In fundraising, the stewardship phone call — with no ask — might be one of the most underestimated tools in your fundraising toolkit.
A voice broadcast is a pre-recorded voice message from someone at your organization. This message lands in your supporters’ voicemails around the same time that your direct mail solicitation lands in their mailboxes.
The voice broadcast cannot solicit a gift. Instead, it stewards donors. It also reinforces the message of the direct mail campaign, deepens emotional connection, and reminds supporters that real people — and pets, in the animal care space — are behind the need. The ask lives solely in the mail piece.
We analyzed the giving behavior of 12,703 donors in Q4 to determine how their donations differed in campaigns with a voice broadcast versus those without.
The direct mail campaign accompanied by a voice broadcast produced an average gift of $109.99, compared to an average of $74.36 for the mailings without an accompanying voice broadcast. That’s a nearly 48% increase in average gift size influenced by a phone call that never once requested a donation.
Gross income per name (GIPN) reflects this lift as well, with the voice-broadcast mailing generating $5.96 per name, versus $5.27 for the campaigns without a voice broadcast.
The influence goes beyond direct mail. Data shows that donors who received both a voice broadcast and a mailing were far more likely to give across all channels.
The Match Index, which measures unattributed giving within 90 days of receiving the mailing, stood at 5.19 for the voice-broadcast campaign, meaning that for every one gift directly attributed to the mailing, five more arrived via another channel, primarily online.
The non–voice-broadcast mailings registered an average 1.96 match index — a signal that the voice broadcast, without ever asking for a gift, was driving donors to give.
These results suggest that the integration of the voice broadcast isn’t specifically driving more donors to respond by mail. Rather, it motivates those who do respond to give more generously, and it inspires others to give through channels of their own choosing.
Taken together, the data makes a compelling case: When combined with direct mail, voice broadcast deepens donor commitment, elevates gift size, and triggers a wave of giving that shows up across every channel.