Capital Campaign Timeline: 7 Steps to Lead a Successful Campaign

If you think about a capital campaign as one big, long, stressful project, it can feel overwhelming. But if you break it up into phases and steps, the entire project becomes so much more manageable.

Thus, following a logical Capital Campaign Timeline makes good sense.

Quick Links — For your convenience, click on any of the links below to jump to that specific phase of the campaign:

• Capital Campaign Timeline: 7 Phases to Achieve Success
• Phase 0: Assess Your Campaign Readiness
• Phase 1: Pre-Campaign Planning (3-12 months)
• Phase 2: Feasibility Study (2-4 months)
• Phase 3: Campaign Planning Phase (2 months)
• Phase 4: Quiet Phase (6-24 months)
• Phase 5: Kick-Off (1 day to 1 month)
• Phase 6: Public Phase (3+ months)
• Phase 7: Post Campaign (3-6 months)
• Your Own Capital Campaign Timeline

The first section provides a good overview and infographic, followed by specifics for each phase of the capital campaign.

Capital Campaign Timeline: 7 Phases to Achieve Success

At Capital Campaign Pro, we take a step-by-step approach to each phase of a campaign and break everything down into bite-sized, manageable chunks.

Take a good look at the capital campaign timeline infographic below to get a feel for how the campaign is organized into seven phases.

Each campaign phase has a logical purpose and outcome. Each phase is specific, concrete, and tangible. Once you know what needs to happen in each phase, you’ll be on your way to planning a successful campaign.

A campaign often takes take anywhere from two to three years to complete. Of course, it all depends on when you start counting.

Phase 0: Assess Your Campaign Readiness

Before getting too deep into planning your capital campaign, you first need to ask if your nonprofit is capable of pulling off a successful campaign. Assess your nonprofit’s readiness by asking yourself these 10 questions:

1. What will your campaign raise money for, and why does it matter to anyone outside of your organization?
2. Do you have a functional donor database?
3. Who are your major donors?
4. Which of these major donors can make lead gifts?
5. Can you identify potential campaign leaders and make a plan to enlist them?
6. Do you have experienced, capable staff?
7. Do you have the necessary property secured?
8. Does your board fully agree with your vision for a capital campaign?
9. Do you have board members who have access to potential campaign donors?
10. Is your board willing to be more active in fundraising than it is now?

Essentially, these questions can be divided into three categories: organizational readiness, donor connections, and board support. 

You can, of course, improve these aspects of your nonprofit as you proceed with planning, such as working with your board to increase their campaign involvement. However, at this initial stage, the more of these questions you can confidently answer affirmatively, the more likely you are to run a successful campaign.

Phase 1: Pre-Campaign Planning (3-12 months)

In pre-campaign planning (which you may or may not count in your campaign timeline), you and your innermost circle will get your organization ready for your campaign. Your innermost circle will be your core community and consist of your executive director, director of development, board chair, and one or two other board members. 

With this team, you’ll assemble the following documents:

• Project plans (blueprints for a new building, for example)
• Campaign objectives (a list of what you need — new buildings, equipment, programs, fundraising expenses, maintenance funds, endowment, etc.)
• Working goal (a rough estimate of what the campaign objectives will cost)
• Draft case for support (a document about why donors should care/give)
• Gift range chart (a table outlining how many gifts at each level you will need to reach the goal)
• Depth chart (a listing of realistic, potential donors for each gift you need)

Phase 2: Feasibility Study (2-4 months)

The feasibility study phase tests a specific case and working goal with your biggest potential donors. It’s an important opportunity to solicit genuine feedback from key constituents:

• Test the plan with lead donors
• Discuss the case for support
• Assess overall giving potential

When done well, a feasibility study sets your campaign up for success. To conduct your feasibility study, your nonprofit has a few options. Namely, you can:

• Conduct the study internally. If your nonprofit knows the general steps of a feasibility study—interviewing donors, staff, and other stakeholders to get their thoughts on your project—you can theoretically host your study internally. However, this approach is inherently biased, and if your team has never conducted a capital campaign before, you might not have the best perspective for assessing your readiness. 
• Hire an external consultant. Capital campaign consultants know what to look for in organizations preparing for a campaign and can provide an expert outside opinion. However, fully handing your feasibility study off to an external team can create a disconnect between your nonprofit and the data you get back.
• Complete a guided study. Guided feasibility studies tend to be the best of both worlds. Your nonprofit gets professional help while also being intimately involved in every step of the process, helping you build donor relationships and get direct feedback from the very beginning. 

