How to Build a Successful Capital Campaign with Karen Zelden

So a capital campaign, generally small, medium, or large, is for a transformative purpose.

It's when an organization wants to either enhance or build a new facility for a particular purpose.

They want to, uh, either launch or enhance existing technology to support their objectives and what they want to do.

Sometimes I've seen it done for endowments as well, but that's probably a more, a different conversation for a different day.

But generally speaking, it's when an organization seeks to enhance or develop, uh, a particular function through the building or enhancement of a facility or technology.

And, and it's more than just saying, "I wanna start a capital campaign." The, the-

That's right

... an organization really, to be successful, has to be ready for it.

How, how does, uh, an organization determine whether or not it's ready for a capital campaign?

Well, I will say, and this, you're probably gonna hear me say this multiple times in our conversation today, Michael, there's not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Hmm.

So I think we need to start with the, the fundamental that a $50,000 small campaign to enhance technology is very different than a university or a large organization wanting to, you know, uh, raise a million, five million, 50 million for some large-scale initiative.

And so the real key just to start this conversation is a clear, cogent understanding of what the goal is of the organization.

Why are we doing this? What is it that we hope to gain? In a simple, clear, cogent way is very important.

But generally speaking, some things that organizations should consider is, first of all, um, again, the why.

Um, these campaigns are, although they generally ha- they have a, a timestamp on them, they're generally of a particular duration, they, um, require a great deal of resources and time to execute and execute properly.

So whether it's 50,000 or 50 million, you are going to have to develop and engage in resources and, and, and a- apply and deploy those resources for success.

So the bottom line is, why are we doing this? And I know with Big Bold Fundraising and in my work, I have a one-page, highly simple, um, sheet that I sit down in a first meeting with a board and say, and there's a prompt, and it says, "Why?" You know, w- if we execute this campaign, what specifically do we hope to achieve? And I will tell you, just as a side note, uh, it is, it generally is, uh, the longest part of a one-hour meeting is defining that why.

So number one, the why.

Number two, generally speaking, campaigns over about a million dollars, you wanna do some level of feasibility study.

We probably could have a whole conversation about feasibility studies and the pros and the challenges and what's the right amount of money to spend and, and how do you avoid analysis to paralysis.

But bottom line, you want to get a feel for is your market, is your donor pool, is your organization And is your operations ready to engage in this in a successful way? So that might not be, you know, a $25,000 or $100,000, and I've seen it e- actually go above $100,000 formal three to six-month study.

It may simply be the board, the leadership, the head of fundraising, possibly if you have a campaign cabinet, which is something we'll talk about today.

But the key leaders getting together and saying, "If we agree on the why, how do we...

Are we ready for this? And if we're not, and we think it's an important goal, what do we need to do to get ready for it?" So that's really important.