How to Select the Best Leadership for Your Campaign

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Every capital campaign should involve some combination of staff and volunteers to undertake the execution of a successful fundraising initiative. Each has their distinct role. Staff, by and large, take responsibility for the majority of plan development, strategy, and boots-to-the-ground work. Volunteers, for their part, provide much-needed affluence and influence. Volunteers allow organizations and the campaigns they support to expand the network of prospects, add bandwidth to support the completion of tasks, set an important example for others to follow, and so much more.

Campaigns are unique in the way they provide opportunities for activation and engagement of volunteers. Unlike annual campaigns, capital campaigns receive robust volunteer engagement in all aspects of the fundraising process, from prospecting, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. 

Neglect the importance of campaign volunteer leadership at the risk of the success of your campaign. But also neglect the importance of the right volunteer leadership at the risk of success as well. 

If you’re reading this white paper, we’re assuming you’re committed to not taking that risk. But you’re also reading this because you’re asking, “how do I know which volunteers are the right volunteers to lead our campaign?”. We’d love to help. Below, we’ll broadly define the types of volunteer leaders you need and then a set of criteria to serve as a grid for you to find the right people for the right roles. 

TYPES OF VOLUNTEER LEADERSHIP

Most traditional campaigns have several different volunteer committees, depending on the phase of the campaign. For instance, during the pre-campaign phase, it may be wise to form a Pre-Campaign Planning Committee. This group would support the completion of the feasibility and planning study. Once the campaign has kicked off, you may form a steering committee (to guide and direct overall fundraising and to make key strategic decisions)), a marketing and/or community relations committee, and constituent specific committees (faculty, physicians, alumni, grateful patients, etc.), among several other possibilities. These committees require strong, passionate, engaged, and committed volunteers. 

Committee Members- The members of these committees are the third-most important roles to select and position. 

Committee Chairs - The second-most important roles for you to select and position are the Committee Chairs for each distinct committee. These are the people who will provide direction, guidance, inspiration and vision for the activities and outcomes of their respective committee. 

Campaign Chair - What, then, is the most important volunteer leadership role of all? The campaign Chair role. Your campaign may have a single chair or two people serving in a Co-Chair capacity. This person or these people will be the face of the campaign to the community. While every Committee Member and Committee Chair will be called upon to invest time, energy, and yes, money, into the campaign, your Campaign Chairs will likely be asked to invest more than just about anybody else.  

So, how do you select them?

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION

Below are seven fundamental criteria that are characteristic of successful campaign leadership. The more important the volunteer leadership role, the more important it is that the prospective volunteer leadership scores highly in as many categories as possible:

1. Current or prior donor – Does the candidate have a history of making financial contributions to your organization? Campaign gifts are often lifetime largest gifts and volunteer leaders are your best prospects for some of your largest campaign gifts. Those who have never made a gift of any size to your organization are not likely to make the size of gift you need from campaign leadership. 

2. Capable of giving a significant gift – The candidate must not only be likely to make a gift, but it’s important that they also have the capacity to make a significant financial impact on the campaign goal.  

3. Known throughout the community – Influence can be as important or even more important than affluence. It’s one thing for a candidate to have wealthy people in their networks. It’s quite another if those wealthy people know the candidate. That often leads to an open door. 

4. Community influencer – Not only is the candidate known, but do the people who know them like and trust the candidate? If the candidate has the ear of people of significant means in other matters, the candidate may have their ear in a significant ask. 

5. Knows someone that we know – Is there someone within the organization who knows this person and can assist with an introduction? You may want Bill Gates to chair your campaign, but it doesn’t matter if you can never get to him. You need to be able to gain access to the candidate. Otherwise, they’re not really a candidate.  

6. Has personal knowledge of the organization – Is the candidate’s philanthropy with your organization driven by a correct understanding of your mission? Could they generally articulate your organization’s case for support? Would they be able to accurately and passionately relate it to others?

7. Is inspired by the mission of the organization – Is the candidate’s understanding and interest of your cause only skin deep, or is there a particular connection and interest they have to the cause? Does the candidate have a specific and personal connection to the mission of the organization?

An easy way to assess and compare volunteer leadership candidates is to create a simple grid like the one below and to rate each name in each category on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the best. For some committee roles, it will be more important for a candidate to score high on one category over another (for instance, you may want your program committee to be comprised of people who score highly in the “inspired by the mission of the organization” category, or you may want a fundraising committee member to score high on the “known throughout the community” category). But, for the Committee Chair roles and the Campaign Chair role, the total sum of all seven categories will likely be most important. In short, the volunteer leadership candidates with the highest total score are likely to be your best candidates for Campaign Chair.

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