Avoid the Capital Campaign Trap: What Nonprofits Miss in Planning
Ok great news!
Your Strategic Plan is done.
There were post-its on the wall. Whiteboard scribbles with Venn diagrams and Eisenhower matrices. A lot of coffee and an endless supply of M&Ms to keep the sugar rushes going.
After months of coordinating, brainstorming, ideating, strategizing, and planning, you got buy-in from all the key stakeholders, and a consensus on your direction ahead.
You decided to –
Expand the building to serve more people
Hire additional staff in that enlarged building to meet the greater need
Launch two new related initiatives to widen the depth of support you provide
Redesign the website to bring your organization to the next level with your forward-thinking agenda
And after all this coordinating, brainstorming, ideating, strategizing, and planning, there was another moment of agreement –
You’re embarking on a capital campaign!
WOO HOO. What could be more fun?
With that optimism and confidence, your team proudly announces (RIGHT AWAY) at a big, fancy launch event that you’re going to do all these great new initiatives (see above) and looking to raise $10 million to fund them.
You hire a graphic design firm to design the campaign brochure.
You find an amazing website design firm to revamp the website.
You contract an architect to make plans and put together a plan of when building can begin.
…Six months go by from your launch event.
From when you completed your strategic plan.
From when you already hired additional help to do the work of the strategic plan.
A few gifts do come in towards the $10 million (yay!) but you have barely broken $1 million.
And all of a sudden, you realize – WAIT HOW DO WE GET TO $10 million on top of the money we need to raise already?
You hadn’t really looked at your major donor pipeline.
Some of your major donors are tried and true, giving each year and strong believers in your mission, but they can’t give much beyond what they already do. In fact, these folks were the first people to make commitments before you even had a chance to sit down with them to talk about the campaign.
Some of your major donors do have immense financial capacity, but you forgot that your nonprofit’s mission isn’t really their top priority. You have reached out to them after your launch event, and they say to you – well, come to us at the end of the campaign. We want to see what you do and see how many of your board members are committed.
So then you go to your board.
They knew about the strategic plan. They even voted to approve it (with little discussion, because they usually just vote to advance the ideas your CEO shares anyway).
Never had it been brought up that they would be asked to make leadership-level gifts or help to secure those for this campaign.
You have another board meeting and mention how your Mega-Donors Mr. Cash McMint and Ms. Molly Moneybags said before they even considered making a gift, they first wanted to see 100% of your board members make commitments towards your campaign and your board members are astonished! They are supposed to give towards the capital campaign? But they already donate each year and give their time. And now this!?!?
Your next issue comes into play when you are trying to extract data from your CRM to look at who gave during your last campaign 10 years ago.
And oh no! These people are no longer closely connected to you, already gave right at the event (in smaller amounts than they did 10 years ago) or passed away.
You try to look at the notes in your CRM but it is SO hard to figure out. Nothing was entered consistently and the specific amounts committed versus the cash report your accounting team shares with you are inconsistent.
Is it possible that someone never prioritized reaching out for pledge payments after year 5? (Oh right, that was 2020, and your organization went into chaos when the pandemic erupted).
…So another six months go by and these initiatives get put on pause because your Chief Development Director leaves for another organization and no one is left to lead the charge on the campaign.
So in the past year after you were all excited about putting into action your strategic plan…
No additional staff are hired because you don’t have the budget for it even though there is so much demand for the services of your organization
While an initial deposit was paid to the graphic design firm, they end up firing YOU as a client because you never can move forward on a cohesive message
Similar situation with the website design firm – deposit paid and that money is now gone from your organization because the project initiatives never moved forward and the budget got cut.
And the building expansion? Doesn’t look likely anytime soon.
UGH how frustrating is this?
Does it sound familiar to anything you’ve experienced or like something you can imagine happening at a nonprofit just like yours?
I’ve seen this happen so many times. People get all excited with new projects and want to announce it immediately.
They don’t take the time to make sure their data is in a good place.
They don’t take the time to ensure their messaging is urgent, persuasive, and exciting and really shows what this increased funding will allow your nonprofit to do!
They don’t take the time to train their staff and board about what the needs will look like and identify what each person’s role will be.
They don’t take the time to analyze their major donors. Who realistically is going to make up the group of leadership donors to get the goal accomplished?
They don’t take the time to really plan. They don’t take the time to assess.
Look, a capital campaign will transform your organization.
It is also a huge investment of staff, budget, and time.
That’s why an assessment of your development staff, operations, messaging and data is so important – before you begin. And that’s where Sapphire Fundraising Specialists can help you to succeed.