Somewhere on your desk, or buried in your CRM, there’s a list of people you know you should call. Major donor prospects. The program officer at that foundation that never responded to your LOI. The longtime donor who just made her tenth gift.
That list has been sitting there for weeks. Maybe months.
Instead of calling, you sent another email. You tinkered with the newsletter, then started planning next spring’s event. All of it felt productive, and none of it was the thing that actually moves money.
The phone is the most important tool in fundraising. Not email, and not your next event.
The Phone Is Where Relationships Get Built
The organizations raising big money make the calls week in and week out, whether they feel inspired or not.
That’s because fundraising runs on relationships, and relationships are built through real conversation. An email can be ignored in half a second. A phone call is one human being giving another human being their full attention. Donors can feel the difference, and so can you.
The phone drives results across your entire fundraising program, not just in major gifts:
- Major donor prospecting. Cold and warm outreach both live or die on the follow-up calls, not on the initial letter.
- Grant fundraising. More than half of nonprofits never call to follow up on an LOI or proposal. The ones that do stand out immediately.
- Stewardship. A five-minute thank-you call does more for donor retention than almost anything else you can do.
- Setting up asks. Meetings that lead to major gifts get scheduled on the phone, not through endless email chains.
The jobs are different, but the tool is the same.
Why We Avoid the Phone
Nobody likes to admit why the calls don’t happen. It’s fear. The donor might be annoyed. We might stumble, or hear a flat no.
Email feels safe because rejection arrives silently, or not at all. So we hide behind our inboxes and hope the money shows up anyway.
It won’t.
One Call Is Not a Strategy
The other mistake I see constantly is the fundraiser who finally works up the nerve to call, gets voicemail, leaves a message, and never calls again.
One call is a formality. Outreach means calling again.
Most of your calls will go to voicemail. That’s normal, and it’s fine, because voicemails count. Every message keeps your organization visible and shows donors and funders that you follow through. Plan on five to eight touches, split between calls and emails, before most prospects respond.
Persistence and consistency win.
Make Calling a System
Don’t rely on willpower. Systemize it. Block two or three hours on your calendar every week that are only for calls. Keep a running call list with names, numbers, and the reason for each call, and track every attempt in your moves management system so no one falls through the cracks. Before you dial, jot down your first two sentences so you never have to wing the opening.
Then protect that call time the way you’d protect a donor meeting, because that’s what it is. Your mission deserves the money it needs to thrive, and that money is not hiding in your email drafts. It’s on the other end of a phone line.
You gotta make the call!
Photo credit: NordWood Themes on Unsplash
