I get to work in many capital campaigns. And one of the questions people always ask me is: Do we really have to do a planning study?
My answer: yes.
You and the board have been working, dreaming, scheming, and designing. You are sold on your vision. Excited. And ready to make it a reality.
But none of your donors know. And if you ask them now, you’ll get less than you want.
The planning study, also called a feasibility study, serves three purposes:
- It helps your top donors get up to speed on your vision.
- It helps you learn how to communicate the vision most effectively.
- And helps you get in front of people who aren’t even in your database yet.
1. Planning Studies Help Your Donors Get Up to Speed
Your donors haven’t been in the room with you.
They weren’t there for the late-night board meetings. The whiteboard sessions. The moment someone said, “What if we actually did this?” and the whole room lit up.
They’ve been living their lives. Your nonprofit has been part of it — but a peripheral part. If you ask them now, you’ll get a peripheral gift.
That’s not a knock on your donors. It’s just reality.
A planning study changes that. You’re not asking for money yet. You’re asking for their opinion. That takes the pressure off — and it opens up space for a real conversation about your vision, their values, and where the two might connect.
You can absolutely ask what they might give, and where they’ve made their biggest and most meaningful gifts. But first you’re giving them a chance to catch up. To see what you see. To feel the urgency you feel.
That’s when things start to shift.
2. Planning Studies Help You Communicate More Effectively
One of the problems about working inside an organization: your blind spots become invisible.
You and your board have been living with this vision so long that certain parts of it feel obviously important. Certain phrases feel obviously compelling. Of course donors will respond to that — it’s the heart of the whole thing!
Except… maybe not.
When you do 60 to 80 interviews with people outside the board room, you start to hearing other opinions. The parts of the vision that light people up aren’t always the parts you expected. A phrase that felt like filler to you becomes the thing that makes someone lean forward. An element you barely mentioned turns out to be the hook.
This doesn’t change your plan. It changes how you talk about your plan.
And that matters enormously when you move into a full campaign. You want language that quickly makes sense to people. Language that your board members can use naturally in conversations, that your volunteers can repeat without feeling like they’re reciting a script. A planning study gives you that. You earn it through listening.
3. Planning Studies Get You in Front of People Who Aren’t in Your Database Yet
If you’re like most nonprofits I work, you probably describe your cause as: “We’re the best-kept secret in town.”
A capital campaign is your excuse to stop being a secret.
An exciting new phase of growth like this gives you a legitimate reason to get in front of people you’ve never had access to before.
Philanthropists who don’t know you yet. Elected officials. Community influencers. Real estate investors who’ve watched nonprofits stumble through building projects. Bank officers who’ve seen what happens when an organization takes on a construction loan without fully understanding what they’re getting into.
These conversations help you learn, help you build relationships, and help your project become theirs too.
Even if someone you meet in a planning study doesn’t give to this campaign, you’ve created a relationship you can grow. You’ve widened your organization’s reach. You’ve become less of a secret.
That’s worth the time. Every time.
The Planning Study Is Actually the Fast Path
I know it doesn’t feel that way. When you’re excited about a project and ready to move, a structured study with dozens of interviews feels slow. Like driving a car with the emergency brake on.
But it isn’t.
What is slow? Announcing a multimillion dollar campaign without 80%, or even 60%, of your funding already committed. That’s slow. That’s the version where you run out of momentum halfway through, and suddenly the campaign that was supposed to transform your organization becomes the thing that exhausts your best donors and wars out your staff.
Every capital campaign has three phases: the planning phase, the quiet phase, and the public phase. The planning study feeds directly into the quiet phase — you report back to the people you interviewed, and then you ask for their involvement. Once you reach 60 to 80% of your goal (I usually recommend 80%), then you go public.
That’s when you get to do the balloon drop. The press release. The celebrations.
But you earn it by doing the work first.
So yes — do the planning study. Your donors will be better prepared. Your message will be stronger. Your network will be wider.
And your campaign will be better for all of it.
Want help thinking through your planning study process? Let’s talk.
