What sets Telephone Town Halls apart from your standard conference call is the outbound call inviting people to participate in the events. This call plays an automated message that tells the person who answers the phone the Telephone Town Hall is about begin, it’s free to participate, and to simply stay on the line to join the event.
We’ve found this method of communication to be far superior to that of a traditional conference call where participants have to dial into the event.
One great advantage to the outbound call is that participants do not have to remember anything about the event. Everyone is human and prone to forget or lose things. Such is the problem with having a phone number, date, and time that people have to remember in order to participate on a conference call.
Telephone Town Halls, utilizing the outbound dial, eliminate this problem.
The people we call only have to pick up their phone and they are automatically connected to the event.
In 2012, we worked with the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund to develop a comprehensive donor engagement program. Each week, we brought high profile LGBT candidates like Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona directly to their membership. During the call Victory Fund leadership solicited additional financial support and locked in volunteer commitments from their donors and members.
We helped them run Telephone Town Halls that delivered an average of ten times the number of participants that their top donor traditional conference calls had yielded. Even without superstars like Senator Baldwin speaking during the events, the Victory Fund was able to communicate with far more of their top donors using Telephone Town Halls than in the past. Not only was participation greater, but the organization was able to raise far more money than they ever had using traditional conference calls.
Here’s more on how Telephone Town Halls are great for nonprofit fundraising.