There’s much for a nonprofit to consider before it sends street canvassers back out into the field — chiefly, how to keep fundraisers safe in a job that traditionally includes physical contact and close conversation.
For the last six months, most big nonprofits have suspended their canvassing programs and experimented with telemarketing or made do with gifts from loyal donors. But as charities adjust to life during a pandemic, some are sending canvassers back out to neighborhoods and onto street corners. This time around, they’re interacting with prospective donors in new ways. The relaunch of such programs is also raising questions about benefits like health care and sick leave for the fundraisers — often contract workers — whom charities bring on to represent their organizations on the street.
It’s not surprising that some charities were anxious to get back out there. Face-to-face fundraising is a lucrative strategy for many large nonprofits. At Oxfam America, which operates an in-house canvassing team, most of its monthly donors sign up after an interaction with a canvasser, according to Ali Jones, national face-to-face fundraising manager. At the Nature Conservancy, roughly three-quarters of new donors come through face-to-face fundraising.
Many groups emphasized monthly giving after the last recession. Recurring donors underpin annual fundraising revenue, giving charities a chunk of cash they can count on. What’s more, the average gift size from a monthly contributor is often higher than from one-time donors.
During the economic free-fall at the start of the pandemic, some fundraisers worried that these loyal donors would pull their monthly gifts. And while some donors did stop making contributions, they haven’t done so en masse.
The Nature Conservancy was one nonprofit that anticipated attrition of monthly donors, who have been the focus of its canvassing program since 2010. But for the most part, those fears have not come to pass. “We did see a bit of a spike [at the] end of March and April, when people were losing their jobs and couldn’t afford it,” said Jill Miller, associate director of membership at the charity. “But we did not see any dramatic increase in cancellations.”
Monthly donors to Doctors Without Borders USA have also held steady throughout the pandemic, according to Melanie Sovern, the group’s senior marketing manager.
An Ethical Dilemma
That continued appetite for monthly giving is yet another reason fundraisers hope to relaunch efforts to attract new donors through canvassing. But it’s been a challenge to determine how to do that safely. Fundraisers have also faced an ethical dilemma: Should they send contract canvassers into the field while the staff continues to work from home?
“We were very cautious about the exposure to both the canvassers and the public in the midst of a pandemic,” says Christy Moore, senior vice president for marketing at Heifer International, whose offices remain closed.
Similarly, fundraisers at the Nature Conservancy also grappled with whether to restart canvassing while their staff works from home, says Miller. Ultimately, Miller and her colleagues decided to work toward a relaunch because fundraising companies were offering safety provisions to workers and local lockdowns have largely lifted. The charity also leaned on its global safety director to suggest protocols to protect canvassers in the field.
“Even though our organization has decided not to open our offices officially yet, we do believe fundraising can be conducted safely,” Miller says.
John Jeffries, head of international development at the face-to-face fundraising firm New Canvassing Experience, says this uneasiness about differences in canvassers’ and nonprofit employees’ benefits and work environments is new. He hopes it signals that nonprofits are placing a higher value on canvassers, who generally are contracted through companies that pay them hourly, typically do not provide health care, and often tie their earnings to commissions. Jeffries’ firm has long paid its canvassers a base wage of $15 an hour or higher, depending on the cost of living where they work. It has also provided them with sick leave and health coverage. Jeffries has recently heard from more nonprofits that are interested in providing such benefits to canvassers directly.
“I’ve got clients now talking to me about making sure all of our people have got access to health insurance when, five years ago, they were working with agencies that wouldn’t have even considered giving their people health insurance — they would’ve have considered that as unnecessary,” Jeffries says. “That sense of valuing fundraisers and valuing their work, I think, will be a legacy of this year.”
Oxfam America provides its in-house canvassers with health benefits and paid leave and is allowing them to choose whether they want to return to in-person fundraising or continue with the telemarketing calls they’ve been placing since March. Because telemarketing has been successful in attracting new monthly donors throughout the pandemic, the charity feels comfortable continuing that effort. It plans to fall back on calls to donors if a spike in Covid-19 infections forces another pause in-person fundraising.
“It gives the canvassers a bit more confidence that they know it’s their choice to go out, but they equally know that if they change their mind for any reason, they can pivot back to the phones,” Jones says.
Some companies that run face-to-face fundraising programs are offering hazard pay to canvassers as well as health benefits. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act requires that certain employers provide workers with 80 hours of paid sick leave if they contract Covid-19. New Canvassers is offering its workers the choice to raise their hourly wage by about $3 in exchange for qualifying for slightly lower bonuses. The firm created this option to recognize that the fundraising environment is more challenging and canvassers may not be able sign up the number of monthly donors that would have earned them a bonus in a typical year.
For its part, Doctors Without Borders USA is crunching the numbers on whether it can provide hazard pay to its canvassers, according to Sovern.
No More High-Fives
There’s no playbook for running canvassing operations during a pandemic, so fundraisers have had to examine a host of data to decide where to work. This includes monitoring Covid-19 caseloads, local health policies, and even whether in-person schooling is permitted.
