Year-Round Calling: A Better Way to Use the Telephone?

For years, telephone fundraising has lived in bursts.

A short campaign window.
A concentrated push for income.
A narrow slice of time in which donors are expected to be available, receptive, and ready to talk.

And then… silence.

The problem isn’t that telephone fundraising no longer works. As we’ve explored before, voice remains one of the most powerful ways to build trust, handle complexity, and secure meaningful gifts - when it feels timely, relevant, and human.

The challenge is that the traditional campaign model increasingly works against those strengths.

Why the traditional model is under strain

Donor availability is no longer predictable. Flexible working patterns, time-zone dispersion, family commitments, and digital overload mean that the idea of a single “good time to call” is becoming less realistic.

At the same time, institutions are asking more of their telephone programmes. Conversations are expected to be richer. Gifts are often higher value. Follow-up matters more. And voice is now one channel among many, rather than a once-a-year event.

Short, intensive campaigns struggle under this weight. One or two missed calls can end a relationship before it begins. Follow-ups are hard to accommodate when the campaign clock is ticking. And when the appeal ends, insight and momentum often disappear with it.

What’s needed isn’t more calling - it’s a different way of using the telephone.

Introducing Year-Round Calling

Year-Round Calling is a continuous, flexible model that embeds a small, highly trained calling team into your fundraising operation across the year.

Rather than concentrating activity into a single appeal window, calling happens in response to real moments: donor behaviour, institutional milestones, and live fundraising priorities.

This is not “calling all the time”.
It is calling at the right moments, for the right reasons, with the right people.

The shift is subtle, but significant. Instead of treating telephone fundraising as a temporary project, it becomes a background capability - always available, always ready, and able to flex as needed.

Why this works

At its core, Year-Round Calling reflects what evidence increasingly shows about donor behaviour.

Timing matters as much as messaging. A well-judged call made at the right moment will outperform a perfect script delivered at the wrong time.

Repeated, respectful attempts consistently outperform single-window intensity for higher-value prospects. Continuity allows conversations to develop at a pace that feels comfortable for donors, rather than rushed for the institution.

Crucially, continuity also improves conversation quality. Callers gain confidence. Donors feel recognised. Follow-up becomes natural rather than forced.

And when voice works best, it feels expected, relevant, and human - not intrusive, urgent, or transactional.

This approach is already well established in the United States, particularly across higher education and large non-profits, where year-round phonathons and “engagement centres” have replaced episodic calling for many institutions.

In the UK, adoption is accelerating as organisations look for lower-friction, more sustainable ways to preserve the value of voice without the operational overhead of traditional campaigns.

What changes when calling runs year-round?

The biggest change is continuity.

Callers are retained, supported, and developed over time. They build familiarity not just with scripts, but with your institution, your donors, and the nuances of different conversations.

This allows telephone fundraising to do things that short campaigns struggle to accommodate.

New donors can be welcomed properly, rather than rushed. Supporters who need time to think, speak to a partner, or wait for the right moment can be followed up without friction. Conversations that begin after a Giving Day or digital appeal can continue naturally, rather than falling off the edge of a campaign deadline.

Over time, Year-Round Calling creates space for a wider range of activity: relationship-building alongside revenue generation, stewardship alongside upgrades, insight gathering alongside income.

The telephone becomes less of a blunt instrument, and more of a responsive layer wrapped around your wider fundraising programme.

How this fits alongside campaigns and digital fundraising

For many institutions, Year-Round Calling doesn’t replace traditional appeals immediately. Instead, it reframes them.

A small, year-round core team provides continuity, infrastructure, and institutional memory. Once or twice a year, additional callers can be layered on for a focused appeal - but without the usual stress of rebuilding systems, scripts, and supervision from scratch.

In this model, campaigns become moments of intensity within a familiar rhythm, rather than logistical cliff edges.

The result is faster launches, calmer delivery, better donor experiences, and insight that accumulates rather than resets.

Is Year-Round Calling right for you?

Year-Round Calling is particularly well suited to institutions that want to increase donor lifetime value, not just annual income.

It works best where teams are looking for a responsive calling layer around Giving Days, digital appeals, and direct mail - and where there is appetite to professionalise voice engagement rather than treat it as a temporary project.

If you’d like to explore how Year-Round Calling works in practice, including how programmes are structured and how institutions get started, you can learn more about Hubbub Year-Round Calling or get in touch.

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