The capital campaign feasibility study is the process that prepares your organization for a capital campaign and should result in an executable campaign plan. It allows you to test your assumptions and prepare a solid plan before moving forward with a capital campaign. Stripped down to its basic elements, the study looks to define your image, case for support, leaders, donors and plan.
Capital campaign architecture is like constructing a building. If you skip a step or build something out of sequence, problems usually show up later. Capital campaigns work much the same way from the ground work of a planning study through the finishing touches of the public phase. Build each part carefully and in sequence, and you give your organization the strongest structure possible for reaching its campaign goal.
Here is Campaign Counsel’s approach to capital campaign management. Executing a capital campaign is all about process. As we like to say, process creates potential. Most capital campaign consultants follow a similar process that revolves around five fundamental fundraising principles.
When should a nonprofit consider phasing construction? There are several scenarios in which phasing makes sense. Most of them circle around fundraising capacity and the need to raise and spend money in a way that is realistic for the unique organization.
The pressure from your board to take your capital campaign public can be overwhelming, but capital campaigns are won in the quiet phase, in the top handful of gifts secured one conversation at a time, long before the public hears the word “campaign.” Rushing the public launch doesn’t speed that up, rather, it skips the part that decides the outcome.
The Nonprofit Leader’s Guide to Capital Campaigns is designed to help organizations and their leaders plan for and complete capital campaigns and understand how successful campaigns actually work. Download your copy today!
