Sadly, the Nonprofit World has Lost a True Fundraising Trailblazer

I knew him for decades. He profoundly affected my life. Whether you know it or not, he affected your life, too. He dramatically changed the way nonprofit organizations approach fundraising. And he did so much more.

Unfortunately, we all experienced a loss when William P. Freyd, 87, passed away on August 20, 2020, following a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

William P. Freyd (1933 – 2020)

This month is the 47^th anniversary of when Bill founded Institutional Development Counsel, a major-gift consulting practice. In 1977, Bill, and the company he created, went on to partner with Yale University on a trailblazing project. While fundraising phonathons, of one sort or another, have been with us for a very long time, telephone fundraising, as we know it today, can be traced back to that collaboration.

Bill developed the first personalized methodology for the public phase of a capital campaign. Yale combined the use of letters and telephone calls to simulate the steps used in major-gift cultivation and appeals. Since then, thousands of universities and medical centers have used the IDC Phone/Mail Telecommunications approach worldwide to raise millions. The company itself employed hundreds of people and inspired the creation of other telephone fundraising agencies, including my own.

In 1982, shortly after our innovative, successful work on the Temple University Centennial Challenge Campaign’s telephone program, Stephen Schatz and I founded Telefund Management, later renamed The Development Center. Because we were following in the footsteps of IDC and had other very good competitors, we had to continue to be innovative not only to survive but also to thrive. Good enough would never be good enough with Bill as a competitor. Yet, despite being competitors, we always found Bill to be friendly and fair during our own successful journey. I always appreciated that about him, along with his quick wit.

Stop Pretending that You Work for Stanford!

It’s big news.

Stanford University has shut down its annual fund telephone fundraising program. You can visit the university’s official web page announcing the decision by clicking here.

It’s all over the blog-a-sphere. It’s made headlines in publications for the nonprofit sector. For example, here’s a headline from The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

Stanford Hangs Up on Telemarketing — Will Others Follow?”

I’ll leave it to others to speculate about whether other charities will follow Stanford’s lead. I’ll also leave it to others to consider whether or not Stanford made a wise or foolish move. Instead, I’ll focus on whether or not you should also discontinue your organization’s telephone fundraising effort.

Simply put, you should probably keep your own telephone fundraising program. Here are just five of my random thoughts that lead me to that conclusion:

1.  You do NOT work for Stanford, so don’t act like you do!

Unless I’m mistaken, you don’t work for Stanford, or Harvard, or Yale, or Cornell, etc. Such prestigious universities have built-in, loyal constituencies and, therefore, have a massive advantage over your charity. Not only could Stanford eliminate its phone program, it could fire nearly its entire development staff and still raise much more money than the average American nonprofit organization.

Your challenges are vastly different than those faced by Stanford. So, your challenges require different solutions. If you don’t work at Stanford, don’t make the mistake of acting as if you do.

2.  Telephone fundraising is less effective than it was, but it still works.

Since the early 1980s, I’ve heard so-called experts predicting the extinction of telephone fundraising. Interestingly, many of those same folks also predicted the demise of direct mail.

They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. Neither mail nor phone are as effective as they once were. However, smart organizations have evolved their use of both. The outcome is that these organizations are still able to produce worthwhile results by both mail and phone. It’s not about extinction; it’s about innovation and evolution.

Colin Bickley, writing for NonProfitPRO, provides superb analysis of some of the telephone fundraising challenges faced by the nonprofit sector. However, Bickley concludes:

The telefundraising business is never going away, but it is changing. And right now, it’s clear that its changing more than ever.”

3.  Don’t judge all telephone fundraising by looking just at bad programs.

I’m amazed at how many TERRIBLE telephone fundraising calls I receive. I suspect that the charities responsible are either disappointed with their program results, don’t know enough to be disappointed, or think they’re doing the best they can.

Let’s face it. If your calls are bad, your results will be bad. Remember the old adage, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Not all calling programs are of equal quality. If you’re not getting the results you want, look for opportunities to improve before abandoning the entire medium. You wouldn’t stop your direct mail efforts because one mailing didn’t do well, would you?