I received two telemarketing calls over the weekend that made me pause and ponder how the fundraising profession is perceived. First off, neither call was from any of my alma maters…let’s clear that up right away. Rather, both stemmed from political contributions that I had made within the last year. Both came from off-shoots of the organization I had given to, and both were made by predictive dialers (you can tell because of the excessive pausing after I answered). Somehow, my name has made the rounds from one list to the other, ending up in some organization’s database that has something in common with the previous group I gave to.
As a seasoned fundraiser and phonathon expert, I certainly know how the game is played. Phone calls are still an important component of many campaigns, and I’m tolerant of the practice from those organizations I want to stay in touch with. I hear this from other fundraising professionals…that they still enjoy hearing from student callers on campus. But a growing number of people are lumping higher education phonathon into the general telemarketing category, meaning that your student callers are treated no differently that I treated those political fundraisers that called me this weekend (I was polite, just dismissive).
