BUILD The Future Capital Campaign
BUILD, Inc.
Overview
For over 50 years, BUILD Chicago has sought out youth at the greatest risk of gang involvement and violence, providing them with hope and opportunities to achieve positive futures. While there are many community-based anti-violence organizations on the West Side, BUILD’s model of proactive, long-term support and mentoring has had a dramatic effect: Chicago measured a 60% decrease in gun violence victims in Austin since 2018—the largest of any neighborhood in Chicago.
With an expanding staff and growing budget, BUILD had converted every inch of their office space in Austin into a busy, overflowing youth and community center by 2020. Faced with impending enrollment caps but unwilling to turn youth away, they launched their first-ever capital campaign to raise funds for a new facility that would expand their block into a campus.
Challenges
Achieving the campaign goal of raising $20 million required tackling three primary challenges:
- No previous capital campaign experience: The BUILD team needed assistance developing a strategy for reaching out to donors and keeping the campaign on track, every step of the way.
- Gift size: BUILD had to significantly increase the size of prospect gift requests to meet campaign objectives.
- Pandemic-related issues: The pandemic increased the urgency of the project, as costs soared due to supply chain issues and required fast-tracking construction before all pledges were committed.
Strategy/Solutions
TWB Fundraising served as campaign counsel in the early planning phase, partnering with the CEO, campaign co-chair and development team. They created a thoughtful plan of action around each component of the campaign including:
- Helping set up the internal campaign infrastructure (e.g. developed campaign reports, prospect tracking system, campaign gift acceptance policy, etc)
- Creating campaign committee materials and support with initial recruitment and meeting agendas
- Providing solicitation training to the campaign committee
- Working collaboratively to develop campaign collateral materials and recognition opportunities
- Evaluating the prospect list
- Developing donor cultivation and solicitation strategies
- Meeting regularly with staff to monitor progress and keep the campaign moving forward
Results
2 years, 4 months, and one global pandemic later, BUILD had raised $15.5M of their $20M goal, enough to start construction in August of 2021. Six months later, they had raised $28M—$7M past their initial goal. One year after that, in February 2023, BUILD cut the ribbon on their new campus.
- Now their campus is open to youth and community for extended hours, 6 days a week and longer during the summer. The newly transformed campus features:
- Quadrupled space for mental health care, conflict mediations, and youth programs
- Secured outdoor greenspace, playfields, and a quarter-acre farm and fruit orchard with a greenhouse and chickens
- Full-sized indoor climate-controlled gym, track, and fitness lab
- The BUILD Peace & Justice Center for Restorative Justice training and Community Engagement
- Performance spaces, art galleries, music/podcast production studios, woodshop, and Fab Lab
Not only has the BUILD the Future Campaign more than doubled BUILD’s own ability to engage youth and prevent gun violence, it has provided infrastructure and workspace for dozens of smaller community organizations working towards the same goal.
