by Matt Schwartz

Sometimes asking for a donation can be the easiest part of fundraising. It’s when people agree to send money that things sometimes get a bit sticky, since, as everyone knows, promises are easier to make than to keep. And who wants to call up donors and say, “This is just a reminder that you owe us a gift?"

For years, fundraisers have attempted to use gifts of their own to coax contributions from donors. The incentives can serve two purposes: they can entice pledges from potential donors, and, just as important, they can be used to encourage donors to fulfill those pledges. Fundraisers like Scott Sheldon, who directs the Annual Fund at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, are always on the lookout for new and interesting premiums to encourage donors to be as free with their wallets as they were with their pledges. The important thing is to choose something of value with a small price tag so as to cut down on the cost of the actual fundraising.

Sheldon maintains an even narrower focus: he tries to find incentives that will fit inside a No. 10 standard business envelope in order to save on postage.

So last year, he turned to Intellicall of Carrollton, Texas, and its ProFund prepaid phonecards. But rather than just saying “thank you” with 15 minutes of long distance, Sheldon took it a step further. To encourage donors who are largely alumni to fulfill their pledges in a timely manner, the school offered the phonecards only to those whose donations were received within 20 days of their pledges.

The result was a 92 percent fulfillment rate and a 25 percent increase in the number of donors during the fall 1995 campaign. The national average, and Golden Gate’s previous rate, was 70 percent, Sheldon says. While he hesitates to give full credit to the phonecards, Sheldon says it's clear they helped.

“What was nice about it was it went beyond just that, because you can monitor card usage and keep track of which donor you gave it to,” Sheldon says. And when they recharge, you could send them another letter and say, ‘Thank you for your recharge, you're helping our endowment.”

Sheldon liked the cards so much that he incorporated them into the school's spring 1996 campaign. But this time, he doubled his order to 1,000 and used a customized card from Destiny Telecomm with the Golden Gate University name and logo on it. It was still used as a back-end fulfillment premium (donors got the cards when the school got the check), but prospective contributors had 25 days, instead of 20, to send in their money. Perhaps emboldened by the success of the previous fall's campaign and alums’ warm embrace of the phonecards, Sheldon and crew also decided to up the amount they were asking for.

The result: the average gift for the spring drive was $75, up sharply from the school's average which traditionally hovered in the $40s.

“I’d call it an effective low-cost premium that motivates many people to fulfill their pledges,” Sheldon says. “There have been many premiums. This one I like a great deal because beyond the initial price, there's no additional cost.”

In fact, as proponents are quick to point out, prepaid phonecards can generate royalties on recharges, virtually turning the card into a perpetual revenue stream for charities. Golden Gate, for example, gets 10 percent of all reloads and, as Sheldon says, another chance to interact with and keep track of donors with thank you cards.

Golden Gate, a 143-year-old predominantly graduate-level university with about 8,000 students and 50,000 post grads, has used bookmarks and coffee mugs as fundraising incentives in the past, but Sheldon says he finds the phonecards a better fit. So much so that he again is planning to use them in this year's fall fundraising campaign.”

“This incentive certainly has been one of the more successful ones because I think the value is a little higher than the others,” Sheldon says of the cards. “Acceptance of the card is high. Most people make several calls. The effective cost is very reasonable. They cost a little more than a mug, but I think it is worth more. I think that we will keep it in the mix for at least another year.”

Maybe by then, Sheldon says, Golden Gate will be ready for something else. A smart card, maybe? Sheldon says he’s toying with the idea.

Probably beats storing 50,000 coffee mugs in his office.

 

Edited article: Schwartz, Matt. "University Reaps Golden Reward_" "Phonecard Incentives Boost Fund Giving." Intele-Card News, Vol 2, no. 10 (November/December 1996) : 14 and 15