Capital Campaign Case for Support: How to Write Your Own

One of the first things you need for your campaign is a case for support. Your case provides the foundation for crafting a complete campaign plan.

If you’re like most peoplhe, you probably think your case is essentially a glossy brochure. You may fervently hope that you can create a brochure so good that you can just send it to donors and they’ll be moved to write you a big check.

But that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

You’ll need a more complete communications plan that shifts throughout the phases of the campaign. And every element of that capital campaign communications plan starts with a clear and compelling case for support.

Quick Links — Use the links below to jump to each section of this guide:

• Case for Support: The Foundation of Capital Campaign Communications
• Writing a Capital Campaign Case for Support
• Capital Campaign Plan: Materials for a Comprehensive Communications Strategy
• Turning Your Case for Support into a Campaign Brochure
• The Importance of a Comprehensive Communications Plan

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Case for Support: The Foundation of Your Campaign Communications

What is a case for support?

Also known as a case statement, a capital campaign case for support is a clear and compelling set of ideas that literally make the case for why donors should give to your campaign. While the way those ideas are expressed may shift throughout campaign phases, the key concepts will stay the same.

What to Include in Your Case for Support

To earn support for your capital campaign, ensure your case for support includes these eight elements: 

1. 1. Campaign theme. Create a cohesive case for support by choosing a theme that it will revolve around. Establish your theme in your campaign’s name, tagline, and opening lines. 
   2. Campaign challenge. Spell out the challenges your organization faces in carrying out its mission and highlight the impact the campaign will have. Frame your challenge to evoke emotion and help supporters visualize it. 
   3. Solution to your challenge. Describe what your organization is going to do to solve the challenges you face in a way that makes a donor want to help.
   4. Organization qualifications. Explain why your organization is uniquely qualified for the task. Share details about your nonprofit’s certifications, awards, staff expertise, and past projects. 
   5. Sense of urgency. Explain why now is the time to act on your challenge. Describe any opportunities you can take advantage of and compounding factors that may make your challenge worse if your response is delayed. 
   6. Project budget. Provide a breakdown of how much you need to finance the project and how you plan to raise those funds.
   7. Expected project impact. Emphasize your campaign’s potential outcomes to reinforce the themes of your campaign in a way that will inspire donors.
   8. How donors can help. Share the next steps a donor can take to start supporting your campaign. 

Writing a Capital Campaign Case for Support: 6 Key Elements and Examples

The best way to work on developing a case for support is by drafting a document that includes all of the elements above. Don’t add photos or fancy graphics. Just get the ideas right and written down in a clear, simple style.

Your case for support will not start out as a polished document. No one’s does. Rather, it will begin as a series of ideas organized in a logical and compelling way.

Once you’ve nailed down these essential elements, you can then weave them together into a compelling story. Connecting the dots with illustrative details about the purpose and impact of your campaign can go a long way to engage your donors. In fact, stories are remembered a whopping 22 times more easily than data alone.

And while your organization’s campaign may be wholly unique, we’ve found that all truly compelling cases follow this simple 6-part framework.

1. Your Vision

Write two or three sentences describing your vision.

What difference will the money you raise make in the world? Keep the focus on your organization’s mission, not on the benefit to your organization itself. Remember: the vision is not about your organization’s needs. Your vision is about the difference your newly capitalized organization will make in the lives of others.

Example: We envision a Center where photojournalists can come together to share their stories with one another and the people in our community. It will be a small gathering place for the courageous people who dedicate their lives to documenting the truth around the world.

2. Your Problem

What’s keeping your organization from achieving your vision?

Describe what’s holding you back. Stating the problem you face sets up the solution and your campaign.

Example: While we have exhibit space, we have no place to bring photojournalists together in an intimate and welcoming way. We have no beds to host them when they visit from other countries for an exhibit or workshop. We have no kitchen or dining table where they might break bread with their colleagues. We have no workspace or equipment for when three or four photojournalists stay for several days to work together on a project or offer a workshop to young people in the community. In short, though we have a public space to display their work, we have no space where they can come together to talk, discuss the challenges of their work, and develop projects together.