Contrary to popular belief, the feasibility study does not determine whether you can do a campaign, but rather how you should move ahead.

WARNING: Do not let anyone convince you to skip your feasibility study. This is a critical step!

Phase 3: Campaign Planning Phase (2 months)

In this quick, yet important phase, you’ll take the feedback you received during the feasibility study phase and revise and finalize your campaign plans. Depending on the feedback, you may be able to hit the ground running with your current plans, or you may need to pause, dedicate time to capacity building, and circle back to your capital campaign plans in a few months’ time.

In addition, you’ll need to develop and finalize other key documents, policies, and plans. These include:

• Campaign objectives
• Gift range chart
• Case for support
• Timeline and budget
• Campaign policies
• Donor recognition plan
• Communications plan

Phase 4: Quiet Phase (6-24 months)

After a lot of careful planning, you’re finally ready to ask for gifts. In this critical phase, you will solicit three key groups, who will help you get to approximately 70% of your goal.

The idea of a “quiet” phase can be confusing to many nonprofit leaders. What makes this phase quiet is the idea that you’re keeping the campaign goal quiet (you won’t have published or announced a specific goal yet).

During the quiet phase, you can be (and probably will be) talking publicly about the project and the vision without a specific goal.

Throughout this phase, you will solicit three groups of people:

1. Lead donors (the top 20 gifts on your gift range chart)
2. Board members
3. Campaign committee members

Once you have completed soliciting these three key groups, you will have a much clearer sense of how much you can really raise and are ready to finalize your goal. (Up until this point you are using a “working goal” or draft goal.

Phase 5: Kick-Off (1 day to 1 month)

The “kick-off” of your public phase serves to announce the campaign goal to the public and your community. You might do a press release and large event announcing how far you’ve come already and the gap to goal.

In this phase, you will celebrate those who have already given and put the community on alert that you need their support to get the rest of the way to your goal.

During this short phase, you will start generating donations and earn public attention by:

1. Announce a public goal
2. Issue a press release
3. Hold an event

Phase 6: Public Phase (3+ months)

The public phase is when you finally turn your attention to soliciting your base of supporters. The fundraising strategy changes to direct mail, email solicitations, phone-a-thons, and crowd fundraising. 

The quiet phase is surprisingly short and should be approximately three months. This final push will energize your staff, volunteers, and donors. Avoid dragging it out and keep energy high by: 

• Hosting a variety of outreach activities. Engage with your supporters and maintain interest in your campaign by continuously reaching out to them in a variety of ways, from hosting events to starting conversations on social media to making personalized email solicitations. 
• Reconnecting with uncommitted quiet phase donors. While the public phase is generally about collecting donations from the general public, it’s also an opportunity to return to donors you solicited during the quiet phase but who are still uncommitted. Earning a sudden major gift from one of these supporters not only helps you reach your goal but can inject energy into your campaign. 
• Keeping a close eye on metrics. Track your fundraising progress so your team and supporters always know how close you are to your goal. Celebrate milestones and make announcements to keep your momentum going strong. 

Phase 7: Post Campaign (3-6 months)

After you’ve reached your goal, it’s time to celebrate and express gratitude to your staff, volunteers, and donors. You will also want to debrief and take notes for the next campaign.

Although it’s a huge relief that the campaign is over, you will not want to neglect these three important steps:

1. Thank and celebrate your volunteers, donors, and staff
2. Send pledge reminders
3. Debrief and take good notes for the next campaign

Your Own Capital Campaign Timeline

A campaign is a huge investment of work and time, and you should raise a huge amount of money to support an enormous vision. When it’s broken down into key phases and those phases are further broken down into actionable steps, the entire process becomes manageable and far less overwhelming.

Get our Campaign Guide and Checklist

For your convenience, we’ve prepared a downloadable guide with all of the phases and steps included in this post:

Download the Campaign Timeline & Checklist »

Keep this guide handy and refer back to it throughout your campaign. That way, you and your team won’t miss a beat.

It’s going to be challenging, but as long as you follow the seven campaign phases and steps provided herein, you can do it!

And if you need some help along the way, we’re here for you.