5 Ways to Empower Alumni Phonathon Callers

Harvey Simmons
03/22/2012

Let’s face it: alumni phonathons are not always easy, but nevertheless, they can make a substantial difference for your annual fund, and connect alumni for an important cause.

In this post we want to highlight five ways to help empower your alumni callers on the front lines, from experiences that our team at EverTrue has had dialing away for our alma maters!

1. Show Callers Why They Are Calling
It is helpful to do more than just “tell” callers why their help is important; charge them up by having current students, and alumni, share how the annual fund made a difference in their educational experience. On early calls have callers connect with alumni who shared similar housing, activities or coursework. These calls will help improve the callers’ confidence, and remind them the importance of their work.

2. Treat Your Callers Like Gold
Your callers are the voice of your institution and your alumni association. Let them know that their work is appreciated and keep them focused by providing food, drink and a clean area to work in.

3. Provide Your Callers the Tools they Need
Give your calling team some practical advice before hitting the phones, but also provide them the tools that they need to be effective at their job. Whether it be pointing to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google search or providing them an integrated mobile solution like EverTrue, make sure to give your participants a place of reference on your alumni community to improve their chances of making a positive connection.

4. Make It Fun!
Keep a positive environment during your phonathon. Play your alma mater and your fight song on repeat. Make the venue not only clean, but filled with bright colors and signs of encouragement. Award nevertheless those with the most calls made in an hour, and with the highest donations!

5. Get Your Participant’s Feedback
Since you have members of your alumni community together in a room, make sure to let them know that their voice matters. Once calls are over have a group conversation about their experiences as students and alumni, and see how your next phonathon could be improved!

What have you seen help motivate your phonathon faithful? Let us know!

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4. Continue to Steward Donors

Your relationship with the donors who give to your endowment doesn’t end when you secure their gifts. Because your endowment exists to make a difference in the long term, your supporters will want you to keep in touch about its progress. Ongoing stewardship means keeping donors updated about your endowment’s performance and impact. A report that strengthens your relationship with donors should cover:

The fund’s balance at the start and end of the year
Spending amounts and allocations
How the fund’s returns compare to your investment targets
A short narrative detailing the specific impacts the endowment achieved

Create a report for each endowment rather than sending an identical document to everyone. A donor who endowed a scholarship wants to hear about the students it supported, while a donor who endowed a building fund wants updates on construction projects.

5. Upgrade Your Endowment Management Tools

Your endowment management tools should make applying your spending policy across every fund easy. Investing in dedicated software is especially useful as your endowment grows. Handling unitization in spreadsheets might work for a few funds, but as you begin to manage dozens or hundreds of gifts, dedicated software can save your team time spent manually calculating gains and losses for each one.

Why Nonprofits Need Dedicated Endowment Management Software

Dedicated endowment software brings accuracy and consistency to every part of the management process, from tracking individual funds to improving security. See how these solutions compare to a spreadsheet-based approach:

nfographic table outlining the information below.

How These Methods Compare:

In managing your endowment with traditional spreadsheets, you may see:

High administrative burden: Manual entry across disconnected systems
Limited security and audit footprints: Reduced version control and audit trail visibility
Difficulty with donor transparency: Spreadsheets provide only static data that is difficult to turn into custom results.

By using dedicated software, you are likely to find the following improvements:

Lower administrative burden: Automated fund tracking and calculated allocations
Enhanced security and audit footprint: Audit-ready reconciliation with clear tracking
Greater donor transparency: Connects with reporting platforms

Dedicated endowment management software keeps your organization compliant while freeing up the time your team once spent manually managing spreadsheets.

Secure Your Endowment with Balance by EverTrue

Effective endowment management begins with excellent accounting. Balance by EverTrue handles unitization, applies spending rules, and produces audit-ready reports, so your team can spend more time on the donor relationships that built the fund in the first place.

Turn your data into a clear picture of long-term impact. Combine accurate fund accounting with donor reporting that showcases impact.
Connect with the tools you already use. Pair Balance with Impact by EverTrue and ODDER by EverTrue to create and deliver compelling digital endowment reports that you can send to donors with ease.
Know where every fund stands in real time. Check market values, gift history, and available spending for any fund. Then, share view-only versions with your team, so everyone stays informed.

With Balance, your team can stop spending all your time on manual management and instead add balance to your endowment workflow.

Additional Resources

To learn more about managing your endowment and other ways that technology can help your organization, check out these additional resources:

Webinar: Building a Seamless Relationship Between Endowment Finance and Advancement. In this webinar, we cover the keys to un-complicating your institution’s financial endowment reporting process. Explore how building a connection between your finance and advancement teams can lead to happier donors and happier staff.
The Best Alumni Management Software Solutions in 2026. Alumni management software allows your university to maintain an active community that supports your school in a number of ways. Review top software solutions.
Donor Segmentation: How Organizing Donors Boosts Retention. What is donor segmentation, and how can you use it to boost retention? Learn the need-to-know information in this guide from EverTrue’s fundraising experts.

Less stress, higher endowment funds. Discover how Balance provides the organization, security, and accuracy your endowment needs. Request a demo.

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