At the present time, there is no universally accepted method of calculating an industry standard for cost to raise a dollar through phonathon. While some direct comparisons can be made, a final judgment of the success is difficult to attain due to a wide range of issues with input factors. These criteria are not always consistent with best practices and additional program nuances that are key to understanding results are rarely obvious to people outside of that particular organization. The following are five of the main challenges for programs wishing to judge their overall phonathon productivity against other institutions.
Proportion of Donors to Nondonors
Some phonathon programs are more mature than others. A higher proportion of donors to nondonors will translate into a higher rate of return and more revenue against cost. Younger programs that have been in existence for a shorter time will often pay for donor acquisition in the early years of their program and gradually improve their cost to raise a dollar over time.
Contact Percentage and Data Quality
Poor data quality affects cost to raise a dollar by reducing revenue opportunities from student callers. In the long run, it also means that development offices may need to redirect budgeted funds for higher amounts of data research, thereby potentially taking calls away from the phonathon and stunting the growth of the calling program if their phonathon is not sufficiently funded.
Removing Major Gift Prospects or High-end Donors
Many programs choose to take out high-end donors from the phonathon to assign them to a development officer for personal relationship cultivation. The gift level and frequency at which colleges and universities choose to do this is highly varied, leading to significant differences in cost to raise a dollar across the spectrum of institutions.
Assignment of Management Labor Costs
The proper method to calculate cost to raise a dollar in phonathon should include direct phonathon management labor against the revenue generated. However, many programs have a staff member assigned only part-time to the phonathon, meaning a percentage of their labor hours should be accrued and placed against fulfilled dollars. The inexact science of assigning a percentage of time means significant fluctuation in overall costs from program to program. Note that while some programs may modestly reduce labor cost by having their phonathon manager multi-task with several other responsibilities outside of the call center, the loss of revenue is often significant due to insufficient professional oversight.
Inclusion of Supporting Materials into Overall Costs
Pledge reminder stock, printing costs, pre-call letters, thank you letters, and gift receipts are technically part of phonathon expenses within a budget. However, they rarely impact the quality of the call and in some cases play no part in the fulfilled dollars that a program should use to properly figure cost to raise a dollar. Some institutions choose to include these costs into their final calculation while others do not. This leads to inconsistencies when analyzing final results for cost to raise a dollar.
As always, your comments are welcome.
