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Fundraising
Basics
Capital Campaigns:
The Ingredients for Success
Part
I
Linda Lysakowski, ACFRE
President/CEO
CAPITAL
VENTURE
SM
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If a capital campaign is in your
organization’s future, you will want to do
everything you can to assure success. There are
several key ingredients to every successful campaign
and three of these ingredients, when analyzing successful
campaigns, surface as the most crucial.
The following items will help assure success:
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- A strong annual fund history;
- A realistic goal;
- A sufficient pool of qualified prospects;
- Strong staff support;
- Gift acceptance policies;
- Campaign organizational structure;
- Adequate donor software system.
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the three key ingredients: |
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- A compelling case for support;
- A committed Board of Directors;
- Strong volunteer leadership.
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In
the first of this two part series, we will address the
first seven essential ingredients. He second part of the
article will address the three key ingredients
.
Annual Fund History
What many organizations strive for when starting a campaign
is finding new donors, seeking to solicit major gifts
from foundations and corporations from which they have
previously been unsuccessful in raising money. Most people,
whether individuals, companies or foundations, are reluctant
to support an organization with a major gift unless they
already have a track record with the organization. Although
an organization may not have a cadre of major donors,
it is always best to start with those who have a relationship
with the organization. Look at the top 10% of annual donors,
to see if there may be some prospective lead donors for
the campaign. Another group to review is the list of “loyal
donors,” those people who support the organization
year after year. Even if their gifts have been small,
it is possible that among them there might be a few major
donor prospects, who were simply never asked for a large
gift before.
Realistic Goal
To determine the goal of a capital campaign, first start
with the architectural study. An architect will develop
renderings to be used in presenting the case for support
to potential donors. Donors will be motivated to give
if the vision is inspiring. A building that looks too
extravagant may turn off donors to a human service agency
if they feel money is being spent on buildings that could
be better spent on program. On the other hand, however,
the building should inspire people to see how the clients
of the organization and the community will be better served
by this building. Once these plans are in place, they
need to be tested in the community, usually be means of
a planning study. The planning study will also determine
the interviewee’s thoughts regarding the proposed
goal. It is important to realize that the case that will
be presented is a preliminary case for support, and that
the feedback from interviewees may alter the plans in
order to arrive at a realistic, attainable campaign goal.
Qualified Prospects
The difference between a prospect and a qualified prospect
is that adequate research has been done in order to determine
the Linkage, Ability and Interest (the LAI Principle)
of the prospect in order to have them qualify as a viable
prospective donor for this campaign. Without the three
qualifications listed above, it is unlikely a major gift
will be forthcoming from a prospect. Screening sessions
during the early phase of the campaign can help determine
the ability of a prospect to give, and at what level;
who is the best team to make the ask; and which possible
named giving opportunities might appeal to this prospect.
Staff Support
A capital campaign tends to disrupt the overall operations
of the development office. The campaign, because it is
running on a tight timeline, will require intensive periods
of concentration on developing prospect lists, working
with volunteers, developing campaign material, and scheduling
solicitation visits. The CEO of the organization will
need to be involved in identifying, cultivating and soliciting
donors. About 50% of the CEO’s time may need to
be devoted to the campaign. Support staff is also crucial
during a campaign. There will be a lot of paperwork generated
during the campaign, volunteer training packets, letters
of solicitation and acknowledgement, recording of gifts
and pledges, grant proposals. Often, additional staff
support is hired for the duration of the campaign.
Gift Acceptance Policies
Before launching a campaign, the organization needs to
have clear polices in place regarding what type of gifts
they will accept, how those gifts will be disposed of,
how they will recognized. It is important that volunteers
and staff are aware of policies before they are assigned
to solicit prospective donors.
Campaign
Organizational Structure
A campaign plan should be developed before recruiting
the campaign cabinet. This plan will include position
descriptions for all members of the campaign cabinet,
timelines, campaign budget, and a scale of gifts, along
with suggested goals for each division of the campaign.
An organizational chart showing how many volunteers will
be needed in each division is crucial before recruiting
volunteers to head up each campaign division. Organizations
that do not plan to hire a consultant to manage their
campaign, would do well to consider engaging the services
of a consultant to develop the campaign plan and show
them how they can implement the plan.
Donor
Software
An adequate donor software system needs to be in place
during a campaign. For many organizations, the capital
campaign may be the first time an organization needs to
record pledges. Most campaigns will have a three year
pledge period, and often donors will want to make quarterly
or semi-annual payments on their pledges. Therefore it
is important to have software system that can manage all
this, in addition to being able to record which solicitors
are assigned to which prospects so that tracking results
of each solicitor can be done. If the organization is
financing the building project during the pledge payment
period, it will also be crucial to have as system that
can generate a cash-flow projection report in order to
show the bank when pledges are expected to be paid. |
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