Telephone Campaigns
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For a long time, telephone fundraising was the workhorse of alumni and supporter engagement. Then, slowly, it began to feel harder. Fewer people answered, campaigns struggled to reach the right audience, and many teams began asking whether the telephone still had a place at all.
When someone does pick up, though, the outcomes remain extraordinary: real conversations, generous responses, genuine connection. The problem is not that the call doesn’t work – it’s that we’ve stopped earning the right to be heard.
I use the word voice deliberately. For most fundraisers, “calling” or “telephone” feels more familiar. But what’s happening now is much broader than the phone itself. Voice has become one of the most human, flexible, and trusted forms of digital interaction – just not always in the places or ways we expect.
Think about how many times a day we speak to technology: asking Siri to set a reminder, leaving a voice note on WhatsApp, listening to a podcast in the car, or even talking to a voice-enabled AI assistant. These are all forms of voice communication. So when I talk about “voice”, I’m talking about the wider landscape of how people now use sound, tone, and conversation to connect – sometimes live, sometimes asynchronously, sometimes with a human, sometimes not.
Framing fundraising as part of that broader voice ecosystem helps us see the phone not as an outdated tool but as one strand in a much larger web of conversational media. The challenge is no longer technological. It’s about trust and timing: how to make our voices welcome again.
A 2019 Zipwhip survey found that 87% of people routinely ignore unknown numbers, and nearly 90% simply don’t answer unless they recognise who’s calling. In the UK, Ofcom data shows that landline use has plummeted while mobile now dominates. But mobile phones are personal – and very easy to screen. The old politeness of answering has almost disappeared. Even older alumni and donors, once reliably reachable by landline, are now fully mobile and just as cautious.
Still, when calls are answered, they perform brilliantly. Our own experience – and broader sector benchmarking – consistently shows that calls convert well, run longer, and create deeper emotional engagement than any other medium. The conclusion is clear: the channel still works. It’s just narrower.
Voice contact has become something people reserve for high-trust relationships: family, friends, health providers. A call from a charity or school now feels like an intrusion unless we’ve already earned the space to speak. When voice is expected – when someone recalls who we are or why we’re calling – everything changes. The conversation flows, and so does generosity.
That’s the core problem with modern telephone fundraising: not the call itself, but the expectation of the call.
Voice hasn’t disappeared – it’s just changed shape.
In the UK, 42% of adults listened to a podcast last month, and 30% in the last week – an all-time high. IAB UK reports that podcast listeners now average more than seven hours a week. Radio, too, remains powerful: in the US, 82% of adults listen weekly, and in the UK it’s 84% – more than use social media on their phones.
People still love listening to voices. They just want to do it on their own terms. That comfort with voice is what keeps this medium so potent. It’s not a relic – it’s a habit.
Podcasts and radio are one-way, but conversational voice is now everywhere in digital life. WhatsApp voice messages are a perfect example: millions of people send them every day in the UK, speaking rather than typing because it’s easier and more natural. These are often two-way, relaxed, and deeply personal.
It’s the same on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, even LinkedIn – all of them now support voice messages. Voice is simply how people interact when it suits them.
Add to that the rise of voice-based AI – ChatGPT’s real-time voice mode, Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa – and we see that people are already comfortable talking to systems, not just people. In 2024, OpenAI made real-time voice interaction widely available, and uptake was immediate. The idea that someone might talk to a voice they don’t know – and find it useful – is now perfectly normal.
The gap between listening to a podcast and picking up the phone is smaller than it looks. People are already hearing unfamiliar voices, interacting with AI, and responding on their own schedule. The only thing missing is trust.
If we treat the phone call not as an interruption but as part of a wider voice experience, everything shifts.
A call from a fundraiser becomes just one instance of conversational audio. But to be welcome, it has to feel familiar. That means appearing earlier in the voice ecosystem – through gentle, non-ask content and low-friction contact – so that when a live call happens, it’s not a shock.
In most donors’ lives, a university or school is one of the few institutions that doesn’t use voice at all unless it’s asking for money. That’s the problem.
We can fix it by using voice more often, for more reasons: short WhatsApp updates, quick voicemail messages, or short thank-you clips. The goal is not continuity with a single caller – it’s continuity with the medium.
Traditional advice says don’t leave voicemails. But phones now transcribe them automatically. Even if someone doesn’t listen, they read: “Hi, I’m Jamie – I’ll be making alumni calls next week…” That short text primes recognition. It makes the next call feel less cold.
Voicemail becomes a form of training – gentle exposure to tone and familiarity. And that means we can call more regularly, even using automated agents when student callers aren’t available.
The new generation of AI tools makes it possible to create interactive voice experiences that feel natural and personal. That might sound counter-intuitive in relationship fundraising, but it fits perfectly with how people already behave: speaking to voice assistants, chatting with bots, or responding to prompts from AI systems.
An AI-led voice interaction – for example, a message that lets donors press 1 to hear a student story or 2 to request a callback – no longer feels alien. It feels efficient, normal, and useful. It can check details, share updates, or offer thanks. These moments don’t replace human contact; they prepare for it. They normalise voice and make it feel relevant again.
