Well as my good friend and mentor, Bob Dylan once said “The Times They Are A-Changin”. Things are indeed changing! Stock market finally took a nose dive; Feds raised interest rates for the first time in years; gasoline has doubled in the last year; food prices have gone up significantly; baby formula has disappeared from the shelves; inflation has hit a 50 year high of 8.5% and going up; there is a crazy war in Ukraine; our southern borders are being overrun; crime soaring; and your CEO just informed you we should plan to do a capital campaign. Ouch!
The primary question is, of course, “Why should we now launch a campaign in the first place?” Even in the worse economic times, campaigns have been very effective if planned well and your case is solid. Think about this industry standards for setting a campaign goal are 10 to 15 times your annual fundraising production! So if you are raising $5 million from all of your sources, your goal could be $50 million or more. Don’t you think you owe it to your organization to at least test the feasibility of a campaign in these crazy times?
The best answer is that a capital campaign is still, after all these decades, the most effective, and efficient way to raise large sums of money in a specified time period. If a non-profit organization is to remain competitive philanthropically and programmatically and build on its current strengths, it must be able to raise significant dollars quickly, and the only way to do that is through a well-researched and planned campaign.
Before making the commitment, there are several operational – and many may say psychological – considerations you as the non-profit must take into account. First, your organization must be working constantly to focus attention on its current mission, its vision for the future, and the objectives that must be accomplished for its vision to be fully realized. One of the major benefits of running a campaign is that it forces your organization to define or redefine itself with stated and measurable priorities. It compels you to articulate what you are doing, where you are headed and most importantly, why now. That is called your Case for fundraising that is large enough to inspire the imagination and activate the donors desire to give in today’s turbulent climate.
Most major gift donors like to be identified with big causes, and campaigns tend to be perceived as big because the organization’s goals are thought of as being ambitious. Developing a campaign cause inevitably helps to clarify the essential worth of your nonprofit; you are going beyond what it does to what its mission is about, and why its work is so vitally important.
A campaign also helps to redefine resources, interests, and efforts by leveraging a dynamic, high energy, and results-oriented operation. This coalescence helps to step up the pace and level of all the organization’s fundraising activity. Sights tend to continue being raised throughout and beyond the conclusion of the campaign. It is also a great way of building a “culture of philanthropy” within your organization.
Achieving the maximum benefit from a campaign in these times requires the discipline of a well-structured organization with fixed assignments, target goals, quotas, and deadlines. Working within campaign timeframes can and should be exhilarating and will create an environment that builds morale, purpose, and cooperation. Thus, a campaign needs to always generate a sense of urgency and personal commitment to your non-profit’s mission and the need for vital, crucial, and necessary financial resources.
What to Consider
The general elements outlined earlier apply to virtually any non-profit organization. There are also a number of variables that are highly specific yet still important to consider. For example:
Leadership
Neither the most persuasive cause, nor the most urgent needs, nor an exquisite sense of timing, nor the most lucrative sources of support ensure success in a campaign. Only dedicated leadership, at all levels of the organization including volunteer, board, presidential, and staff levels, can do that. If your non-profit has the necessary and mandatory leadership, you’ll more than likely succeed. If it does not, the campaign must be put on hold, and a program to develop its various constituencies of leadership must be implemented.
Internal Readiness
If campaigns are to be successful, they must be “owned” by the entire organization rather than be perceived as belonging to one party or another. People at the board level who do not favor campaigning must be firmly converted. There cannot merely be a significant predisposition toward a campaign; instead, there must be unanimity. If your fundraising board does not help you raise charitable dollars, introduce you to other key prospects, or actually assist in the solicitation process, you do not have a fundraising board. I can tell you from experience that any board that meets only three or four times a year, has consent agendas regarding finances and board recruitment, and spends the rest of its time listening to guest speakers, is not a fundraising or engaged board no matter how much members have contributed personally.
External Readiness
This question concerns whether an organization’s grateful patients, alumni, friends, current and past donors, and corporate and foundation supporters are in a campaign frame of mind and supportive of the case. If they are not – and this can be assessed quantitatively – the campaign should be put on hold at least until, appreciation is heightened through a program designed to create greater awareness, sensitivity, and participation. If your organization has not completed a campaign planning study in the last five years, someone has fallen asleep at the wheel. You should always be testing your needs with your donors and leaders, either formally or informally.
Organizational Morale
Campaigns have a significant unifying effect on the entire organization’s family. To win a campaign requires a major team effort, a strategy in which all believe and participate, with a large and enthusiastic corps of volunteers, strong and consistent management, and so on. If an organization needs to develop a fundraising program or has a less-than-spectacular fundraising track record, a capital campaign may be just the shot in the arm it needs to pull things together.
When Not to Launch a Capital Campaign
Remember, campaigns are high-profile undertakings that create and feed on heightened public relations, marketing, and publicity. One of the expectations of a campaign is results. And if results are disappointing, leadership at all levels is held accountable, a proposition to consider for even the most experienced campaign volunteer. This is where we see senior staff fail, especially ones that have been with the organization for many years – they get complacent and do not want to put themselves or their positions at risk if the campaign comes up short – so then their needs become more important than the organization that pays their salary. We know of a healthcare system that is leaving millions of charitable dollars on the table simply because the executive who has been there for decades does not want to work that hard.
Taking the Risk
Other elements of a campaign could be presented, but I believe we have discussed in some detail the ones that we consider to be the most important. Obviously, both positives and negatives need to be reviewed, discussed, and re-discussed in depth with your current leadership, and your potential volunteer leadership, before you make the final decision.
In summary, I’d like to leave you with some added benefits of conducting a successful capital campaign today:
- Old networks are revised and strengthened, and new ones are identified or created.
- New volunteer leadership is identified, trained, and cultivated – not just for fundraising, but for other important purposes as well, including governance.
- New relationships are developed between the organization and its constituents and among your constituents.
- Campaigns also strengthen ongoing fundraising programs including annual giving and, if done correctly, planned giving.
- Campaign cabinets and committees can serve as useful and productive “proving grounds” for future volunteer leadership.
- Fundraising leadership, especially the development staff, will emerge from a successful capital campaign with the skills to move the organization even further along its evolutionary path.
Economic downturns, seasonal holidays, another organization’s campaign or campaign planning, recession, high interest rates, the political climate, and your CEO’s second cousin’s birthday are decidedly not reasons to postpone a campaign. Economic uncertainties, organizational competition, and a host of other excuses will always be with us. If a non-profit were to wait until all indicators were perfect and favorable, it would never be able to launch its capital campaign.
My first campaign was in 1984 when interest rates and unemployment were the highest ever, we survived, the country survived and the campaign was a tremendous success. My other mentors when I was a young lad were Peter, Paul and Mary who by this song gave me the courage to see things and make the changes needed to change lives. Changing lives, isn’t that the reason we are in our jobs?
Your successful campaign will have significant and favorable effects on the people you serve, your organization by raising awareness of your mission and funding the needs that will most likely benefit your community for years to come.
These are benefits that will emerge and should continue long after the campaign has concluded.
But you have to make it happen.
Ron J. Huddleston, CFRE, FAHP
President
