By Yvette LeGear Hartsfield, MA, CAP, CFRE, Vice President of Campaigns
When gearing up to conduct a multimillion-dollar campaign, preparation is everything. CEOs and board members often question the need to invest time and money into a Readiness Assessment and a Feasibility Study. These tools can make or break your campaign. Ask your board if they would invest in a for-profit business that hasn’t done its homework…one that hasn’t talked with investors, or researched the infrastructure that will ensure success, or identified the tools and staffing needed to get it off the ground. The same goes for organizing a capital or comprehensive campaign.
Readiness Assessment.
- Leadership and Sponsorship: Are your board members in full support of the campaign and do they plan to give you 100% of their time, talent, and treasure to ensure its success?
- Employee Readiness: Do you have the staff you need to manage a campaign while you are raising funds for annual support of your nonprofit’s programs and services? A major campaign is laying another full-time job on top of the work you do daily. If your staff are already at max capacity just raising funds for the annual campaign, adding a capital/comprehensive campaign will send your staff looking for new jobs.
- Organizational Readiness: Is the fundraising scope of your campaign something your nonprofit can manage when the campaign is finished? Is there an operating plan that identifies how your nonprofit will be able to cover the costs associated with the growth? Can your organization manage the upfront costs of a campaign before cash starts coming in from pledges? Is the timeline for soliciting gifts and the timeline for implementing the objectives of the campaign realistic?
- Resources and Capacity: Does your development team have the tools (CRM included) that are needed to identify your potential donors and volunteer leadership and keep them involved throughout the entirety of the campaign?
Feasibility Study. Too often we think we know what our donors are willing to give…and we would be wrong. Without talking with our donors, we have no idea if they are interested in our future plans. A Feasibility Study assesses the likelihood of success by evaluating donor interest, organizational capacity, and potential challenges.
- Gauge Interest and Support of the Future: Feedback with donors gives us insight into our case for support. From our donors we can gain clarity of our ideas and give insight into whether or not our goals are realistic. Through feasibility we learn of their personal philanthropic goals and how they fit into the organization’s future. What part of your campaign case resonates with them enough for them to give an investment gift?
- Credibility: A Feasibility Study also lends credibility to our nonprofit and the future campaign. By conducting research through personal interviews, confidence is built in our donors, staff and leadership that we have the ability to succeed. It prevents the nonprofit from wasting time and money on an initiative that has a low chance of success, ensuring it remains a responsible steward of donations.
- Develops Donor Relationships: The process itself provides an opportunity to engage with and develop relationships with donors by showing them their input is valued, and their concerns are heard.
- Informs Strategy: It moves a campaign from vague ideas to a clear, data-driven plan with specific targets and a defined strategy, giving the organization a roadmap for success.
Interested in learning more about campaigns? Please visit our page on Campaign Services.
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