Creating Your Capital Campaign Budget + Interactive Template

When you think about fundraising costs, always consider your return on investment (ROI). How much is “reasonable” to spend to raise a dollar? Depending on what type of fundraising you’re doing, the cost to raise $1 ranges anywhere from $0.10 to $0.50 (or even more).

So what’s the most cost-effective type of fundraising? It’s capital campaign fundraising, hands-down. Capital campaigns offer huge returns for a relatively small investment— as long as you set a reasonable capital campaign budget.

To help you create a working budget for your next capital campaign, we’ll go over:

• Capital Campaign Budget: Use the Ten Percent Rule
• Interactive Capital Campaign Budgeting Template
• Your Campaign Budget with Respect to Your Style and Culture
• Capital Campaign Budgeting Categories
• Post-Campaign Staffing and Budgeting Considerations

Capital campaign budgeting can be challenging, but when you know what budget makes sense and why, your nonprofit can have productive conversations with your board to get the funding you need. Let’s get started!

Capital Campaign Budget: Use the Ten Percent Rule

Our rule of thumb is that your campaign budget should be approximately 10% of your campaign goal. You may not need that much, but 10% is a great starting place to get your board on board with your campaign budget.

For example, if you aim to raise $10 million, your ideal campaign budget would be approximately $1 million. This means your fundraising total should be $11 million to cover your campaign goal and expenses.

While $1 million might seem like a lot, remember that this amount will need to sustain your campaign for its entire duration — two to four years on average. If your $10 million capital campaign runs for three years, you might spend $500,000 of your budget in the first year to cover upfront costs, and then divide the remaining $500,000 over the following two years to keep your campaign going strong.

Additionally, the 10% rule is a useful starting point, but not universal. For instance, due to static costs for all campaigns, such as the cost of conducting a feasibility study, capital campaigns with smaller targets might need budgets that are 12% or 15% of their fundraising goal, while larger campaigns might have budgets as small as 5%.

Early Capital Campaign Costs

Capital campaigns often have high upfront costs. Early costs associated with your campaign will likely include:

• Campaign consulting fees
• Additional fundraising or administrative staff
• Other outside support, such as designers and writers, to execute your marketing plan

Mid-Capital Campaign Costs

As the campaign moves forward, you will budget money to cover the cost of other campaign necessities, including:

• Campaign materials
• Your campaign kick-off event
• Advertising to help get the word out about your campaign

Late Capital Campaign Costs

Toward the end of your campaign, you’ll budget for:

• Campaign celebrations
• Donor recognition
• Volunteer appreciation
• Printing (for your campaign brochure and other offline communications)

Interactive Capital Campaign Budgeting Template

Now that we’ve reviewed expenses, it’s time to calculate your campaign budget! To help you determine your budget and see how it will be divided between early and late campaign expenses, use our capital campaign budget calculator:

Raising money costs money. You don’t have to shy away from talking with your board and donors about the importance of adequately funding your capital campaign, as long as you have a strong budget on your side.

Your Capital Campaign Budget with Respect to Your Style and Culture

When developing the budget for your campaign, think carefully about your organization’s style and culture.

Consider the following:

1. Is your annual supporter appreciation event a four-course meal at the fanciest place in town? Or is your organization happier celebrating in-house with a simple picnic lunch?
2. Does your organization prefer glossy print materials and high-production value videos? Or are you satisfied with newsprint and iPhone videos made by your program participants?

Decisions about appropriate styling choices relative to your brand will make a huge difference in your campaign budget. Plan your expenses based on your organization’s culture and donors’ expectations.

8 Capital Campaign Budgeting Categories

When planning your campaign expenses and budget, we’ve identified a few key categories you should examine:

1. Staff

One major campaign expense nonprofits often underestimate is staffing. Specifically, many nonprofits start their capital campaign journey assuming they won’t increase their staff. However, capital campaigns involve raising far more money than your nonprofit normally does or potentially ever has. Often, nonprofits starting their first capital campaign realize they’ve actually been understaffed the entire time!

A few positions to consider hiring for include:

• Major gift officer. Major gift officers have the experience needed to help your nonprofit build connections with major donors and secure vital support. However, even the most experienced major gift officers will need support from the rest of your team to understand who your prospects are and where they are in their donor journeys.
• Campaign manager. Also called the campaign director, this individual is responsible for overseeing your campaign, helping take responsibilities off of your executive director or CEO’s plate.
• Administrator. Whether they’re managing your data or helping plan events, even part-time administrators can help hammer out the many logistics of running a smooth, multi-year capital campaign.