3. Your Plan

How will you overcome the problem to achieve your vision?

Spell out in plain language what you plan to do with the money you raise and why that’ll solve the problem.

Example: We plan to take over the second floor of our building and create a warm and welcoming place for photojournalists from around the world. We’ll be able to house up to four people at a time. They’ll be able to share meals and work in an office that is fully equipped with computers, editing software, and even a darkroom. With these simple facilities, we’ll be able to bring photojournalists together for residencies, workshops, and discussions. The added space will also let us move our offices out of the gallery so we can be more efficient and effective.

4. Your Costs

What’s your plan going to cost?

Summarize the components of your campaign budget and present your total cost. This amount will be your campaign’s working goal.

Example: We estimate that the total cost of this project will be $412,000.

• 2nd floor rent for 2 years: $85,000
• Cost of renovation: $110,000
• Computers and furnishings: $72,000
• Costs for expanded programming: $90,000 ($45,000 for each of two years)
• Fundraising and administration: $55,000

5. Your “Why Now?”

Why is it important to solve the problem now? Every campaign must have a sense of urgency.

Example: The personal and emotional price of being a photojournalist has never been higher. Dozens of photojournalists risk their lives around the world. Several have been killed just this year covering wars, political strife, and disease. But the need for this brave small group of people who capture the stories and images of what is happening around the world has never been greater. And our new center, small that it is, will be a safe haven and offer much-needed support.

6. Your Call to Action

How can donors help solve the problem and achieve your vision? How can they give and at what levels?

A call to action (CTA) explicitly lays out how prospective donors can get involved. For nonprofits, CTAs are all about urgency, clarity, and emotion. While you may hear this term used to describe buttons and other small snippets of text on websites, your call to action in a case for support should be a few sentences that provide enough details to encourage a donor to act.

Example: We invite you to help make this new haven for photojournalists a reality. Join us in honoring the work of people like Tim Heatherington, James Foley, and the many other photojournalists who risk their lives to show us the truth. You can make gifts of cash or pledge your gift over as many as two years. We will be pleased to review the naming opportunities for this project. All gifts of $1,000 or more will be listed on a plaque in our main exhibit space, and gifts of $2,500 or more may be designated to specific aspects of the project.

After completing your draft, share it with other stakeholders to get feedback, helping you see what works and what doesn’t. Be ready to do extensive rewrites, as it’s not unusual to write five or even ten drafts of this initial case for support.

The clearer and more compelling your draft gets, the more firmly those ideas will serve as the basis for your campaign communications plan.

Is your Case for Support effective? Answer these 8 questions…

Here are eight questions to ask to see if your case for support is effective:

1. Is your case defensible?
2. Is your case both rational and emotional?
3. Is your case optimistic?
4. Is your case as brief as possible?
5. Does your case make sound financial sense?
6. Is your case easy to remember?
7. Does your case call people to action?
8. Is your case easy to read?

Capital Campaign Plan: Materials for a Comprehensive Communications Strategy

As you move through your campaign phases, your communication strategy will shift. Your audience will grow, your messages will change, and the vehicles you use to communicate will take different forms. But the key ideas will all flow from the case for support.

To track your strategy’s evolution, create a grid like the one below that shows the audiences, messages, and vehicles for each of the four phases of your campaign.

In the Pre-Campaign phase, your audience is a small group of insiders, and you will work with preliminary project plans, usually in draft form.

Through the Quiet phase of your campaign, you will solicit gifts from board members and other donors with the greatest capacity. These conversations are usually most effective when you share essential information without slick presentations. You’ll need well-written and clean materials to explain the project.

