The best phone system for charities and fundraising teams
Every pound of budget has to produce as many conversations as possible. That is exactly what a parallel dialer does.
Hundreds of companies use 
to make every call pay off
The situation
What holds you back today
Tight budget, teams often made of volunteers
A large supporter base that is hard to reach
Pledges tracked by hand
The answer
What Skipcall changes
Specific to your industry
A fundraising year, month by month
A charity that only calls in December calls at the moment everyone else is calling. The end of the year concentrates giving into a few weeks, while the relationship with a supporter is built over the other ten months.
Christmas sets the rest of the calendar
November and December stack appeals on every channel at once, and match funding campaigns pull a large share of online giving into a handful of days. Through that period the phone is mostly there to confirm and to unblock pledges already made, rarely to open a relationship. Whatever you want to say to a supporter for the first time is better said before the appeals start.
January to April: thank you, Gift Aid and the tax year end
A call that thanks instead of asking is one of the few welcome contacts of the year. It is also the moment to check addresses and to pick up the Gift Aid declarations missing from the last appeal, which let you reclaim the basic rate tax on gifts already given. And remember that the tax year ends on 5 April, not on 31 December: the year end that matters to a higher rate taxpayer is not the one that matters to your Christmas appeal.
Spring is the real acquisition window
From March to June the pressure on the phone drops and conversations run longer. This is the period for reactivation campaigns, aimed at supporters who have given nothing for a year or two and are not yet lost. Those calls need volume, since the base is wide and the answer rate low.
Summer and emergency appeals
July and August are quiet, unless there is an emergency. An emergency brings in new donors, often moved by a single event: if they are not called back within the following weeks, they do not give again. That call back is planned during the appeal, not after it.
Regular giving changes the rhythm of calls
A supporter on a monthly Direct Debit no longer needs an annual ask. The phone keeps two useful moments: the call that offers the move to monthly giving, and the call that recovers a failed payment, an expired card or a closed account. That second call works within a few days or it is lost.
A supporter base is worked in cohorts, with a different message depending on how long ago the last gift was, rather than as one list called every December.
The script
The donor call, from thank you to regular giving
You are calling someone who has already given, in the spring or just after the thank-you letters went out. You are calling first to thank them, and then to offer the move to a monthly Direct Debit. This is not a sale: the person is not buying anything, they are deciding to carry on.
The opener
“Hello, is that [name]? I am [first name], a volunteer at [charity]. I am not calling to ask you for anything: you supported us in [month year] and I wanted to tell you what your gift paid for. Have you got two minutes?”
The thank-you call is the only call a supporter does not have to put up with. It opens the conversation that an ask would close in the first sentence.
Offering regular giving
“What helps us most is not the amount, it is knowing what we can count on from one month to the next. A lot of supporters would rather give a small amount every month than one gift a year. Would that be easier for you?”
Ask for regular giving from what regularity changes for the charity, never by leading with an amount.
If she already gives to other charities
“I know, and that is a good thing. I am not asking you to choose between them, or to give more overall. I am asking whether what you already give us could go monthly.”
If she says she cannot this year
“I understand, and you do not have to explain yourself to me. I can take you off our fundraising calls for this year and leave you just the newsletter. Would you like me to do that?”
Recording the objection there and then costs a gift this year and keeps a supporter for later. A request to stop has to be acted on straight away, and the person can also stop contact themselves through the Fundraising Preference Service.
If she asks what the money is spent on
“That is a fair question, we get asked often. Our annual report and accounts are on the Charity Commission register and I will send you the link straight after this call. What I can tell you now is what your gift in [month] paid for: [one action, one place, one period].”
Point people at the published accounts rather than quoting a ratio from memory: an approximate figure given on the phone comes back at you.
The pledge and what follows
“I will text you the link while we are still on the phone, has it come through? And if monthly suits you better, I just need your bank details, it takes two minutes now, or I can call you back on Thursday at the same time.”
A pledge turns into a gift in the days that follow, otherwise the intention fades: the link sent during the conversation is what holds on to it.
At Skipcall, every call is recorded, transcribed and summarised, so the script gets corrected against what your reps actually say rather than what we imagine they say.
Avoid this
Three mistakes this industry makes on the phone
The mistake
Using the January thank-you call to ask for another one-off gift.
Do this instead
Thanking supporters and picking up missing Gift Aid declarations creates one of the few contacts of the year that people welcome, and turning it into an ask wastes it. On that call, thank them, check the address and the contact details, and at most offer the move to a monthly Direct Debit, which extends the gesture already made instead of asking for another one.
The mistake
Having volunteers read out copy written for a letter or an email.
Do this instead
Text written for the page is instantly audible on the phone, and the supporter can tell they are being read to. Give the volunteer three opening sentences, the answers to the three objections that keep coming back, and let them say the rest in their own words. An hour spent listening to recorded calls teaches more than a training session.
The mistake
Quoting a cost of fundraising or an impact figure from memory.
Do this instead
An approximate number said on the phone works against the call as soon as the supporter checks it, and they do check. Point them at the annual report and the accounts on the Charity Commission register, send the link after the call, and tell instead one action with a date and a place that the volunteer knows because they saw it or talked it through with the field team.
Frequently asked questions, Charities & fundraising
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See what it does on your own lists
A demo runs on your own contacts, not on a sample data set.
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