Capital Campaign Readiness & Feasibility Studies
A successful capital campaign takes solid preparation. It’s essential to know if a nonprofit organization is well-prepared to take this effort on. In a capital campaign readiness assessment, we learn how prepared leadership and staff are for a campaign. Campaign feasibility studies show how volunteers and donors may react before launching the campaign.
These facts, attitudes, and concerns can make or break a campaign.
What will you learn from a capital campaign readiness assessment?
Are your current fundraising practices setting you up for campaign success, and if not, how can you improve and scale up your efforts to prepare for a capital campaign?
If the organization is not ready for a campaign, what actions can you take to become ready? Are additional staff, volunteers, or training needed?
Capital Campaign Readiness Assessment
In the Campaign Readiness Assessment, we analyze the development infrastructure and mechanics of an organization. Our goal here is to learn
how ready you are for a campaign.
Evaluating staff and volunteer leadership readiness
We will evaluate staffing structure and the duties and experience of key staff and volunteers. We’ll identify any staffing or skills gaps that must be filled before campaign planning and implementation, and we’ll learn if your board and volunteers need additional training or recruitment.
Reviewing fundraising history
We will look at your historical fundraising efforts, including annual giving and past campaigns, to establish a baseline to build this campaign on. Then, we’ll look at your donor messaging.
Evaluating infrastructure and operations
We will examine your fundraising infrastructure including your CRM or donor database capabilities, the quality and completeness of your donor files, and operations, including record keeping, gift processing protocols,
and gift acknowledgment and acceptance policies and procedures.
Capital Campaign Feasibility Study
Once we learn how ready your staff and leadership are to begin a campaign, we’ll meet with donors to learn how ready they are. The feasibility study provides the opportunity for early conversations with prospects and campaign stakeholders. It serves as a “reality check” through which we seek external input on the campaign and builds interest and excitement among stakeholders and prospects who may be solicited early in the campaign.
Campaign Prospectus
The campaign prospectus, a document that serves as an early version of the eventual campaign case for support, presents an opportunity to test a campaign goal and specific campaign messages to be sure that the organization’s priorities fully resonate with top potential donors.
Developing gift range charts
With a gift range chart (also known as a gift table or gift pyramid), we help you articulate how many gifts at each level the organization will need to achieve the proposed funding goal. We build this campaign tool based on our analysis of the organization’s current donors, members, and known prospects and use it to identify gaps in the prospect and donor base that may challenge the campaign goal.
Conducting campaign feasibility interviews
We use the prospectus, gift tables, and a customized interview discussion guide to conduct interviews that test the inclination and readiness of potential donors to make financial commitments to the campaign. Feasibility interviews are informative for obtaining feedback that affects the strategy for any campaign, but just as importantly, provide a unique and highly-meaningful opportunity for engagement and cultivation.
What will you learn from a capital campaign feasibility study?
How compelling are your campaign messaging and goal to your prospective donors?
At what levels do prospective donors have the capacity or intention to support the campaign?
Is your initial campaign goal achievable? If not, how can we strategize your campaign by setting a goal that is more likely to have a successful outcome?