Phonathon Planning: Seven Crucial Steps To Success

Fundraising season is here and that means Giving Tuesday, end-of-year campaigns and annual appeals are here. The phonathon is making a comeback and you should consider using it for your end-of-year campaigns.

Running a phonathon is an opportunity to bring in volunteers to reach donors in a fun and exciting atmosphere. Here are seven steps to phonathon planning to support your fundraising campaign efforts. 

1. Step One: Establish The Fundamentals
2. Step Two: Get PhoneRaise
3. Step Three: Prepare Your List
4. Step Four: Plan The Basics
5. Step Five: Plan Incentives & Competition
6. Step Six: Recruit & Train Volunteers
7. Step Eight: Gather Materials

Step 1: Establish The Fundamentals

When: 4 Weeks Before Your Phonathon Campaign
Every Call Center is unique and reflects the style and structure of the fundraising organization. Here are some foundational questions that need to be answered.

Single Day or Multi-Day Call Center:
If your campaign is 2-3 days will you have a phonathon on multiple days? If you have the resources and a large number of prospects to try and reach we suggest having a call center on multiple days.

Day Or Evening?
Should your call center be during the day or in the evening? For most campaigns, evenings work better as volunteers are generally more available and donors are more accessible in the evenings.

Sunday or a Weekday?
For some organizations, a Sunday call center may be perfect as volunteers are generally available. The question is are your donors available on Sunday or are they out and about spending time with family?

Exciting mega call center or smaller multi-shift call center?
A call center will reflect the style and temperament of the phonathon organizers. Some love the loud party-like vibe of a major call center of 50+ volunteers while others prefer a small but continuous call center with shifts of volunteers rotating in and out.

How long will you be asking volunteers to participate?
Will time slots be 60 minutes, 90 minutes, or 120 minutes? Generally, we think 90 minutes is the perfect amount of time.

Specific Volunteers for Specific Donors:
Decide if volunteers will get random prospects to contact or if you want to specify which volunteer should get which prospects. Some volunteers may want to look through a list of names to select. Your list preparation will depend on how you approach donor assignment.

Remote phonathon?
Remote phonathons worked great during Covid but it is not generally recommended. Going remote will lose the vibe. Without the excitement, there is much less motivation for volunteers to hustle. Of course, there may be some situations where remote campaigns can work, especially when you have super-passionate ambassadors around the world.

Sponsorships?
Setting up a high-level call center can get expensive and you want to ensure your return on investment (ROI) stays high. Think of small businesses in the community that would be willing to be in-kind sponsors of the event. Often restaurants, caterers and decorators would be happy to help in return for a corporate sponsorship. In return, you would publicly thank them and include the sponsor’s promotional material in the swag bags.

Step 2: Get PhoneRaise

When: 4 Weeks Before Your Phonathon Campaign

PhoneRaise is a simple web-based app that helps you reach your donors and raise more money. PhoneRaise is the perfect tool for a phonathon and makes it very easy to manage volunteers and donations.

• Reach your donors 5x Faster
• Keep your volunteers focused
• Call, Text, Email, or send WhatsApp messages
• Track the results, leave notes, take payments, and more.
• Train volunteers in 3 minutes or less!

Step 3: Prepare Your List

When: 3 Weeks Before Your Phonathon Campaign

Aside from recruiting volunteers, preparing your contact list is the most important part of the phonathon. It is important to have a clean file of potential donors that will be contacted. Make sure there are no duplicate names and make sure you include data like past giving history, donation ask amounts and any other custom data that will be useful during the phonathon.

Step 4: Plan The Basics

When: 3 Weeks Before Your Phonathon Campaign
Several components make up a successful call center. When phonathon planning, make sure you include these key elements.

Secure A Space
Secure a large room or hall that will have plenty of space to work, mingle and eat. The room should be large enough to give everyone some breathing room but small enough where there is a vibe and a feeling of everyone working together.

Food & Decor
For many people, asking them to make calls and solicit donations can be challenging. It is important to create a vibe that looks fun and inviting. Make sure you provide good food and add a little decor to add to the party scene.

