My Name is Tom Siegel and I am the Owner of the Donor Services Group.
First of all, thank you to those who posted kind words. Since talking to some of you and helping you to avoid calls from my company, I thought perhaps I might be able to help all of you avoid unwanted solicitations from my company and others before they become too irritating.
However, first let me tell you a bit the Donor Services Group (DSG), our business and our philosophy. Perhaps it will help put this kind of calling into perspective.
The first thing you need to know is that DSG only calls current or lapsed supporters of our non-profit organization clients. We never do any cold calling and are only calling contributors provided to us by our clients for the purpose of either trying to renew your support or encourage your additional support for their programs. That said, until you tell us, we have no way of knowing whether you love (and there are many of you who do) or hate receiving calls.
The second thing that might be helpful to know is that DSG is never paid based on how much we raise (that would be considered unethical because it can cause callers to put even more pressure on contributors like you). We are paid a fixed fee per call regardless of whether a contribution is secured. However, our clients receive detailed reports of each days calling and always have the option of terminating our services within 24 hours if they are unsatisfied with our results or the return they are getting on their investment. This means we are under some pressure to perform and satisfy our client's needs which result in some persistent requests for financial support, but we are also always transparent with our clients and provide them with absolute and complete control over their programs with us.
Non-profit organizations retain companies like DSG out of necessity. For better or worse, telefundraising remains one of the single most successful ways a non-profit can raise money. Without it, many non-profit organizations would simply not survive. That said, it can certainly be overused and often poorly used. That is why fourteen years ago, DSG decided to try to make our calls longer, more engaging, more informative and just plain friendlier and better. We are not perfect, and not every call we make is going to be perfect, but we hope for many of you, our telephone calls are better than you might expect. Afterall, we may be the only opportunity you will ever have to speak live to a representative from a charity or non-profit organization you think is doing important work, so we want you to feel comfortable enough to ask questions about the organization with whom you have chosen to donate your hard-earned dollars. Sure, we want you to donate, but more than that, we want you to have a good telephone experience that will help you to feel good about the organization you support so you'll continue to contribute to their good work for a long time to come.
Ok, now for those of you who, despite my explainations above still hate receiving calls, here are a couple things you need to know.
1. The National Do Not Call List and most State Do Not Call Lists do not apply to charities and non-profit organizations so placing your name on these lists will not prevent calls on behalf of these types of organizations.
2. The goal of any telephone fundraising program is to reach as many people as possible, usually over a 30 day period. In order to do this, most telefundraisers must attempt each phone number provided to them many many times over the term of the specific campaign. So, if you screen your calls and never answer the phone, you will likely be attempted 15 - 30 times over that 30 day period. The fastest way to stop these calls is to actually answer the phone so the telefundraiser can denote a final outcome to their contact with you so you no longer need to be called for that campaign.
And while we at DSG certainly hope you will find our calls so engaging that you might actually wish to receive a future call from us (perhaps 6 months or a year later), if in fact, you never want to ever receive another call, by answering the phone you can tell the caller that you'd like to be placed on the company's internal Do Not Call List and that should end any future calls to you by that firm for a period of 5 years.
One final note. And this is more a personal plea. Be kind. My staff (and we actually do use humans and not machines) on the whole are a group of highly dedicated, if underemployed, human beings, trying to make a living doing something meaningful instead of working at McDonalds or selling alluminum siding. I think you will in general find them friendly, well informed, committed to making a difference and trying hard to do the right thing on behalf of our clients and their causes. It is not easy work, made much more difficult when they are confronted by someone highly irritated, not by them, but for the simple reason that they are being called, which of course is not the caller's fault. If it helps, try to remember that that caller is the one who has the power to put you on our internal Do Not Call List and stop the calls from our company for the next five years. Best not to get on their bad side....lol
I realize that by writiing this, I may be inviting even greater hostility. I hope not. I have worked in the non-profit sector (both in and out of non-profit organizations) for my entire 30-year working life. I don't do it for the money. I do it because I too would like to make a difference.
It's for that reason that I changed DSG's focus and philosophy 14 years ago and why I have chosen to write here. I hope to help you to understand how to best achieve the outcome you wish. For some, perhaps you'll reconsidering the value you might find in actually talking with one of our callers for a few minutes. For the rest of you, I hope that I have at least provided you with a couple of helpful hints that will enable you to avoid these calls before you find yourself any more annoyed.