In recent weeks, fundraisers have had to start monitoring another threat to public health: wildfires. Doctors Without Borders, for example, had planned to send canvassers to the Pacific Northwest, but poor air quality there suspended that move. Oxfam America is keeping a close eye on whether its canvassers in California can still work safely.
And as social distancing continues, charities need to consider not only where they send canvassers but also how they interact with potential donors. In May, the Professional Face to Face Fundraising Association recommended a raft of Covid-adapted practices to companies that hire street canvassers and the nonprofits that contract with them. The association has updated this guidance continuously as public-health recommendations shift, and it plans to issue a follow-up report in October.
Its recommendations have included following local and federal government health and safety directives — such as asking employees to wash their hands frequently, wear personal protective equipment, and stay home when they feel sick — but it’s also suggested new tactics canvassers can use to attract potential donors from a distance.
Instead of flagging down pedestrians, for example, canvassers can stand behind tables outdoors and wait for interested passersby to approach them. Canvassers would need to continuously wipe down the table and display materials, but they could be protected by a plexiglass shield throughout the interaction with a potential donor. That’s a big change from how canvassing worked before the pandemic, when interactions often began with a high-five or a handshake.
Heifer International has already found success with this method. After it took a three-week pause in March, its ranks of monthly donors have grown 10 percent over last year’s count, thanks to the outdoor table method. Masked canvassers converse with potential donors from behind a clear barrier, and they place markers six feet in front of each table for people to stand.
Doctors Without Borders USA is opting for similar outdoor kiosks. Its canvassers now wear masks at all times and often stand behind plexiglass shields. Rather than sharing a form or a tablet with new donors, canvassers offer a QR code donors can scan with their cellphones to reach a donation page or send a donation form to the donor by text.
Other charities, like Oxfam America, are sticking with door-to-door fundraising. That limits the risk of accidental physical interaction on a crowded sidewalk and allows the canvassers to control how they interact with potential donors, Jones says.
The Nature Conservancy is still finalizing its canvassing strategy, but once its program restarts, it plans to keep fundraisers well stocked with personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer and ask them to wash their hands frequently. As an environmental charity, it is also requiring canvassers to use cloth-face coverings rather than single-use masks.
Before they head back into the field, canvassers will be trained to recognize Covid-19 symptoms in themselves and others — including how to politely discontinue a conversation with a potential donor who appears symptomatic. And at the start of each shift, they will have to complete a confidential survey about their health.
“We’re asking everyone to keep the conversation under 15 minutes, and there are no more high-fives, no more handshakes,” says Miller, at the Nature Conservancy.
‘Rebuild and Relaunch’
It’s not likely that canvassing programs will soon return to full force, or even go back to functioning like they did before the pandemic.
“We’re seeing this truly as a rebuild and a relaunch. We’re not seeing it as pick up exactly where we left off, because the world is just a different place now, and the safety needs are different,” says Sovern at Doctors Without Borders USA. When it suspended canvassing, her group ramped up efforts to reach new donors online. It plans to continue those efforts as it returns to canvassing.
At Oxfam America, where canvassers began calling donors during the pandemic, Jones also sees that multichannel approach as a silver lining. She expects canvassers to keep calling donors even as they return to the field.
“There’s an integrated, holistic approach that’s happened as we pivoted to [telemarketing],” Jones says. When they raise money outdoors, canvassers often connect with younger, more diverse audiences than the charity reaches through other means. Jones hopes to expand the charity’s reach by adding ways for those new donors to use their phones to recruit friends and family to donate as well.
And when it comes to canvassing in the field, interactions with donors have changed significantly from how they worked before the pandemic. Canvassers have had to get creative about how to initiate a relationship with a potential donor while also maintaining social distance, says Sherry Bell, president of the board of directors of the Professional Face to Face Fundraising Association.
“What we’ll see in the future is face-to-face fundraisers will be more professional and more polished because the fundraisers have had to rely on less fun and more practical tactics to get the attention and maintain that attention,” Bell says, adding that that might be a positive change.
What’s more, potential donors appreciate the effort to keep in-person fundraising interactions safe during the public-health emergency.
“The feedback we’ve gotten from the canvassers has been extremely positive where people do come up to them and say, ‘What’s going on here? What is this about? How can I be a part of this? Tell me more,’” says Moore at Heifer International. It helps that all fundraisers are wearing PPE and observing social distancing, she added.
Similarly, Doctors Without Borders USA has not yet fielded any complaints from potential donors or canvassers themselves.
The past six months have challenged nonprofits to reimagine how to reach new donors, but Jeffries, with New Canvassers, says fundraisers have learned from the experience.
“The sector is stronger now in many ways than it was six months ago,” he says. “Seven months ago, no one foresaw this coming. And now at least they’re all very conscious that this could happen again — even with the vaccine.”
Eden Stiffman contributed reporting.
