5-Minute Interview--Paul Leo

5-Minute Interview: Paul Leo

Jan. 17, 2006

By Abny Santicola, associate editor, FundRaising Success

Paul Leo, manager of new markets and acquisition for international humanitarian organization CARE, talks about his organization's telefundraising efforts, the strengths of telefundraising and the various stages of a telephone call soliciting donations.

FundRaising Success: How and when does your organization use the telephone to raise money for your cause?

Paul Leo: We use, for fundraising reasons, it in a lot of different places in a donor's life cycle. There are different points in the donor's relationship with CARE at which we call them ... Some of those key points are shortly after -- several months after -- they've given their first gift. If they haven't given a second gift, we'll call them and see where they're at. If they'd like to give a gift to CARE and then if we haven't heard from them in quite a long time, we'll call them as well, as kind of a reactivation tool. And then, outside of that, we usually do one or two general campaigns in which everyone will get [a call], regardless of where they're at in their life cycle.

FS: What are telefundraising's strengths?

PL: I think one nice thing about using the phone is there's a sense of urgency there because you're actually talking and communicating with somebody personally, and you can convey that sense of urgency and immediacy much more easily than you can through a printed piece. And the flexibility that using the phone offers you in regards to what you want to [focus your] message around ... If you're fundraising on the phone [and] you find that your offer isn't working, you can just change that on the spot. And the next day you can be able to use a different offer completely and see your results go up or down depending on what you've done.