How Trinity Hall College runs PCI-safe alumni telethons with Paytia

The challenge

Each year the College runs a telephone fundraising campaign, reaching out to alumni to support college initiatives like the student hardship fund. The trouble was the payments. As soon as a donor read their card number aloud to a student caller, those details landed inside the College's systems, which dragged the whole operation into PCI DSS scope and piled extra work onto IT and admin staff. The College wanted to keep its fundraising calls personal and effective without taking on that card-data risk.

The solution

Paytia set up secure phone payments for the telethon. Student callers stay in conversation with donors the whole way through, so the personal connection isn't broken. When it's time to pay, the donor keys their card details straight into their own telephone keypad. Paytia masks the digits, so the caller never sees or hears the card number and the data never touches the College's network or systems.

The results

The College kept its fundraising calls warm and personal while taking the card-data risk off the table entirely. Donors felt more confident paying, knowing their card details weren't being written down or repeated back. The student fundraisers found the system easy to pick up and use with very little training. What had been a compliance headache became a normal part of the call.

Key benefits

• Donors feel more confident giving their card details over the phone
• Student callers stay on the line with donors throughout the payment
• Card data never reaches the College's network or systems