Your alma mater pops up on your caller ID. Do you answer it? Probably not, especially if you suspect that call would merely be transactional. 

At Kent State University, we confronted this reality head-on. In the late 2010s, our Phonathon, or Phone Center, was struggling. It had not had a positive return on investment in years. We responded by building a multichannel Alumni Engagement Center that opened in April 2023 that has revitalized the way we interact with constituents. ROI has increased rapidly and, in even greater numbers, so have our connections to our 280,000-plus alumni, friends, and partners. So, how did we get here?

Kent State University is a large public university with more than 30,000 students at eight campuses throughout northeast Ohio, U.S. Like many colleges and universities, we have long relied on our phone center as an important component of our fundraising efforts. But changing times require assessment and fresh, new strategies. Over the course of five years, new commitment dollars acquired through the phone center had decreased by a staggering 56%. This communications and fundraising channel, once a key driver for new donor acquisition that secured nearly 50% of Kent State’s new donors in the 2016 fiscal year, brought in a mere 11% of new donors by FY2022. If it wasn’t serving to bolster the donor pipeline or bring in donations, what was the point of this extensive, and expensive, program? 

The model used at the time by our vendor had student callers making three “asks” per phone call, and each record in our system could be attempted 10 to 15 times within a nine-month calling period. The model was transactional, and our alumni and donors were burnt out. They were not answering the phone anymore. Our student callers were discouraged and weary from rejection. Despite a competitive student wage, high turnover of student employees was another challenge.