# Refugee Action receives vital telephone fundraising training from The Phone Room in bespoke training day - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/10/07/refugee-action-receives-vital-telephone-fundraising-training-phone-room-bespoke-training-day/ - Published: 2011-10-07T09:31:54+01:00 - Author: Howard Lake Phone Room in bespoke training day Refugee Action, the independent national charity that works with refugees to build new lives in the UK, recently received a training day from leading specialist telephone fundraising agency The Phone Room and has been delighted by the effects of the training. Refugee Action were keen to discover how they could use the telephone to talk directly to their supporters themselves. They. worked with The Phone Room’s Satellite Business Manager Geoff Savage to design a training day specifically tailored to address their training needs. ## Advertisement Alison Gregory, Head of Fundraising at Refugee Action gave the following evaluation of the day: “8 apprehensive supporter development workers (none of whom have done fundraising before), 3 slightly scared fundraising staff who haven’t spoken directly to supporters for months and 1 trainer: Geoff ‘get inspired right now’ Savage. The plethora of light hearted fundraising anecdotes, the way he mixed structured tried and tested fundraising techniques with how to be creative during calls, and then without warning threw in that emotionally wrenching line about how we’re doing this for our clients was the perfect formula. And it was all executed with professionalism and enthusiasm. Meeting the group the day after, we were all different. We’d come together, we knew what we wanted and we’re now going out and getting it. To summarise: If you don’t come out of this training feeling like you’re about to change the world you’re either unconscious or in the wrong job.” Running training events such as this is just part of the specialist telephone fundraising service that The Phone Room provides – either by calling supporters on their Charity, Education or Arts clients’ behalf, working with organisations to help them call their own supporters, or training clients and their staff on how to run their own successful telephone fundraising campaigns. Started in 1997 and one of the longest established service providers in the industry, the Phone Room uses the telephone and mobile devices working across the not for profit sector to provide both inbound and outbound services for their clients. Their key area of expertise is talking to supporters of a wide range of organisations, from household name charities and universities to local hospices and theatres and everything in between, developing relationships and building loyalty. Specialist IT and fulfilment teams ensure that all angles of a successful campaign are covered, including data cleaning and a timely ‘thank you’ to ensure that supporter loyalty is maximised. – ### Notes to editors: 1. The Phone Room is a specialist telephone fundraising agency that uses telephone and mobile devices to talk to supporters of a wide range of charities, developing relationships and building loyalty. 2. The Phone Room was first formed in 1997 and will be celebrating its 15th Anniversary in 2012 3. Refugee Action has over 28 years’ experience in the reception, resettlement, development and integration of asylum seekers and refugees. For more information please contact 020 7654 7700 or visit www.refugee-action.org.uk For further details, information or images please contact Caroline Saunders, Marketing Manager at ca*******@**********co.uk * **[Phone Room’s cold donor acquisition achieves pay back in a year](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/12/02/phone-rooms-cold-donor-acquisition-achieves-pay-back-year/)**( 2 December 2013) * **[The Phone Room to present at Perfect Pitch on 3 October](https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/09/07/phone-room-present-perfect-pitch-3-october/)**( 7 September 2006) * **[Arts Fundraising special interest group to be launched](https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/05/06/arts-fundraising-special-interest-group-be-launched/)**( 6 May 2007)