SU2C success: Telethon fundraising with the Virtual Terminal

Sep 20, 2024
Ashley Montgomery
Content Marketing Manager

For nonprofit telethon fundraising events, efficiency and reliability in processing donations are paramount. Our Virtual Terminal feature has proven to be an invaluable tool for organizations like Stand Up To Cancer, enabling them to maximize their fundraising potential during high-stakes telethon fundraising events.

Real-time donation processing

During a telethon fundraising event, every second counts. Stand Up To Cancer leveraged the Virtual Terminal's real-time processing capabilities to handle donations swiftly and accurately throughout their telecast. This feature was crucial in maintaining a low declined payment rate of just 0.97%. By catching payment errors immediately, the organization ensured that more donations were successfully processed, maximizing their fundraising efforts.

The Virtual Terminal also offers autofilling for returning donors, which speeds up donation handling significantly. This feature contributed to a 9% reduction in call wait times, allowing Stand Up To Cancer to handle more calls and engage with more donors within the same timeframe.

Handling high-volume events

Telethons often involve managing a large number of transactions in a short period. The Virtual Terminal is built to handle up to 200 real-time transactions per second, making it the perfect solution for any high-volume event. In Stand Up To Cancerā€™s case, this capability ensured that the orgā€™s telecast ran smoothly without any bottlenecks, allowing the team to focus on the mission rather than technical hiccups.

Empowering your team

The success of a telethon also depends on the efficiency of the team behind the scenes. Our Virtual Terminal is designed for simplicity, requiring minimal training for staff. Stand Up To Cancer experienced a 50% reduction in staff training time, enabling their team to hit the ground running and manage donations effectively. And the Virtual Terminalā€™s user-friendly interface allowed staff to personalize donations by easily filling in details such as tributes and comments, ensuring an engaging donor experience.

Secure and collaborative environment

Security is a top priority during telethon fundraising events, especially where sensitive donor information is handled. The Virtual Terminal provides secure access controls, allowing organizations to confidently grant access to internal specialists and external partners. This feature enabled Stand Up To Cancer to collaborate seamlessly with its event staff and volunteers, ensuring that all donations were processed securely and efficiently.

Security has never been so easy: enjoy enterprise-level Single Sign-On across your team.

A testament to innovation

Robyn Bucknam, VP of Innovation and Technology at Stand Up To Cancer, highlights the impact of the Virtual Terminal.

ā€œFundraise Up made donation processing intelligent enough to correctly identify fraud and catch errors in real time. The processing power and flexibility also made on-the-fly coordination possible during the telecast so there was never a component that was down or processing slowly.ā€

The Virtual Terminal is a game-changer for nonprofit telethon fundraising events. By providing real-time processing, handling high transaction volumes, simplifying team operations, and ensuring secure collaboration, it empowers organizations like Stand Up To Cancer and yours to meet (and exceed!) fundraising goals. Ask our team about a personalized demo of Virtual Terminal. Letā€™s make your next telethon the best one yet.

Case study
A telethon success
Learn how Fundraise Up optimized SU2Cā€™s most popular telethon.
See the success

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