Guided Feasibility Studies Lead to Deeper Donor Conversations

Do you wonder whether you could have real, genuine conversations with your largest potential donors that weren’t laced with anxiety?

Conversations when you can really discuss your organization — with all its wonders and challenges — are few and far between.

Truly Insightful Conversations with Your Donors Are Rare

Many EDs and DDs are anxious about talking to their largest donors. So the only conversations they have are those in which they ask for gifts. And all too often, even then they don’t talk to their donors, leaving the ask to a letter or email.

But the most effective fundraisers actively build relationships with their donors that are not just about money. They create opportunities to interact with their top donors. In fact, a great fundraiser keeps an active list of major donor prospects they wish to build a relationship with.

In my experience, however, those fundraisers are all too rare. Even well-meaning development directors and executive directors put off having deep and probing conversations with their largest donors.

Yet, those are exactly the kinds of conversations they should be having!

Deep Donor Conversations Require Context and a Reason

Calling a donor out of the blue seems awkward. But when you create a context and a structure for those conversations, they will feel natural and appropriate. You’ll even look forward to them.

The Capital Campaign Pro Guided Feasibility Study process creates a simple context and opportunity to talk with your most important donors.

Memorable Conversations with a Real Impact

One of our clients — Rachel Spaulding, Head of Advancement at The Wheeler School — recently completed a Guided Feasibility Study for her organization. Rachel said:

“I was sad when the study was over. The structure was so potent.”

She went on to describe how clearly she remembers each donor conversation and how those feasibility study conversations have shaped her ongoing relationships with those donors.

“People were honest with us. We encouraged them to tell us what they really thought, and they did!”

Rachel was surprised that many of the people she spoke with told her how grateful they were that they could talk directly with her rather than with an outside campaign consultant.

“Your Guided Feasibility Study model is a brilliant disruption of the traditional feasibility study model. The old model will crumble as a result.”

What Exactly is a Guided Feasibility Study?

If you are in the early stages of planning a capital campaign, you should be planning to do a feasibility study. Feasibility studies are an important early step in preparing for a capital campaign.

In our experience, organizations that skip the feasibility study step often find themselves in a pickle, when the lead gifts they thought were there don’t materialize. A feasibility study provides an early check on the reality of your thinking and begins the important process of engaging top donors in the planning process.

Guided Feasibility Study vs. Traditional Feasibility Study

With the traditional model, you hire consultants to plan the study and conduct confidential interviews with your top perspective donors. The consultants collate and aggregate the results and then report on the potential of the campaign in a way that doesn’t reveal specifics of the donor conversations.

With our Guided Feasibility Study model, we help you plan the study and then we train you to conduct the interviews. But unlike the traditional model, you and your key 2-3 leaders go and talk to your most important donors. We help you organize what you’ve heard and report on the results and conclusions of your study.

Far-Reaching Consequences of the New Model

The new Guided Feasibility Study model has far-reaching consequences:

1. Your leaders become comfortable having probing and authentic conversations with your donors.
2. Your donors feel that they have gotten to know and trust the leaders of your organization.
3. The donor conversations pave the way to future solicitations.
4. The study recommendations are fully transparent.
5. The study process creates a way of talking to donors that can be used again and again, long after the campaign is complete.

Learn More About Guided Feasibility Studies

If this has piqued your interest, take a look at this short video which will explain how a Guided Feasibility Study works.

Then, if you would like to learn more, sign up for a free strategy session with a member of our team.

Don’t shortchange your capital campaign by skipping the feasibility study process. A Guided Feasibility Study will set your campaign up for success.