Are you pitching to ghosts? Here's some ghost repellent
Strategies to make sure your (human) lead shows up to your virtual pitch... not a ghost
Quick Heads Up!
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Tomorrow’s new grant newsletter will deploy from there.
Now without further ado…
Let’s jump into proven strategies to prevent no-shows to your calls.
You’ve more than likely been in this situation before.
You have a call with a funder or potential customer (or any other kind of lead) in 25 minutes. Not enough time to fully dive into one of your many project with a rapidly approaching deadline. Not enough time to watch an episode of your favorite TV Show. Too much time in between for a quick coffee break.
So you just do some busy work. Answer some emails, clean your inbox, text some colleagues. Then, when it’s time for your call. Here’s what you find.
You’re speaking to a ghost. Boo. It’s frustrating.
Here is our guide to keep that from happening to you.
The short version:
Take Preventative Measures
React Quickly
Cross Your Fingers
Get Back to Chasing
Go Above Your Contact’s Head
The full guide:
1. Take preventative measures
When you schedule meetings, follow all of the steps we outline here:
Also check for the following:
Does your meeting invite include everyone on the original chain?
I.E. if multiple partners, analysts, admins, or assistants are on the thread… are they included in the invite?
Sometimes busy people have others helping manage their schedules.
Does your meeting invite match the time you confirmed over email in your chain?
Is/was everyone on the same page re: time zone?
If someone booked a call on your Calendly (but never responded on the chain to confirm it) did you send them something like this as soon as you got it?
Hi NAME,
I just saw the scheduling notification come in for [Weekday] [Month] the [Day] at [Time] [TimeZone].
Looking forward to speaking with you then
If someone on your team (or at Grant & Co) helped you book the call… did you send a “Nice to e-meet you, looking forward to speaking with you at [Weekday] [Month] the [Day] at [Time] [TimeZone]”
If the call was scheduled a while ago (let’s say 72 hours to a week or more in advance), did you send a “Looking forward to speaking with you later today at [Time] [TimeZone]” confirmation email?
FYI - we recommend turning off your Calendly or ESP’s (email service providers) auto notifications. Quite frankly, they are annoying and your lead will have their own alerts on their end. You want to be personalized here.
If you’ve done all of the above and you’re still looking at a Ghost…
React Quickly
You’ve got 10 minutes to get your lead on the line before you’ve got to throw in the towel and revert to strategies to getting yourself out of scheduling limbo.
Twiddle your thumbs (i.e. go back through your notes you prepared on your lead before the call) for two-three minutes… then send this email:
Hi NAME,
[Your Name], founder/CEO of [Your Company] here. We were scheduled to meet now. Is this no longer a good time for you?
I’m here: [insert virtual call link]
Wait for another 2-3 minutes… then pick up the phone
Check your lead’s email signature for their phone number… if it’s not there…
Use Lusha
IF they answer, use this script:
Hi Name. [Your Name], founder/CEO of [Your Company] here. We’re on the calendar to meet now.
[Pause. If you get anything other than “Oh yeah sorry jumping on the TEAMS call now”]
Is this no longer a good time for you? - Should we try for the same time tomorrow? I mean, I can run you through our pitch here on WhatsApp but I’d love to screen share to make it easier to see our traction and financials.
Get the call rescheduled while you have them; when they confirm a time, send:
1) an invite
2) an email saying “thanks for speaking with me on WhatsApp; per our conversation, I’ve rescheduled for [DAY at TIME] looking forward to speaking with you then.”
If they are insistent on just speaking on WhatsApp, hit them with your short pitch over the phone as best as they can; get actionable follow up in place
If they say something like “I’m not in front of my calendar right now.” Say: “No problem, I’ll send an invite for the same time next week and just let me know if it doesn’t work well for you and we’ll reschedule again.”
Send the same invite and email above
If they don’t answer, send this text (over WhatsApp):
Hi NAME,
[Your Name], founder/CEO of [Your Company] here. We were scheduled to meet now. I’ll be here: [insert virtual call link] until [the time your meeting is supposed to end], but let me know if you’d like to reschedule.
Keep your meeting link on in the background in case they join (albeit way late)
Wait until after your meeting time has elapsed and then just reply to your text with your Calendly link saying “I missed you today but feel free to reschedule.”
Cross Your Fingers
At this point, you’ve done everything right. You confirmed the call, sent a personal reminder, showed up early, followed up by email and WhatsApp, and even tried calling.
Most of time, if you’ve followed all of the steps above and still ended up with a ghost, you’ll likely get one of these 5 responses from your lead:
The Overlap: “On a call that ran over, sorry! Joining shortly”
The Emergency: “Something came up, sorry! Let’s reschedule”
The Calendar Glitch: “I don’t know why the invite didn’t show up on my calendar! Let’s reschedule”
The Tech Fail: “I’ve been having computer problems! Can we reschedule?”
The Vibe Collapse: “Oh man. The day just got away from me/was dealing with deadlines. Can we reschedule?”
