On the Line...with Jason Fisher

Record-Breaking Phonathons Start With Staff Retention and Cultivation

Many programs are on their last days of calling as they seek to end the fiscal year on a strong note.  The finish line is in sight, both for the callers and for the managers.  Spring is in the air and summer is almost here.  But before celebrating the end of another phonathon experience, managers need to take inventory of next year’s staffing expectations and begin making preparations for the 2009-10 phonathon.  Building a successful program year in and year out takes foresight and planning, and there is nothing more important to think about this early in the process than your human resources.

 

The best programs in the country cultivate calling talent as much as they cultivate donors.  The managers who hire these callers seek strong indications of a high level of commitment from the student, starting with the enthusiasm and dedication they show to their alma mater in the interview.  Good grades and a good personality are important, but the key to finding those callers that will stay for years instead of months is a sense of belonging and wanting to make a difference.

 

After calling for a semester or more, it should be fairly easy to spot those callers that enjoy the job and want to come back.  You likely won’t have to persuade them too much to retain their services.  On the other end of the spectrum, you may have callers that you wouldn’t mind see take another job or find an activity that greatly interferes with their phonathon duties, preventing their return to the program.  Again, if they don’t much like the position, you won’t have to do much influencing.  It’s those callers in the middle that offer the greatest dilemma.  The question then arises- how aggressive should you be in retaining their services?  Here’s my philosophy for cultivating talent and building a great phonathon.

Smart Rewards and Motivation Accomplish Much More than Happy Callers

As I’ve said before many times in this blog, phonathon is a business.  Good business owners and managers understand that human resources are their most valuable asset and do everything they can to hire, train, and keep good people.  The goal is to build a stable, motivated workforce that goes out each day and puts in a full effort to accomplish their goal.  And take it from somebody that has been in the business a long time- just offering candy and chips won’t cut it.  Additional money is appreciated by the callers and works as a short-term stimulus, but a true motivational reward structure is targeted and focused on several key areas in the phonathon- and in line with ethical fundraising practices.  Here are a few thoughts on how I recommend programs approach incentives and caller motivation to improve retention and maximize productivity.

Senior Caller Positions Encourage Program Growth

Ever wonder how the top-notch programs always seem to find talent to run their phonathons?  Here’s their secret- they promote from within the majority of the time.   They identify, nurture, and cultivate the next group of supervisors from which they eventually pick their manager.  This way they cut down the cost of finding outside help, have a manager ready-made that understands the nuances of their college or university, and in the process they motivate the next group of callers and supervisors looking to grow with the program.

 

I can attest first-hand that this method works.  While there are many, many examples out there to share, I’ll discuss the one I’m most familiar with- the University of Georgia.  After years of outsourcing their program, UGA decided in 1994 to start a phonathon program on-campus using their student callers.  As the first-ever phonathon manager for UGA, I was tasked with starting the entire program from scratch. I did not have a single phonathon experienced employee…with the exception of myself.  We had 24 automated calling stations and a total staff of around 36 callers at any given time.  For the first several weeks, I ran the entire program by myself.  I was careful not to elevate anybody to supervisor until I better understood the talent of the available candidates.  I eventually settled on hiring one supervisor, a senior, that I felt had the maturity to get me through that first semester.  Since I knew her time was limited with the program, I needed to find a way to cultivate my next group of supervisors.  To start building my program the correct way, I instituted a senior caller program that helped find talent and give them an opportunity to learn the job before officially promoting them to the position.