Capital campaigns can be amazing times for a nonprofit. But they are incredibly risky. If you’re considering launching a capital campaign for your nonprofit, here are more than 40 items to consider before you even start.
INTERNAL READINESS
Your Organizational Planning
- Has your organization completed a strategic planning process in the past 3 years?
- Does your organization offer effective programs that are needed by the community?
- Can a compelling “case for support” be made for the proposed campaign?
- Does your organization have a high public profile so that your mission and programs are clearly understood and embraced by the community?
- Do you have a clear concept of what makes up your “community”? :
- Is your organization financially stable?
Your Board
- Does your organization have a strong, committed Board of Directors that will support the proposed campaign?
- Is there a strong core of board members who will support the campaign both financially and with their time to help identify, cultivate, and solicit prospective donors?
- Is the board well known and respected in the community and in their communities?
- Are people of affluence and influence on the board?
- Is the board diverse?
- Does the board agree on the campaign plan and goal?
- Do board members understand the importance of their role in a campaign?
Your Leadership and Staff
- Is the CEO well known and respected in the community and willing to get involved in the campaign?
- Is the fundraising staff experienced in running campaigns?
- Is there adequate support staff to support the extra work of a campaign?
- Are staff members appropriate assigned according to their interests and talents?
- Do you have a dedicated financial staff in addition to the fundraising staff?
- Are there resources available to fund the campaign and to hire extra staff during the campaign if necessary?
Your Systems & Infrastructure
- Is your organization properly registered with the states in which fundraising will be done, if those states require registration?
- Is there an annual giving plan in place?
- Has annual giving being increasing over the past two years?
- Has a strong group of volunteers been developed through the annual campaign?
- Is there a marking and publicity plan already in place?
- Is the marketing plan evaluated?
- Does the marketing and publicity plan lead to more donations, volunteers, and clients?
- Does your organization know its major donors well—giving motivations, solicitation preferences, and areas of interest?
- Can the top 10 donors who will be leadership gift prospects for the proposed campaign, and the top 100 donors who will be major gift prospects for the campaign be easily identified?
- Does your organization communicate regularly with all your constituencies in the manner in which they wish to be informed and at the frequency levels that will keep them connected to your organization?
- Is there a donor database system in place that allows for segmentation and tracking of donors, recording multi-year pledges and planned gifts as well as matching gifts, generating campaign reports that will be needed by the campaign “cabinet”?
- Are there written policies in place and implemented for accepting, recording, acknowledging and recognizing gifts?
External Readiness
- Does your case for support answer the following:
- Why your organization exists—-your mission and vision
- What problem you solve for the community
- How you measure your effectiveness at solving that problem
- What is distinctive about your organization that sets it apart from similar institutions
- What has to be accomplished—solution and budget
- Why it must be accomplished now-—what makes it urgent
- How the proposed campaign will enable this to be accomplished
- How the prospective donor can become involved—gift range charts, naming opportunities
- Why the donor should give to this effort
- Are the perceptions and beliefs of community leaders and perspective donors about your organization positive enough for them to embrace the campaign?
- Do the users of your organization think highly of its programs?
- Is there sufficient philanthropic capacity in your “market” that could be tapped to support the campaign?
- Have financially capable and well-respected community leaders been identified who if recruited to the campaign would make an impact on its success?
- Is your campaign goal based upon objective, fact-based information gathered through a feasibility study?
- Is there a willingness from your constituents to participate actively in several important ways: committees, cultivation, solicitation, & financial contribution?
- Has your organization conducted research on your donor base to identify the best potential prospects?
- Is your organization aware of other current campaigns in your area or community and determined how those may or may not impact your proposed campaign?
- Has your organization identified potential perceived obstacles that must be addressed for your campaign to be successful?
- Does your organization have a training process established to guide Board members and volunteers become successful solicitors for your organization?
This work is the very first step in approaching a campaign. The next step would be a complete feasibility or planning study (which would typically include database modeling, prospect interviews, and testing the case). The final step would be launching the campaign,starting with a quiet phase.