Your response to “Let’s reschedule” (or anything that they respond with really) should be:
“No problem. How’s tomorrow or next week at the same time? Let me know and I’ll send an invite. Otherwise, do you want to find another time that might be more convenient on my calendar: [insert Calendly link]”
Ghosting happens. It’s not always personal. Funders get double-booked, lose power, forget to hit "Join," or—yes—flake without explanation. Happens to the best of us.
If they never respond…
Get Back to Chasing
You’re now in (re)scheduling limbo. You can follow the full guide to getting another call on the books (here) but, in short:
Send this email (and calendar invite) 24-48 hours later
Hi NAME,
Checking in here as we missed each other yesterday. I’ve sent an invite for next week at the same time (DAY, DATE at TIME), but let me know if you have a preference for a different time.Follow up the day before your rescheduled (force booked) time
Hi NAME,
Just quickly checking that tomorrow, DAY, DATE at TIME, works well for you for our rescheduled call from last week?
I’ll be here: [meeting link]
If they never respond and don’t show up to the call you’ve rescheduled… you likely don’t want them as a funder anyway, but pick up the phone and repeat the phone script above.
Wait a week and send this (with one of the options after the “-”)
Hi NAME,
-Some exciting news at [Your company] I thought to quickly share: [News]. Needless to say we’re excited.
-In addition to our deck, I thought to share a quick one-pager on our work as well.
-Thought to check in with a quick picture from our office this week. [Add it]. [Describe it in one to two sentences.
-Thought to check in with a quick quote we got from a customer last week. [Add it].
-I was looking through your LinkedIn and saw you [whatever you saw]. [Relate it back to you].
I’m not sure we’ve been able to lock in a time to connect yet.
Were you able to find a convenient for you to reschedule our intro call here on my calendar? [Calendly link].
Looking forward to catching you at a time that works better for you.
Comment on their LinkedIn posts to remind them of you
You can try to catch them on the phone or via Whatsapp text… but you’ll probably want to focus on a new lead
There are thousands of other funders out there. Every time you get ghosted should push you to reach out to a minimum of 10 other funders.
The best way to forget and get over a no-show is to book your next three calls.
If you’re over the moon passionate about speaking with this particular organization. There’s one more thing you can try after getting fully ghosted…
Go Above Your Contact’s Head
There are plenty of reasons why someone who booked a call with you, was excited to hear your pitch, and then just plain disappeared on you. Here are the top five.
First and foremost (and it might hurt to hear this)… they just ultimately aren’t that excited about investing in you
There isn’t as much alignment as you thought or maybe they were just taking the call as a favor from the mutual contact that introduced you
If it’s a sales lead, you haven’t conveyed enough value in your product/service yet
They don’t have any money
The contact has one foot out the door of the organization
The contact is truly dealing with an emergency
They are really busy (but again, if they are “too busy” to even reply to an email after ghosting you… do you really want to work with them?)
A last ditch effort strategy is to find someone else at the organization (you likely want to go above the corporate job titl/level of your contact) you can try to talk to.
Follow the steps here to find the email address or LinkedIn profile of someone else you want to target at your original contact’s organization
Send one of the two below (we recommend email first then LinkedIn if you don’t get a reply)
Email
Decide if you want to CC your original contact or not… there are pros and cons… go with your gut / the full context of that engagement
Subject Line:
Use the original one from your cold outreach
YOUR COMPANY NAME <> FUNDER NAME
Body:
Hi [FIRST NAME],
I'm [YOUR NAME], Founder/CEO of [YOUR COMPANY NAME], [https://yourwebsite.com]. We [USP].
I was originally scheduled to connect with [NAME OF YOUR ORIGINAL CONTACT] a few weeks ago and have since lost touch with them. Do you know if everything is ok with them?
I** had reached out originally as I saw a lot of alignment between your focus on[Funder Thesis that you got from their website] and our mission to [Aspect of
your work that relates to their own mission]. As I’ve yet to connect with [FUNDER NAME], I'd love to share more about our work & see if there’s opportunity for your support or other collaboration.
Would you be open to finding time to connect on an intro call here in the next couple of weeks?LinkedIn connection request
Remember you’re limited to 200 or 300 characters
Hi [FIRST NAME], I'm [YOUR NAME], Founder/CEO of [https://yourwebsite.com]. We [USP]. I was meant to connect with [NAME OF YOUR ORIGINAL CONTACT] but haven’t had a chance. I saw that you work together so wanted to connect here too.
Once they connect with you, send a variation of the email above
Ghosting happens. But if you follow the steps above, you can help prevent it and/or get your call rescheduled.
Head on over to FundraisingDispatch.com for more fundraising tips/tricks, end-to-end guides, and active grant opportunities for impact organizations in Africa and all over the world.
And keep an eye in your inbox, tomorrow, Friday, July 18th 2025, for the next batch of recently published funding opportunities.