Call Center Proves Effective With Alumni

EMU student Denay Fuglie is one of several paid callers helping to boost the rate of alumni who give to EMU.

If your phone rings in the early evening, who do you want to hear on the other end?

How about a motivated, energetic student from your alma mater?

Apparently it works for EMU alumni; more than half are pledging support to trained -- and paid -- EMU student callers these days, phoning from a newly established campus call center.

“After years of doing the traditional ‘phonathon’ model with student volunteers during a marathon week-long session twice a year, we decided it was time to stop, evaluate and re-group,” said Phil Helmuth, executive director of EMU development and church relations.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the old model wasn’t working well. “Our returns were low,” said Helmuth. "We knew that we could do better."

Regroup and Renovate

Students like Hamid Arsalan have helped EMU earn a response rate of 50 percent.

The department took a year off of phoning alumni while they prepared space and a plan for a new model of soliciting donations.

The resulting call center couldn’t please Helmuth more. “It’s a win-win situation all around,” he says, describing how an underused classroom in Eastern Mennonite Seminary was creatively retrofitted by EMU physical plant staff with a bank of phones and computers.

The real bonus is that the space serves double duty. When it’s not being used as a call center, EMU’s IS department uses it for training sessions.

The new model of paid callers has also proven successful. A typical response rate for support pledges by phone is about 15 percent. The new EMU model is yielding pledges in the 50 percent rate after three months of tracking statistics.

“We’re so pleased with the warm reception the callers are getting from our alumni,” says Rachel Spory, call center coordinator. “People seem to be happy to hear from a current EMU student who is passionate about their own EMU experience. That motivates them to want to support our unique mission.”