If your organization is seriously considering launching a capital campaign, you know it’s not a decision to take lightly.
Perhaps you’ve started the process, either working with a fundraising consultant or striking out on your own to conduct a feasibility study. Now, you must review your feasibility study results and make a final decision on starting a capital campaign. It’s important to assess your results thoughtfully and strategically to ensure you’re in the best possible position to have a successful campaign.
From considering the level of community support for the campaign to the quality of your donor recognition efforts, here are seven signs that you may be ready to launch a capital campaign:
You have a well-defined, urgent need for funding.
You have the budget required to launch the campaign.
You have a strong case for support.
You have a robust major donor pool.
You have an established donor recognition strategy.
Your team is on board with and excited about the campaign.
You have strong relationships with corporate donors.
Sit down with your team or capital campaign consultant to review these seven signs and the relevant questions you should ask before launching your campaign.
1. You have a well-defined, urgent need for funding.
A capital campaign will require a lot of your team’s time and energy over several months or years. This investment is only worthwhile if you have a clearly defined, specific need that can only be achieved through the efforts of a capital campaign.
Capital campaigns are typically used to fund major purchases or initiatives. For instance, you may need to purchase a large piece of equipment, expand your physical facilities, or launch a new program to better serve your community. These are all examples of projects that could benefit from major capital campaign funding.
Consider the needs and goals you’re considering for your capital campaign and ask yourself the following questions:
Did you identify this goal after conducting a thorough community needs assessment?
Have staff members and other team members identified this project as an urgent need?
Have you explored less costly and less time-consuming fundraising avenues to achieve your goals?
Carefully evaluate these questions to determine if you have a specific, carefully-considered need in mind that can only be met with the help of a capital campaign.
2. You have the budget required to launch the campaign.
Although the goal of a capital campaign is to raise a large amount of funding, these initiatives require investments up front to plan and carry out the campaign. Double the Donation’s capital campaign guide highlights different aspects you will have to budget for, including:
Marketing materials
Campaign events
Does your organization have enough room in the budget up front to fund the launch of your capital campaign? If not, you may need to take some time to raise these initial funds.
3. You have a strong case for support.
Your case for support is the rationale for supporting the campaign that you share with donors. You might have identified an urgent, major need for your organization, but if you don’t adequately or compellingly communicate the donors’ role in supporting that need, you won’t generate the dollars or attract volunteers for your campaign.
When considering your case for support, ask the following questions:
Can you clearly articulate the purpose of this campaign?
Did your feasibility study reveal that community members understand and support your goal?
Are you prepared to communicate your case for support across a variety of marketing platforms, including in-person meetings and events, online donor engagement and direct mail outreach?
If you can’t answer yes to these questions, chances are that your rationale needs some work. Head back to the drawing board to consider how you can present a more compelling argument.
4. You have a robust major donor pool.
The pre-planning phase of a capital campaign is your opportunity to identify and start reaching out to your current and prospective major donors. These donors will play a crucial role in your campaign as they will contribute more than 75% of your total funding.
If you decide to go through with the campaign, you’ll formulate specific aspects of your fundraising strategy, such as your gift range chart, at a later time. But for now, consider the current state of your major donor program, as well as the results of your feasibility study, and ask yourself:
Have you carried out committed donor stewardship efforts to cultivate potential major donors over the past several years or months?
Did feasibility study interviewees believe that your organization would actually be able to reach your stated goal?
Did your current major donors express support for your campaign during the feasibility study?
Your current and prospective donors should be excited about and see the value in supporting your campaign. If you’ve laid a strong foundation for future donor support using donor stewardship and appreciation efforts, you can reap the benefits when it comes time to ask for their financial support for your capital campaign.
5. You have an established donor stewardship and recognition system.
According to Donor Search’s guide to major donor fundraising, major donors are more likely to give to organizations that have established stewardship and recognition programs in place. This goes for any fundraising effort but is especially important to keep in mind when planning a capital campaign, since your major donors’ support is so critical for these initiatives.
While you’ll have time to refine your donor recognition practices during the campaign planning process, it’s immensely helpful if you already have strong donor appreciation strategies in place.
Some major donor recognition efforts, such as creating a donor recognition wall or hosting appreciation events for major donors, require a lot more planning and coordination among different teams. If you already have experience with these efforts, you’ll be able to spend less time designing your capital campaign donor recognition program. You can leverage strategies that you already know are successful and that you’re comfortable using and plug them into your capital campaign plan.
6. Your team is on board with and excited about the campaign.
Another group that’s absolutely essential to the success of your capital campaign is your team of staff members, volunteers and board members. These individuals work with your organization on a firsthand basis, so their support will help you push forward with the day-to-day aspects of each phase of your campaign.
Now that you’ve started diving into the pre-planning stages of your potential campaign, listen to and incorporate your team members’ feedback.
Review your team members’ responses to your feasibility survey and consider your team’s capacity with these questions in mind:
Do team members see the value in pursuing this major project?
Do you have team members who can fulfill a variety of roles, such as project management, major donor outreach and cultivation and donor recognition? Do you have enough team members to fill these roles, and do your team members have the right skills to complete them effectively?
Are your board members willing and excited to support the campaign themselves and meet with major donors to help cultivate large donations?
Remember, without your team members’ approval, your capital campaign will not have the hands-on support it needs to be successful. On the other hand, if your team supports your goal, is ready to fulfill a variety of roles and is positioned to help pursue donor stewardship strategies, you’ll have the internal support you need to launch your campaign.
7. You have strong relationships with corporate donors.
Corporations are often willing to support major projects like capital campaigns because they want to help local nonprofits thrive and because of the benefits they receive in return.
For example, businesses can receive positive PR and boost their reputation as responsible corporate partners. Consumers want to do business with companies that prioritize leaving a positive social impact, and a capital campaign donation can help businesses do just that.
Consider the following questions about your corporate philanthropy connections:
Does your nonprofit have a variety of existing corporate partners that would be willing to contribute capital campaign donations? If not, do you have any team members (staff, volunteers or board members) who can connect you with prospective corporate donors?
Can you successfully describe the benefits that corporate donors will receive from contributing to your campaign?
Do you have plans for a variety of corporate donor appreciation strategies, such as events, plaques or a donor recognition wall?
Corporate donations can be an excellent way to supplement contributions from individual donors. Your capital campaign will be much more successful if you’ve already spent time and energy cultivating corporate relationships.
After reviewing these signs and questions, you should know whether your organization is ready to pursue a capital campaign. Review the results of your feasibility study with your team or the consultant who conducted the study to make your final decision.
Remember, even if you decide you’re not ready for a capital campaign right now, that doesn’t mean it’s completely off the table for the future. Use the results of your feasibility study to fine-tune every aspect, from your goal to your stewardship strategy to your case for support, to better align these elements with your capital campaign ambitions.
This is a guest post from Aly Sterling of Aly Sterling Philanthropy.
Long before Aly Sterling founded her eponymous consulting firm, she was solving the unique yet similar problems encountered by nonprofit organizations.
Her decision to start her own business in 2007 was driven by her belief in leadership as the single most important factor in organizational success, and her determination to work with multiple causes at one time to scale societal change.
Aly’s expertise includes fundraising, strategic planning, search consultation and board leadership development for the well-positioned nonprofit. She is regularly sought for comment by trade and mainstream media, including the Chronicle of Philanthropy and U.S. News & World Report. She has contributed to publications of BoardSource and The Governance Institute, as well as the Toledo Chamber of Commerce and The Giving Institute.