I’m sure you have made a thank you call before and I’m sure you are great at it. I thought it might be worthwhile for me to talk about the process I go through when making these calls. I’d love to hear from you regarding what tips you have and what things you’ve done. Please leave a comment below.
How do you make a thank you phone call? I have found that sometimes when we receive an unexpected gift we are often so surprised and caught off guard by it that we don’t make the phone call. I know these objections will sometime enter my head: I don’t know this person, If they wanted me to call they would have called me, etc. What I do immediately when I get a gift is look it up in my donor database (here is a great article on choosing a donor database), depending on the size of the gift I might spend a little time on Google (or a new search engine www.pipl.com), then I will pick up the phone and call.
When I talk with them on the phone I will thank them for their gift, if they gave a designated gift I will reference that. Then I ask them how they found my organization or heard of us (If I know the answer to this I might refer to it and ask for their story or more details). I might ask them what motivated their gift if there is a specific program they would like to learn more about. Many times I will close the call with an additional thank you and I’ll ask them if they want a tour of one of the facilities.
What do you do? What have you found successful? Leave a comment below.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Sandra Sims 07.28.08 at 2:14 pm
Great tips on making these phone calls Jason. I can only recall getting a thank you via phone a couple of times and it was very meaningful to me as a donor. Since it does happen so rarely it also makes your organization stand out.
John Haydon 07.29.08 at 2:19 am
Jason,
Great post. There are at least two reasons to make the call right away:
1 - You’ll feel great after you make the call and can leverage that feeling to call other potential donors.
2 - The donor feels great and will be more likely to donate again - soon.
In terms of Google, I recommend that people use alerts to automate their research. See my post:
http://www.corporatedollar.org/?p=298
John Haydon
CorporateDollar.Org
eman a.j 09.19.08 at 1:57 pm
thanks alot for this post it is really useful , and i think it helped me out alot especially im new to this , and i was looking for a tips and ways to help me and advice me in calling donors and to stay in touch with them , if you have any other advices you can tell about how to talk to donors on phone , and thank you again for your post.