As your campaign gains steam, develop an e-newsletter to keep your core insiders up to date with the campaign’s progress. And of course, by the time you kick off the campaign publicly, you’re going to need all sorts of other material.

As your campaign proceeds, you’ll find that the audiences, message, and vehicles change. Until finally, by the end, you might be creating swag, like hats, t-shirts, banners, and more.

You will need a full range of campaign materials

To give you a running start on developing the communication plan for your campaign, here’s a list the material you are likely to need over the full range of your campaign.

• Letterhead
• Notecards
• Pledge forms
• Envelopes and labels
• Newsletters
• Brochure
• Campaign report
• Donor discussion guide
• Folders for donor material
• Website and webpages
• Video
• Email appeal tamplates
• E-newsletters
• Social media messages
• Swag (hats, buttons, banners, ads and more)

Download and save this handy list here »

Note: A communications plan comes before a brochure.

In the diagram below, you can see how the case for support serves as the foundation for the campaign’s communication plan. Only then can you distill your core messages and details into all the different brochures, emails, videos, and more that you’ll need throughout the campaign.

For example, your campaign volunteers may think that the first thing you need is a fancy campaign brochure. They may even push you to hire a design firm to develop one. But it’s much wiser to focus on a well-conceived communications plan first.

In fact, one of the best ways to keep volunteers from demanding a fancy campaign brochure well before you’re ready for one is to share your communications plan with them.

If you’d like to see a sample communication plan, check out the material in the Capital Campaign Pro toolkit. It’s got everything you need to guide you.

Turning Your Case for Support into a Campaign Brochure

You will need a campaign brochure in time for your campaign kick-off. Looking at the campaign timeline below, you can see that the kick-off marks the end of the quiet phase of the campaign. At that event, you will set the final dollar goal for your campaign — a goal you know you will be able to reach.

Your campaign brochure announces that final campaign goal and transforms the ideas you developed in your case for support into a well-designed brochure. Use images, headings, and color to breathe visual life into your case for support.

The primary purpose of your campaign brochure

The primary purpose of the brochure is to provide support and reassurance for the many volunteers who will solicit gifts for the campaign during the public phase.

In most campaigns, a few key staff members and volunteers will solicit the large gifts during the quiet phase. The people who solicit those large gifts are very familiar with the organization and the campaign and don’t need the support of a fancy brochure. In fact, most of the largest gifts for a campaign are raised with simple drafts of the case for support.

But when the campaign broadens into the public phase, a campaign brochure gives volunteers the confidence they need to ask for gifts.

Things to include in your campaign brochure

In addition to the key elements of your case for support, campaign brochures usually include these other items as well:

• Gift range chart showing how many gifts at each level you will need to reach your goal.
• A description of the various ways donors might give to the campaign.
• A list of the people serving on the campaign committee and the board of directors.
• The list of donor recognition opportunities.
• A message from the campaign chair or chairs.

The Importance of a Comprehensive Communications Plan

As you can see, the campaign brochure is just one of the communications pieces you will need throughout your campaign.

But most board members and campaign volunteers have little campaign experience. And to them, it may seem strange that you don’t need a fancy brochure when you approach the largest donors early in your campaign.

In fact, some people believe that all you need for a campaign is a glossy brochure.

It will take a bit of work to educate your board members about the way campaigns work. And having a well-developed campaign plan early in your campaign will help you thwart the inevitable cry to hire a designer to create a fancy brochure right up front.

Make sure you don’t let your organization fall into that trap. Instead, get key staff and board members to help develop the drafts of your case for support first. Then, outline a communications plan which spells out the messages, audiences and media for each phase of your campaign.

Once your board members see a clear communications plan and how it lines up with the phases of your campaign, they’ll be happy to get on the right path.

See the difference that an organized plan and expert guidance can make for capital campaigns of all sizes:

Have more questions or want one-on-one help crafting your case for support? Check out our comprehensive FAQ guide to capital campaigns or get in touch. We’ll be happy to help!