to live up to the behavior you mention.

Outline your purpose: “I’m glad were able to connect today. I’m calling to say thank you for all you do for ABC Foundation, and to see how you’re doing.” If you have any resource you can offer, mention it.

Seek to understand: “I was wondering how you got involved/started giving in the first place. Can you tell me a little about that?”

Smile: Keep a mirror nearby and check. You want to be warm and friendly on these calls, so let your expression brighten your voice.

Use your body: From time to time, stand up while you’re talking. Many of us are making calls with wireless earbuds so we aren’t tethered to our desks. Use your freedom to move around. I personally find this helpful if I’m in a conversation that’s giving me a lot of energy – of any flavor. Maybe I have to deliver disappointing news to someone, or I’m so excited about an opportunity that I’m bouncing all over the place. When I literally walk off that excess energy, I do a better job maintaining a modulated, professional tone, and I listen better.

Put your One Hour of call time on this week’s calendar, update your list of people to call, prepare, and execute. If you’re reaching more than two people in an hour of calling, please share your techniques for excellence in the comments!

Two Lifesaving Volunteers to Recruit​

Congratulations! You’ve been making outreach calls for more than a month, and this week’s objective is to recruit two volunteers, each with specific skills, to help you. Take some time to think about who would fit each role and use your One Hour this week to recruit people who can help you to do your work.

The first volunteer to pursue may come from within your organization, from your professional association, or from your personal network. Whether or not copywriting is your strong suit, find someone who will review your written material and give you useful feedback. We all have room to improve; if you’re a good writer already, offer the same in return to your friend; if writing is a chore for you, offer to reciprocate with something you’re good at doing, that’s easy for you.

Here’s my experience: my writing partner of many years has a much different style than I do and writes technical material for a field where I’ll never work. Our agreement to serve as that second pair of eyes on each other’s work has helped both of us to grow as writers. The object is not to make radical changes in your work, but rather to find someone with a different communication style to be a sounding board. Use that feedback to broaden the readability of your work.

The other volunteer to find this week is someone who enjoys conversation. This person must be from within your organization, because they will be sharing your outreach work and they have to carry the flag of your organization. Seek someone who’s enthusiastic, warm, and a good listener — not just a good talker. You’ve had enough conversations over the last five weeks to be able to train someone to share that work with you. If you could double your call time every week, you stand to strengthen your organization twice as fast. Successful outreach calls lay the foundation for future gifts, whether they are time, treasure, or talent.

Skim your call notes. What themes emerge? Look for two or three talking points, questions that got people to open up, information that engaged people in talking to you. Jot down those points as a guide, and recruit someone who would be successful taking part of your list and making, say, five calls per week through the end of June.

For both volunteer types, I encourage you to send a brief heads-up email first that frames your request simply. Keep your approach light and say that you will be calling to follow up. State the half-day span when you’re going to try to reach them and open the door to them calling you in the meantime. I like to give people about a day and a half notice between my email and my call. It gives eager people time to call you first, which is an excellent indicator that they are interested in helping you.

Get your writer on board, and let that person know when you could use their help next – maybe you’re writing a year-end appeal email, a grant proposal, or a personal letter. Put it on the calendar and follow up with thanks for agreeing to help.

For your new phone outreach specialist, make a time to talk to that person about how calls have been going for you. Share short lists of five to 10 names at a time, selecting people to call who will fit the standard talking points that you’ve drafted. Keep wild cards for yourself and delegate conversations that are more routine. Come up with the best way for your volunteer to share call outcomes, whether that’s by email, phone, or a shared workspace like Slack where you can add more volunteers in the future.

To sum up, this week is about bringing in two key volunteer types – one to help you grow, and one to give you room to grow. Both of these relationships will deepen over time, and reduce the feeling that you have to do everything by yourself in a vacuum.

Garden Metaphor: Volunteers Bloom Where They Are Planted​

In Week 18 of Annual Giving in One Hour a Week, I’m going with a gardening theme: now it’s time for transplanting. This week’s task is to move a volunteer whose talents are spent in the wrong place. At best, their efforts are wasted; worse, unappreciated; and worst, counterproductive.

In gardening terminology, a “volunteer” is a plant that grows somewhere on its own, rather than being deliberately planted by a gardener.* Check out this lone grape hyacinth on a lawn in my neighborhood. It’s lovely, it’s a fantastic and healthy flower, but what’s going to happen to it? It’s blooming where there is supposed to be only grass, so it’s going to be mowed in a few days, and I’m a little sad about that.

Take a chunk of your One Hour this week to consider your volunteers. Who is dedicated, yet in a job that’s not the right fit? What are that person’s strengths? What is a better place for them to bloom than the one they chose for themselves?

This week, the action that will move you forward is to connect with a person who does a lot, but has decided, figuratively speaking, to bloom in the middle of the lawn. Find another role where their talents would be significantly beneficial, reach out, and invite them to step up into it. It should feel like a promotion. Present the opportunity as a way to deepen their relationship with your organization. The ideal invitation is one where you can authentically say, “Only you can do this,” or “You’d be the absolute best person for this, you are #1 on my list, you’re the first person I called about it.” Paint a picture of the positive impact they will have — you’re soliciting a renewal gift, just of time and talent rather than money. To show respect, complete your transplant conversations before the time comes when you do your usual volunteer recruiting and confirming.

Here are some suggestions based on my personal experience, which includes eight years as a volunteer myself, recruiting and coordinating 300+ volunteers for a two-day annual event.

• Too chatty? Annoys fellow volunteers by talking too much while they are working together for hours? Put your person in a role welcoming guests and answering questions, so they are talking with a parade of new people throughout the day.
• Too deliberate, kind of a perfectionist, creates bottlenecks in places where you have to keep crowds moving? Put those one-on-one skills to use in a troubleshooting role handling something like registration anomalies.
• Not so warm and fuzzy? Find a process role, where success is more about working through a checklist of tasks than leaving great first impressions.

Show your appreciation by finding the best job match for the people who want to give their time for your cause. Volunteers who feel unappreciated are liable to share their disappointment with others, creating bigger problems for you. Use your One Hour this week to transplant a volunteer to a place where they can flourish – just like I’ve moved plants in my own yard, swapping wilting hostas out of the summer sun with rhododendrons that finally bloomed after languishing in the shade.

*Davey, J. (2007). “Crop Ferality and Volunteerism”. Annals of Botany. 99: 205–206.