While hiring new staff may seem like a big financial commitment, a core objective of your capital campaign should be to increase your nonprofit’s operating capacity. Over the course of your campaign, these individuals will help you develop new relationships, build out new processes, and generally improve your fundraising capabilities. We’ll discuss how these new hires can become permanent team members later.

2. Consultants or other professional experts

Few nonprofits have team members with experience running multiple capital campaigns. This means you will almost certainly need to work with a capital campaign consultant.

These consultants can help guide you and provide expertise on a number of topics, including:

• Feasibility studies. To determine whether your nonprofit is positioned to run a successful capital campaign, you’ll need to conduct a feasibility study. While some nonprofits turn the feasibility study process entirely over to a consultant, we recommend working with a consultant to complete a guided study.
• Strategy. Capital campaign consultants have extensive experience helping nonprofits create strategies for every part of their campaigns, from approaching major donors to kicking off the campaign’s public phase.
• Planning. Given the length of a capital campaign, it can be difficult to determine exactly how long certain processes will take and what resources they’ll need. A fundraising consultant can help you create a detailed timeline, plan specific activities, and allocate your resources.

Remember that these experts are experienced with all parts of a capital campaign, including setting a budget. If you need help determining your budget or advocating to your board for your budget, a capital campaign consultant can give you the insight you need.

3. Campaign materials

From websites to brochures to videos, your campaign will require you to produce a range of promotional and internal materials.

When allocating your budget for these materials, consider the following expenses:

• Branding. Before beginning your capital campaign, assess your nonprofit’s brand. Does it encompass the messaging approach and visual identity you want to present to your donors? It’s best not to rebrand mid-capital campaign, as doing so can incur additional expenses and weaken your organization’s image in a critical moment, so ensure your branding is finalized before you start creating campaign materials.
• Technical expertise. Websites, videos, and other online outreach materials might require working with a professional service, whether it’s a video editor or website designer.
• Printing costs. If you’re printing flyers or brochures, remember that those costs can add up.

4. Systems and technology

Will you need new software for your capital campaign? The main platforms capital campaigns rely on are donor databases and prospect research tools. Factor any subscription costs into your campaign budget.

Additionally, you might also purchase capital campaign-specific resources to help guide and plan your campaign. For example, Capital Campaign Pro’s online toolkit includes:

• Templates and worksheets for every phase of your campaign
• Training exercises and guidelines
• An always accessible AI assistant 

5. Events and celebrations

Capital campaigns require hosting various events. These can be divided into two categories:

• Simple events. Throughout the quiet phase of your campaign, you’ll host a number of small donor cultivation events. For example, you might meet up with a major giving candidate for coffee or host a dinner to celebrate several major donors confirming their gifts. Remember that capital campaigns span multiple years, and the costs of these little events will add up. 
• Major events. Depending on your campaign culture, your major events—like your campaign kickoff and final celebration—might be huge undertakings. When planning these events, consider your donors’ expectations to host an event that shows your appreciation and instills confidence in your nonprofit. 

6. Donor recognition

Major gifts require major recognition, which requires at least significant budget considerations. For example, you might think adding a few names to a donor wall will be a small expense. However, this recognition activity means you’ll need to account for:

• Architecture fees
• Manufacturing costs
• Installation costs 

While you don’t need an elaborate display for every donor, it’s necessary to consider how you’ll appreciate your donors and how much your recognition strategy will likely cost.

Post-Campaign Staffing and Budgeting Considerations

If you hire additional staff for your campaign, you may want to keep them on after the campaign wraps up. After all, by working on your campaign, your new staff will likely have developed valuable skills and built relationships with donors that can strengthen your development program.

However, shifting a salary line from your campaign to your operating budget in the last year may strain your operating budget. If you anticipate keeping that person on after the campaign, consider shifting their salary to your operating budget over the course of the campaign. Here is an example of how this process could work for a four-year capital campaign:

Year 1 — Campaign budget pays 100% of new development assistant’s salary.

Year 2 — Campaign budget pays 2/3 of development assistant’s salary, with the other 1/3 paid for from operating budget.

Year 3 — Campaign budget pays 1/3 of development assistant’s salary, with the other 2/3 paid from operating budget.

Year 4 — Full salary (100%) is paid for through the operating budget.

This way, you can increase your organization’s capacity by adding to your permanent development team through careful and strategic use of your campaign budget.