Five-Minute Interview: When Telefundraising, Getting the OK is Key

FundRaising Success: Nonprofits obviously are exempt from do-not-call legislation, but do you think telemarketing programs have suffered in response to confusion about the rules?
Jon Hamilton: There’s almost no words you could say when a person answers the phone to overcome that resistance and confusion. The Federal Trade Commission has not done a good job of educating people on who’s exempt and who’s not exempt. So when a nonprofit calls somebody who has put their name on the national do-not-call list, most often that person assumes they shouldn’t be getting that call. So the call starts on the negative. Any call — whether you are trying to get donations or sell something — that starts out on a negative is always a tough way to go. I don’t think there is anything that’s going to overcome this. I think that people who are on the national do-not-call list are expecting not to get calls, unless they give someone permission to call them. Nonprofits ought to start going out to their regular donors via direct mail to ask for their permission to call them, so when they do call, there’s no confusion or potential negativity.