The Essentials of Successful Campaign Preparation

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If the leadership of your organization has been talking about initiating a capital campaign, they (or you!) probably have big dreams for the organization’s future. The vision is inspiring and at the end of the day, your missional impact will be dramatically multiplied. 

But it’s going to require dramatic investment - from your board, your staff, your entire donor base, and likely some new supporters from within your community. So, how do you ensure that the grand vision is matched by the needed investment to achieve your campaign goals?

In two words: careful planning.

Despite the sentiments you may have heard before from well-meaning individuals who think that raising a large amount of money is easily accomplished by just “finding” a few wealthy people and asking them to contribute, successful capital campaigns never find success without strategic and meticulous planning. 

While every organization’s campaign plan will look different in the details, here are some of the essentials common to nearly every successful campaign:

FEASIBILITY AND PLANNING

If you’re already in the planning stages of a campaign, you’ve already conducted a feasibility study. A feasibility study answers key questions like, “Is our organization’s existing donor base ready to meet the challenge of this proposed campaign’s fundraising goals?”. You not only want to know if the campaign is viable, but how you will proceed in a manner that connects to best practices but is tailored to the unique culture and needs of your organization. If you haven’t yet conducted a feasibility and planning study, we’d recommend hitting pause on your campaign planning, taking a step back, and doing the necessary planning work to determine the viability of your campaign and its goals and the best path forward. 

CASE FOR SUPPORT

“Why?”. There’s no more important question to answer in your campaign than the question, “why are you pursuing a campaign?” With that question, you will begin to explain why any existing or prospective donor should make a significant gift toward your effort.  The case for support is the basis for any campaign - capital, comprehensive, annual, or otherwise. Your case statement should be clear and concise; it should be easily understandable and easy to articulate and repeat. On the other hand, it should be compelling. It should not be bland nor boring in any way. While it must be more precise and nuanced from your broader organization’s case for support, it must be in accord with your organization’s larger mission. Your case statement is the destination that all roads lead back to in the fundraising efforts of any campaign. 

LEADERSHIP

Great leadership has the potential to blow campaign goals out of the water and lead to extraordinary success. How do you know if you have the recipe of great campaign leadership? The first ingredient is a board that’s in full support of the campaign. The second is a President/CEO who is fully committed to the campaign. There are many other ingredients beyond these, but without them, executing your campaign will be like trying to bake a loaf of bread without flour or water. A supportive board and a committed CEO who take ownership for a campaign leads to large leadership gifts, confident major asks, the budget approval necessary for this significant endeavor, and irreplaceable energy over the long campaign period. 

STAFF AND VOLUNTEER BANDWIDTH

Critical to planning for a successful campaign is having a well-trained and experienced development staff to undertake the day-to-day work campaigns require.  For some organizations and some campaign efforts, the required work can be managed by the availability of volunteers that are trained well in their responsibilities. In most campaigns, the bulk of the campaign fundraising goal will be raised through major and leadership gifts. These are gifts that cannot be asked for by direct response mail and emails. They’re gifts that require front-line fundraisers (staff and/or volunteer) who know what they’re doing and who believe in your mission. In some ways, a campaign is being prepared for in the years before you begin formally planning by the kind of people you hire and the volunteers you recruit. There’s a major caveat here, though: if your campaign goal is large enough, you’ll probably need to hire additional fundraising staff for the explicit purpose of achieving your campaign goals. 

PROSPECTS

The rule used to be 80/20. In other words, 80% of campaign revenue was raised from 20% of donors. The 8/20 rule is out. The 95/5 rule is in. Most successful capital campaigns this day raise the vast majority of all campaign revenue from the top 5% of an organization’s donors. So, you have to know who these people - or prospects - are. Your pre-campaign planning (feasibility and planning study) will play a major role in identifying them. They can’t just be wealthy people in your community with no association to your mission. They must have high degrees of linkage, ability and interest. The propensity of that top 5% is very important. Now, while your pre-campaign planning will identify who they are, your campaign planning will strategize who will ask them, when they’ll be asked, how they’ll be asked, and exactly what they’ll be asked for according to their specific interests. 

DYNAMICS

This gets a bit into the weeds, but there are several cultural/philosophical dynamics that are incredibly helpful to achieving success. A few examples of the more essential dynamics include:

• An appreciation of the role of the volunteer in philanthropy and an investment of time into their training and staffing
• A firm understanding of the principle that an organization “has to spend money to raise money” and when investments are wisely made into staffing, research, communication tools, cultivation events, and other high priority elements, the return on investment (ROI) will be very high.
• Attention paid to the needs of the donors and their interests, not at the expense of the interests of the organization, but for the two to exist in tandem with each other.
• A never quit attitude, especially given the fact that campaign fundraising has many peaks and many more valleys. The news isn’t always good, yet you always need to stay positive.

VEHICLES

If the 95/5 rule is true, then you will need to bring in several gifts that are unusually large for your organization’s norms. Alongside large gifts is the expectation that these gifts are going to be paid through a variety of different vehicles. Are you prepared to receive and process the potential vehicles your donors might give through? We’re talking about stocks, annuities, insurance, real estate and real property, wills and estates, retirement accounts, crypto currencies, multi-year pledges, DAF’s, and other appreciated assets.  It’s always necessary to be prepared for these conversations with prospective donors. 

IMAGE AND AWARENESS

In order for your campaign to be successful, you need to have a great “product” (the dream itself). The organization and the mission that the product exists within, though, must have a positive reputation in the community and a positive perception among the donor base. 

If you have a great product and the organization has a good reputation, you need to have effective mechanisms to ensure that your case for support and message reaches the eyes and the ears of the people who need to hear about it and know about it. In other words, your marketing strategy and infrastructure need to be ready to bear the weight of communication that’s necessary for a successful campaign. 

If you’ve found something within this white paper that you would like to explore further with our team, please contact us.

Claudia A. Looney, FAHP, CFRE

Principal and Managing Partner

claudia@covenantfirm.com

Kyle Houlton, CFRE

President and CEO

kyle@covenantfirm.com

www.covenantfirm.com