VoIP Phone Systems for Charities & Non-Profits

Feature by feature: why SwitchboardFREE works for charities and non-profits

Every SwitchboardFREE account comes with over 40 features. These are the ones that make the biggest difference to charities and non-profits, and why.

Freephone 0800 and 0808 numbers

People ringing a charity are often worried, unwell or short of money, and some are calling from a mobile with little credit. A freephone number is free to call from UK landlines and mobiles, so cost is never the reason someone does not ring your helpline. It can sit alongside a local number on the same account.

Calls from your business number

Volunteers returning calls to service users should never have to give out their own mobile number. Calls made from the SwitchboardFREE app show the charity's number, which protects volunteers, supports your safeguarding policy, and means service users always ring the charity back rather than an individual.

Divert calls to your mobile

Many charities rely on volunteers and part-time staff who work from home or across several venues. The helpline can ring the app on their mobiles or divert to any UK phone, so a volunteer on shift can answer from home and hand over to the next person when their shift ends.

Time-of-day routing

Helplines often run set hours, such as weekday daytimes and a couple of evenings. Time-of-day routing sends calls to whoever covers each slot, and outside opening hours plays a message with your hours and where to get urgent help, such as 999 or NHS 111, so nobody hears a phone that just rings out.

Ring groups

When several volunteers are on shift, ring groups ring all of them at once so the first free person answers, or ring them one after another in a set order. Small charities can ring the office first and the coordinator's mobile next.

DepartmentsStandard & Unlimited plans

A charity phone line carries very different calls: people who need support, supporters making a donation, would-be volunteers and partner organisations. With departments, "press 1 for support, press 2 to donate or fundraise, press 3 to volunteer" sends each caller to the right team, so support calls never wait behind admin.

Call reports

Funders and trustees want evidence of demand. Call reports show how many people rang, at what times, how many calls were answered and how many were missed, which gives you hard numbers for grant applications, impact reports and the case for extending your helpline hours.

Voicemail to email

Messages left out of hours or while everyone is on a call arrive by email as audio with a written transcript. Voicemail to email can go to a shared inbox, so whoever is on shift next morning can pick them up, and nothing depends on one person checking a voicemail box.

Call queuing

After a news story, a cold snap or a fundraising appeal, calls can arrive faster than volunteers can answer them. Call queuing holds callers in line rather than giving them an engaged tone, and queue position announcements tell them their place, so they know they will get through.

Call recordingPaid add-on

Recording calls helps with volunteer training, safeguarding concerns and complaints, and gives you a record of what was said if a call needs to be escalated. The call recording add-on records all or some calls; tell callers when calls are recorded and cover it in your privacy notice.

A number for every appeal and site

Give a fundraising campaign, a shop or a regional project its own number, with extra numbers through the paid multi-number package. Each can have its own greeting and routing, and your call logs show which appeal or leaflet actually made the phone ring.

No contract, and a charity discount

Grant-funded projects start and stop, and a three-year phone contract can outlast the money. SwitchboardFREE is rolling monthly with no setup fee, and registered UK charities get 10% off all prices.