Personnel
Make sure you have enough staff and volunteers to help run the call center. Check out the personnel section to see the types of people you need to have at a phonathon.

The Team

1. The Cheerleader
   A cheerleader is a crucial component for creating a fun vibe. The cheerleader should be a staff member or volunteer that people enjoy being around and people look at to set the tone. The cheerleader should be greeting people as they arrive, announce milestones and provide shoutouts to people who successfully solicited donations.
   
2. The Technocrat
   The technocrat’s role is to train volunteers and make sure every volunteer understands the phonathon process. If using PhoneRaise the technocrat would help make sure volunteers are comfortable using the app.
   
3. The Leadership
   Leadership participation shows how important this event is to the organization. Executive leaders should be contacting donors, and spend time thanking everyone for coming. This recognition and appreciation go a long way toward motivating volunteers to raise money.

Step 5: Plan Incentives & Competition

When: 3 Weeks Before Your Phonathon Campaign
It is important to remember three inherent human traits. 

1. Everyone likes to be acknowledged
2. Everyone likes to be a winner. 
3. Everyone likes to make an impact.

Your job will be to make sure that all participants feel that they achieved all three.

Giveaways: Anyone who participates should receive a swag bag filled with small tokens of appreciation. Some ideas include:

• Donated gift cards to local restaurants or stores
• Branded Popsockets
• Good chocolate
• Branded swag like a tote bag, coffee mug or cap
• A scratch-off card to potentially win a big-ticket item like a $250 Amazon gift card.
• A thank you card or letter thanking them for participating. Of course, verbalizing your appreciation in person also goes a long way to showing appreciation.

Competition: Some lighthearted competition is a great way to motivate people to go out of their comfort zone. Creating some fundraising competitions during a phonathon keeps the evening fun and exciting. Here are some different types of competitions you can run. The person who:

• Raises the most money in donations and pledges
• Secures the most donors
• Spends the most time at the phonathon
• Contacted the most prospects
• Received the largest single gift
• Got a random donation amount (ex: $57.82)

Step 6: Recruit & Train Volunteers

When: 2 Weeks Before Your Phonathon Campaign
Having dedicated volunteers manning the phones is your number one priority when setting up a phonathon. Making sure you have enough quality volunteers is always a challenge.

Make sure your volunteers feel supported and understand the process. Training them how to use PhoneRaise and making sure they understand best practices will make it easier for them to get into a PhoneRaise groove. Here is a volunteer recruiting and training guide you can use to get your volunteers ready for the big day.

Step 7: Gather Materials

When: 1 Week Before Your Phonathon Campaign
It’s crunch time! Time to gather everything you need for the phonathon and make your final plans. Here are some items you need to remember to bring.

1. Check-in Materials: Attendance list, swag bags, name tags, etc.)
2. Food: The more the better!
3. Decor: Remember the party vibe
4. Headsets: Some volunteers may not have headsets or earbuds for their phones. Have a few wired headsets available as a backup.
5. Chargers: Someone’s phone battery always dies. Make sure you have a few chargers for iPhone and Android devices.
6. Extension Cords: If you don’t have them you will end up needing them. So just bring it.
7. Internet Service: Make sure the wifi is strong and provide your volunteers with the wifi password.
8. Strong network reception: You don’t want thirty volunteers in the room all saying in unison do you hear me now?
9. Large Screen or Projector: You always want to show campaign progress! If you have competitions going on you will also want to show some leaderboards.
10. 2-3 Laptops: You will need a laptop to manage PhoneRaise and you also may need a laptop to enter some offline donations. Don’t leave home without it.
11. The Bell: Bring a large bell (or similar) and every time a volunteer secures a donation they get to ring the bell!
12. Pen & Paper: Some volunteers may want to write notes on paper or pass a note to someone while they are on the phone. Provide each volunteer with a pen and post-it note or a small pad.

We hope this phonathon planning guide will help your phonathon reach new heights! Make sure to also read: Phonathon Planning: Recruiting and Training Volunteers and learn how PhoneRaise can help you raise more money.