Phonathon

Heather Poginy
Special to the Critic

Phonathon brings in the big bucks--and old stories.

Work-study-paid students gear up Sunday through Thursday nights at the Alumni House to raise money for Lyndon State College’s Phonathon for the Annual Fund.

The students sit from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. at individual desks in the Alumni House. These desks serve as “calling stations” in which they phone alumni of the college.

Because the school has the records of every alumni that goes through its doors, the callers generally have an easy time contacting them. However, some are entirely “unreachable,” with no phone number, address, or any other contact information.

Thayer Newport, a senior at Lyndon, is in her third year working for the Phonathon. She helps to supervise the callers when Hannah Manley, the director of alumni relations and development, cannot be there.

“Talking to alumni is actually quite fun sometimes,” Newport says, “You can really hear some interesting stories.” She recalled a story one alumna told when she was living in the original Vail mansion, when the alumna’s house mother scared them by making each resident believe the Vail tower was haunted.

The purpose of the phone calls to the alumni are about more than raising money. Students keep in contact with the alumni to keep them in touch with the college, and to give them the scoop of what’s happening at LSC. However, students always ask for a pledge to the college at the end of a phone call.

There’s always something in it for the students, though. The callers receive “Incentive Points” for each call made. For example, if they receive a pledge of over $500, they receive 10 points. If they manage to convince the alumnus or alumna to donate for the first time or to increase the amount of their pledge from the year before, they receive one point. Even an email address or other personal information about the alumnus gets them points.

At the end of their efforts, whichever caller has the most points gets a cash bonus determined by their supervisor.

“I can usually get sixty or a hundred points in one night,” Newport said, “We really compete, it definitely does motivate the callers.”

Alumni might pledge from $5 to over a $1000. The money is used for scholarships for students, improvements of the buildings and grounds and it also helps improve faculty through professional development. With the college’s economic downfall, every penny helps.

“Your adrenaline really pumps when you get those big donations,” Newport said. “It makes [calling] really worthwhile.”

With the Phonathon only having been in session for a couple of weeks, the students have already raised $15,000. Each night, they raise between $500 to a couple thousand dollars.

This year, thanks to a challenge grant, when an alumni raises their pledge from the previous year, or when a new donor hits the list, their pledges are matched by the grant, so their pledges are doubled. Also, pledges made over $365, a dollar a day for a year, will be matched by the challenge grant.

Money donated by the alumni goes directly to the Annual Fund, which is a generic fund, but alumni do have the option to specify if they want to send their money to specific programs, endowments or departments at the college.