On the Line...with Jason Fisher

The Five Statistical Factors That Make Up Total Dollars

We live in a convenient world.  When we are hungry for a cake, we may simply go down to the market and buy the cake of our choice.  We do this without thinking twice about the various ingredients that went into making that cake.  The wise baker understands that the quality of the cake you are eating has everything to do with the quality of the ingredients it’s made with.  If you want to make a better cake, get better ingredients. 

 

Phonathon is essentially no different than the cake example I just shared.  I’ve said many times that total dollars is simply the result of many statistical factors working together- that it’s not a stand-alone statistic and should not be viewed as directly controllable by management.  If phonathon managers want to affect total dollars, they must first affect the Five Statistical Factors that work together to achieve that final number.  It’s a mistake to think that you can improve total dollar results without including strategy for impacting ALL of these components.  Let’s go through the five components one by one…

Swine Flu in Phonathon: What Managers Should Be Thinking About

College campuses are a prime target for significant infection rates for the swine flu this season.  We are already seeing many campuses reporting cases this fall- and I believe that some unfortunate institutions will have a full blown crisis at some point during this flu season.  Since phonathon rooms are staffed by college students and often found in common gathering locations, we can expect the phonathon programs we run to be significantly affected in many ways. 

 

My capstone project for my masters degree at the Clinton School of Public Service was spent working at the Arkansas Department of Health on this very topic- the logistics of mitigating the effects of a pandemic flu and antiviral distribution.  Needless to say, I learned a lot of very scary things about what a pandemic can do to a general population.  Even the best plans for handling this crisis may have to be thrown out the window during the peak infection rate. I’ll spare you the other statistics that we’ve all seen on television and on the internet, but just know that phonathon programs and college campuses in general will be prime targets if this pandemic really ramps up this fall and winter.