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Phone Tag!

© Hunter

We are again focusing our time and energy to fundraising. This time it is peer-to-peer fundraising.

This process involves three-man parts. The first is volunteers, the second is the right straegy for your volunteers, and the last, but not least, is the most efficient use of your volunteers.

Peer-to-peer fundraising involves business, industry and association leaders calling others in his/her own field from a central locaation. Each volunteer is provided two or three assistants or dialers. The dialers and the volunteers are provided with a list from the campaign committee.The dialer performs the time wasting duties, leaving the main pitch or close to be made by the volunteer. Your volunteer will be much more productive because of the dialer.

When volunteer staffing the peer-to-peer telephone bank, you will need a minimum of 10 volunteers. The next step will be your location. If you have 10 volunteers, you must have a location that has at least 20 telephones. Two phones for each volunteer, one to call out on and the other for people to return your calls to them.

The best layout for the peer-to-peer fundraising phone bank is an open room with few dividers. Having an open area is important for several reasons. First of all, the volunteers can quickly hand the phone over to someone higher up in the campaign. Second, this allows volunteers to fill in for one another in case of two calls at once or breaks.

Recruiting volunteers can be a difficult job, but in asking for money, it all depends on who is doing the asking.

To begin, set the date for the peer-to peer phone bank session at least a month in advance, so that your volunteers have adequate notice and time to change their schedules if need be. While you may be able to schedule a volunteer for a full day, realistically, a four hour morning, afternoon or evening shift would be easier to fill.

If need be, a short training session can be scheduled prior to the shift beginning. Once you get your volunteers to the location, do what you can to keep them from leaving. Bringing in coffee and donuts or perhaps sandwiches for lunch.

Volunteers must be trained to actually ask for money. A script or outline can be useful, but it is more important to get the volunteer comfortable with letting the prospective contributor know what type of contribution or action is expected. This means you must spend time discussing the fundraising process, how it works, what does or does not work in asking people for money and giving the volunteers materials on the candidate.

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