Capital Campaign Metrics Your Nonprofit Board Needs to Know

Board members are an important part of your campaign leadership team. As such, they hould be provided with regular campaign updates and reports.

One way to help your board understand campaign progress toward the campaign goal (and any course correction which may be necessary) is to keep them engaged in the process and committed to your orverall progress.

With that in mind, having specific goals and clear metrics that are broken down by phase and gift type will help your board easily understand the progress you’re making, and how they can help.

Don’t Bore Your Board – Give Your Reports Meaning

Reporting and metrics aren’t simply about the numbers, although that’s certainly part of it. Campaigns are serious business, and they can be long and hard. So, it’s important to add fun, creativity, and celebrate whenever possible.

Tell Stories

Be sure to include stories along with each report. Talk about why (or how) a donor decided to give a particularly meaningful gift. Share what it took to connect with the donor, build the relationship, and the preparation involved in asking for a gift.

Acknowledge Milestones

Add celebration to your metrics reports too. Acknowledge milestones and those who helped you get there. Give yourself and others gold stars, thumbs up, kudos, and cookies acknowledge the hard work you’re doing.

Gamify Your Campaign

Depending on the makeup of your board, you might gamify your campaign — turn outreach into a friendly competition among board members. Ask board members to share updates and report on progress as appropriate.

Easy Campaign “Metrics at a Glance”

Tracking your campaign’s progress through a series of spreadsheets is not ideal. It’s far better to have a clear, easy-to-understand overview of your campaign’s progress – something that makes it easy for board members to see where things stand and where attention is needed most.

That’s why we developed the Major Gifts Dashboard. It’s a tool that should be used alongside your donor database. It gives you a clear picture of your campaign status and progress while also providing a simple reporting mechanism for you and your team.

A Single, Clear Snapshot of Your Campaign

One of the greatest benefits of the Major Gifts Dashboard is that it provides development directors with a clear snapshot of where you are and where you are going. Your pipeline, gift status, and progress all live in one simple to use tool, which can be accessed from anywhere at any time.

Another benefit of the dashboard is the ease of sharing campaign progress and updates with your board.

A Closer Look at the Major Gifts Dashboard

The “homepage” dashboard shows:

• Capital Campaign Goal
• Amount Raised to Date
• Amount Left to Raise
• Amount in Hand / Amount Pledged
• Total Number of Gifts Needed
• Number of Gifts Secured / Pledged
• Number of Planned Gifts Secured
• Dollars Raised toward Capital, Endowment, Operations, Programs, and Unrestricted Funds

Before campaign gifs begin to come in, you can share your campaign’s Gift Range Chart with your board members, as well as the “Prospects in the Pipeline” dashboard (note that this dashboard contains names and may not be appropriate to share with your entire board).

Using the Dashboard to Track Major Gifts

Once campaign gifts begin to come in, the Major Gifts Dashboard becomes an even more useful tool for reporting to your board. The metrics you share with members will change depending on the phase of the campaign.

Let’s take a look at how this works for the quiet phase and public phase.

Quiet Phase Metrics

During the quiet phase, you’ll primarily report on three things:

1. Leadership level gift status (prospects, solicitations, and pledges)
2. Board member gifts and progress to 100% participation
3. New bequest intentions

It’s important for you to set realistic expectations about campaign progress, especially during the quiet phase, which often takes longer than expected and can seem slow at times. The good news is that each leadership level gift secured will show a significant increase in dollars raised. Once these gifts start coming in, the momentum starts to feel real and palpable.

However, it’s important to acknowledge that progress can feel slow, especially if you’re reporting monthly. Therefore, you can report on more than solicitations — including metrics like donors identified, researched, and outreach made to show progress behind the scenes.

And remember to tell stories and acknowledge milestones as part of your report.

Public Phase Metrics

During the public phase, you’ll shift your attention to activities such as:

• House parties
• Number of new donors
• Volunteer engagement
• Challenge gifts
• Social media posts (no need to go crazy counting, but share examples)

As always, you will continue sharing number of gifts made and progress to goal during this final push to the finish line.

Frequency: How often should you report to the board?

Just how often should you report to your board members throughout the campaign?

A natural sharing point is at each board meeting. However, during some months there may be little news to share in terms of metrics. This is why sharing stories is so useful. You may also decide to share exciting news more frequently (or between board meetings), especially when you get a large gift or hit an important milestone (such as your first million-dollar gifts or progress to 100% board participation).

Remember, reporting isn’t just about the numbers. Use data and other means to tell the story of your campaign. When you combine clear metrics with meaningful stories and celebrate the milestones along the way, you’ll keep your board engaged, informed, and invested in your campaign’s success.

Learn More About the Major Gifts Dashboard

Click here to learn more about how the Major Gifts Dashboard can help you take control of your campaign data.