I am on the Board of Trustees for a spiritual center where we do an Annual Campaign each autumn. Once the pledges are in, board members agree to make follow-up phone calls. These calls focus first on those who pledged last year because experience has shown that at least 50% of these folks have simply forgotten to send in their cards. I give each board member a script for calls in two formats: one to use when someone answers the phone and one to use when they get an answering machine. The script is only a guideline and, after doing a couple of calls, most members get comfortable and begin changing it to meet the response they get. [...]

Jane B. Ford

It’s that time of the year when our mailboxes overflow with letters asking us to contribute to an abundance of worthy causes. I have a system to handle these requests. If I don’t know the organization and its name doesn’t intrigue me, the letter goes into the wastebasket. If it [...]