How to Start a Capital Campaign

By the former Christian Stewardship Association (now Christian Leadership Alliance)
This article provided by the Engstrom Institute

This straightforward article provides a roadmap for the steps needed to undertake a capital campaign. The reader will find here an approach that is both comprehensive and manageable. This is recommended as a good first step in the discerning process for your ministry as you consider such a major undertaking.

A capital campaign can be one of the most challenging and exciting times a ministry will ever experience. It's exhilarating when large numbers of people are working together towards a faith-stretching goal at the same time. Of course, there is much work to be done, and many details to be managed.

But don't worry - the good news is that other Christian nonprofits have gone before you and there are lessons to be learned from their experience. Better yet, if you have a clear sense that God is leading you into a capital campaign, then you can also be sure that He who began a good work in you (and your ministry) will be faithful to complete it.

Here are the basics to help you get started:

Plan. Devoting time to good prayerful planning now will save you much heartache later. Donors are turned off by poorly planned campaigns and are not eager to bail out organizations that didn't plan well. Before you invest energy into planning the campaign, though, you should first be sure that you have the endorsement and support of your leadership and board. If they are convinced as you are about the need, and are ready to work hard alongside of you, the stage is set to begin planning.

Pray. The very first thing you should do in the planning phase is pray, and develop a plan to integrate prayer into the fabric of the entire campaign. Prayer should not merely be something we add on to our to-do list because we are a Christian organization; rather, it should permeate every activity so that the power and leading of God is invited into the entire process.

Case Statement. The next item to plan for is the case statement. The case statement is simply articulating the vision God has revealed to you so that others can understand it and participate in it. What is the compelling need God is calling your ministry to address? What will it take to meet that need? Write out a clear picture of what the future could look like and how much it will cost.

Budget. Now you ready for the next step in planning- the budget. Later in this article, we'll look at how you can evaluate the feasibility of your income goal. The budget and feasibility study are really important because they will help you know throughout the campaign if you are on track with your financial goals. On the expense side, you should also itemize what it will cost to set up and implement the campaign.

Database. Another seemingly obvious (but often overlooked) factor in the planning process is ensuring that you have a good, up-to-date database. You will need reliable donor records and contact information in order to execute an effective campaign. Now is the time to assess your database and make any necessary adjustments - not in the middle of the frenzy of a campaign.

Timeline. You will need to also construct a campaign timeline during the planning process. Capital campaigns should have a specific beginning and end date. For smaller campaigns (less than $500,000) you may want to plan on a year or so. For larger campaigns, you may want to plan on two and possibly three years. Once you have established the broad parameters of the campaign, you can then begin to prepare a calendar of month-to-month activities, integrating the component parts discussed in this article.

Consultant. The planning phase is also the time to consider whether or not your organization should bring on a consultant. One of the big advantages of working with a consultant is you can draw on their past experience to help you work more efficiently and effectively. Consequently, a consultant can help you avoid costly mistakes, and can provide fresh insights from working with other campaigns. If you are considering using a consultant, you can contact CLA for referrals to trusted Christian consulting firms.

Gift Range Chart. In the planning section, we talked about the importance of establishing a campaign budget, and determining what your overall financial goal is by carefully evaluating what your need is. What you need to do now is to break down the overall goal into several mini-goals. This process is often referred to as a "gift range chart." A gift range chart simply acknowledges that people have different levels of ability or willingness to give. With that understanding, the chart helps you map out a direction to meet your goal.

Specifically, what you will do is write down how many gifts of what size you are going to need to meet your overall goal. For example, if your overall goal is $1,400,000 - you might say we'll need 1 gift of $100,000, 5 gifts of $50,000, 10 gifts of $25,000, 25 gifts of $10,000, 50 gifts of $5,000, 100 gifts of $1,000, 250 gifts of $500, 500 gifts $100, and 1000 gifts of $25.

As you begin to project how many prospects you may need at various giving levels, remember that not everyone you ask will give, and many who do give may contribute less (or more) than what you were hoping for. Some campaign veterans contend that you will need two-and-a-half times as many prospects as the number of gifts you are seeking. Others, such as Clark Dickerson of Dickerson and Associates advise focusing on your top 150 prospects, as their experience has shown that 90-95% of the gifts will come from 5-10% of the donors.

Feasibility Study. Now that you have a clear idea of what your goal is and what it will take to reach that goal, you need to do some research to find out if your goals are in line with reality. This process is called a feasibility study. In a feasibility study, you will be interviewing donors from various levels on your gift range chart to assess their potential receptivity to your campaign.

The first group to talk to are your "lead gift" prospects. Lead gifts are large gifts at the beginning of the campaign that create momentum and inspire others to follow by example. Surveying these folks first is wise because if you cannot identify sufficient numbers of lead gifts, you may have to revisit your goals.

As you talk to your donors during the feasibility study process, you are gathering information in order to verify or modify your goals and planning assumptions. Use this opportunity to communicate the vision of the campaign. Ask prospects if they have ever made a capital campaign gift before. Find out if the person would consider a gift to this campaign, and if so, in what general dollar range. Also, ask interested prospects if they have appreciated assets (i.e. stock, real estate, etc.) that they might consider contributing to the campaign.

Identify Prospects. During the feasibility study, you are also beginning to identify prospects for the campaign. You also need to print our a comprehensive list of your donors, segmented by the gift range they typically give in. Ask your board, leadership, co-workers, and faithful donors to help you review the list and share any helpful information they may know that would help you with the contacts.

Your objective now is to compile a list of likely donors to your campaign, as well as people who will help you make the contacts. As with any fundraising effort, relationships are critical, so do your best to match up people who either know or have an affinity with the people they are contacting.

Quiet Phase. Now that your planning, research, and prospect identification is complete, you are ready to begin the "quiet phase" of the campaign. Your goal in the quiet phase is to raise one-third to one-half of the campaign total before you announce your campaign publicly. As you work through this process, use the opportunity to continue gauging your donors' receptivity to the campaign and listen to their feedback. If it becomes evident during the quiet phase that you won't have enough donors or donors to meet your goal, adjust the goal before announcing the campaign to the public.

Also, while the contacts are being made in the quiet phase, you are also beginning to put the pieces in place for the campaign launch, such as developing campaign materials, preparing a training kit for volunteers, and recruiting volunteers to make calls.

Launch. Assuming the quiet phase was successful, the final stage is "the launch", or, the public rollout of the campaign. You may want to celebrate the launch with a kick-off event. This is a good opportunity to invite the media. The gifts from the quiet phase will create momentum and excitement that you can highlight to encourage others to help you complete the task.

Following the launch, your aim is to raise the rest of the money needed to reach the goal within the time frame you established. When the money is raised, host a party and invite everyone who participated in the campaign to join you so that you can thank them in person and praise the Lord together for enabling the next phase of your ministry.