Does Your Club Need a Capital Campaigns?

If a capital campaign is in your club'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:

• 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.

And the three key ingredients:

• A compelling case for support;
• A committed board of directors;
• Strong volunteer leadership.

So, let's talk about some of these ingredients. In the next issue we will talk about the three key ingredients.

Annual Fund History
Many clubs, when starting a campaign, try to find 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 any organization with a major gift unless they already have a track record with the organization. Although your club may not have a cadre of major donors, it is always best to focus on those who have a relationship with the club-your members. 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 members who support the club with donations over and above their member dues 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 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 members 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. Keep in mind that anyone who is a club member has a definite linkage to the club, so you need to focus only on interest and ability with this group.

Staff Support
A capital campaign tends to disrupt the overall operations of the 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, your club needs to have clear polices in place regarding what type of gifts it 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. Clubs 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 clubs, the capital campaign may be the first time there is a need 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 your club 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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