Most nonprofits conduct year-end direct mail appeals during the holidays. Direct mail by itself has an average response rate of 1-2 percent on a prospect list and it can go up to 10 percent with donors who have already made a contribution to your organization. But how do you trade up donors to an even higher level?

Part of the answer is through telephone fundraising. Most telephone solicitation involves calling prospective or existing donors and asking for support. Frequently this strategy is used in conjunction with a direct mail appeal where the donor is called a few days to a week after your materials arrive in their mail box. While people can certainly ignore the direct mail solicitation (throwing it away with their junk mail), it's more difficult to ignore a phone call. We've seen response rates go up dramatically when a phone call is made after the direct mail piece has been sent. This is especially true if the phone call comes from someone in the organization that the donor or prospective donor knows.

Let's look at some strategies to use when making your holiday solicitation calls:

1. Develop a strategic script. Write a script that includes introductory comments, bullet points on why the support is needed, where the money will go, and information on the urgency of the gift. Also draft a few comments about dealing with resistance so your volunteers who are making the phone calls can convince the donor that the support is critical.
2. Test the script. Once you've written the script, test it out on friends and family. Don't forget to role play the script with ALL of the volunteers who will be making the phone calls.
3. Do the phone calling as a group and be sure to serve food. Most people don't adore cold calling people and asking for money, so make the process somewhat fun. Gather the callers in a location that has multiple phone lines (such as a large office, union hall, etc.) and serve pizza and sodas.
4. Have a clear goal for the evening. Make sure you set a goal for the evening that is attainable and let everyone know what that goal is. Set mini goals for each caller and then every hour let them know how much has been raised.
5. Try to get a matching grant/donation from someone so the volunteer caller can say that the contribution will be matched dollar for dollar if the donor makes a pledge this evening.
6. Have board members, clients, or constituents make the calls. Have you ever received a call from a college student asking for contributions for their school? It's difficult to say no. It's very effective to have people who have actually benefited or been impacted by your programs and services to make the phone calls.
7. Have FUN and celebrate when someone makes a donation. We used to have a bell that we rang when someone made a contribution over the phone. Make the atmosphere happy and festive.
8. Contests are good motivators. Give the volunteers who reach certain goals tickets to a play or a restaurant. The volunteer who raises the most gets a weekend at a ski condo (that is donated by one of the board members), or the one who raises the 10th or 20th donation of the evening gets a gift certificate.
9. Listen first and jot down notes. After your introductory comments on the phone, listen carefully and try to determine what the donor's interests are, why they are concerned about your organization, and what is it about the organization they see as valuable. Make sure the caller takes notes on cards that will be added to the donor's profile in your database.
10. Encourage credit cards. Make provisions before the telephone calls to take credit cards and train your volunteers to gather the correct information.