We can schedule these AI touchpoints monthly, blending human and automated voice to keep the channel alive even when callers aren’t available. That rhythm – short, friendly, predictable – builds trust faster than a once-a-year call.
One of the most interesting opportunities on the horizon is to let alumni choose to be called by an AI rather than a person, especially for simple tasks like updating contact details or confirming communication preferences.
Imagine an alumnus receiving an email or WhatsApp message saying:
“Would you like to update your details via a quick call with our voice assistant? It only takes a minute.”
They click a link, get a friendly AI voice from the institution they know, and talk naturally: confirming their address, checking whether they’d like event updates, or even leaving a short message for the head of alumni relations.
It’s low-stakes, useful, and entirely consent-based – which changes the dynamic completely. Instead of asking for permission after intruding, we invite participation in advance. The result is cleaner data, higher engagement, and a warmer relationship with the voice of the institution.
Over time, these AI calls could extend beyond admin: delivering impact updates, anniversary thank-yous, or even voice-based stories. The key is that people opt in. They know who’s calling, they expect it, and they value the interaction.
The hardest problem in rebuilding trust is the perception that unknown numbers equal spam or fraud. Hiya’s Global Phone Spam and Fraud Report (H1 2024) found that nearly a third of all unknown calls worldwide were unwanted, with 28% in the UK flagged as spam and 3% as fraud. People don’t dislike speaking – they just don’t trust who’s speaking to them.
Hiya’s Branded Call product (part of its Connect platform) tackles this directly by letting organisations display their name, logo, and even a short call reason on recipients’ screens. It replaces anonymity with context. The company claims that this reduces blocking and increases answer rates, citing internal data showing 92% of consumers are more likely to answer recognised callers (“Unmasking the Truth Behind Scam Phone Calls,” 2024).
Some clients report significant gains: a financial services firm saw 27% longer calls, OppFi saw a 25% higher answer rate, and a used-car retailer improved right-party contact rates by 53%. These figures come from Hiya’s own reporting, not independent studies, but the trend is clear: recognition drives engagement.
Hiya’s system also tracks spam complaints and helps organisations maintain clean reputations – vital in a world where 20 billion calls were flagged as spam in just six months (Hiya, 2024).
For fundraisers, this isn’t a marketing gimmick. It’s part of restoring trust to the voice channel. When donors see who’s calling and why, they’re far more likely to pick up.
Large universities that run year-round student or alumni programmes can embed voice throughout the year: occasional updates, low-stakes calls, and periodic campaigns. Voice becomes as routine as email – but richer.
Schools or Oxbridge colleges, with shorter campaign windows, can use voice differently: priming behaviour before the campaign, leaving voicemails during it, and following up with thank-you messages afterward. Voice here is about readiness, not continuity.
Either way, the principle is the same: build expectation, not interruption.
US and UK contexts differ, but voice works under the same conditions everywhere – when it’s trusted and timely.
In the US, research continues to show its power:
In the UK, calling often happens in short bursts, sometimes once a year, with changing student teams. Even so, when calls are expected – supported by earlier voice contact – they perform just as strongly.
Voice works when it’s welcome.
Whether you’re calling year-round or once a term, the priority is to rebuild trust in the medium. That means:
The goal is to make voice normal again.
In many institutions, the only time donors hear a voice from their university or school is during a fundraising campaign. It’s understandable – calling takes effort, and resources are limited – but it creates a skewed pattern. Every time a donor picks up, they expect to be asked for money.
A Thanking Day (or Thanking Week) flips that completely. It’s a structured, voice-led event where you reach out to supporters purely to express gratitude – no ask, no hidden agenda. The idea borrows from the energy of a Giving Day but channels it into stewardship. It’s one of the simplest, most effective ways to normalise voice contact and build goodwill ahead of future appeals.
How it Works
You pick a day or short window, choose a segment of donors or volunteers, and coordinate a small team – students, staff, or even governors – to make contact. The format can vary, but the principles are simple:
Those thank-yous can take several forms:
Easy to Run, Easy to Scale
Compared to an appeal, a Thanking Day is refreshingly low-pressure:
Because of this flexibility, it can take many forms. Some institutions run one major Thanking Day a year, making it a visible cultural event. Others build it into the rhythm of stewardship, running a small Thanking Week each term or quarter. You can even distribute thank-you messages continuously through the year, using the same tools you’d use for a calling campaign or broadcast messaging.
Why It Matters
The effects compound over time:
In practice, Thanking Days often become a highlight of the calendar. They’re energising, inclusive, and morale-boosting for everyone involved. And strategically, they’re one of the most effective ways to re-establish voice as something donors look forward to hearing, not something they brace against.
If you want to test this, start light:
You’ll learn quickly how voice shifts perception.
Voice fails when it’s used bluntly – once a year, always asking, never giving. But when we use it as a continuous, welcome conversation, supported by familiar tones and consistent presence, it still delivers unmatched results.
People already live in an audio world. They trust voice when it feels familiar, kind, and expected.
Our job now is simple: earn the right to be heard. When we do, voice still works beautifully.
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