Podcast: Can You Run a Capital Campaign Without a Wealthy, Well-Connected Board?

Season 6, Episode 7

A board filled with wealthy, well-connected fundraisers may sound ideal, but it is not a requirement for a successful capital campaign.

In this episode, Amy Eisenstein and Andrea Kihlstedt address a concern shared by many nonprofit leaders: Can an organization conduct a capital campaign when its board members care deeply about the mission but do not have access to wealthy networks and do not see themselves as fundraisers?

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Amy Eisenstein:
If you don’t have a wealthy or well-connected board, you may be worried about doing a campaign.

Hi, I’m Amy Eisenstein. I’m here with my colleague and co-founder, Andrea Kihlstedt. And today we are talking about the responsibilities and roles of board members and how you prepare your board for a campaign. And this question actually got asked to us when we were doing a board book giveaway this week.

If you’ve been listening or if you’re familiar with us at Capital Campaign Pro, you know that my colleague Sarah and I just wrote and published a book called A Board Member’s Guide to Capital Campaign Fundraising. And so we were doing a book giveaway and we asked our community for questions and someone wrote in and asked:

“How do you prepare board members to lead a campaign who care deeply in the mission, but do not see themselves as fundraisers and don’t have access to wealth networks?”

So Andrea and I, we got talking about this really common and very important question.

A Capital Campaign Without a Wealthy Well-Connected Board

So Andrea, what do you think about, what first comes to mind when you hear somebody saying:

“We don’t have a wealthy board. They’re not connected. Can we do a campaign? What should we do?”

What’s the first thing that pops into your head?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Of course.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes, yes.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
That’s the reason.

Amy Eisenstein:
You and everybody else, right.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
You and everybody else. Exactly. This is not an uncommon situation because, by and large, for social service organizations, for many kinds of organizations, board members are not all chosen because of their wealth or their connections to wealth in a community. They’re chosen for a whole variety of other reasons.

Sometimes members of their family have been served. Sometimes the board more reflects the organization itself rather than the wealth in the community. So I mean, you sort of always hope that one or two or three of your board members do have those connections, but to have a board of 12 or 15 or 20 people and to think that the preponderance of them will is, by and large, not the case.

Now, does that mean you can’t do a capital campaign? No, it doesn’t mean that because capital campaigns are not led by boards. Boards have important roles in capital campaigns, but leading the campaign, making all of those connections, soliciting all those gifts, by and large, is not the board’s primary responsibility. Let’s first talk, Amy, about what are the responsibilities of board members during a capital campaign. Let’s start with that. And then let’s talk about what really does it mean to lead a capital campaign and who’s going to be doing that when the board itself doesn’t have the profile to make that happen.

Campaign Responsibilities: Your Board as a Whole

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes, I think that’s a great starting place. And let’s even distinguish the board as a group, as a governing body and individual board members.

So the board as a whole sets the vision for the campaign, sets the direction for the organization, usually through a strategic planning process.

And so the board as a group is responsible for what’s next. Where is the organization going? How is it going to grow? How is it going to take a leap in services and support the community? And then the question becomes how to fund it and that’s where the campaign comes in. So the board as a governing body needs to decide, “We’re ready to grow. This organization is ready to grow.” So that’s one thing. What’s next?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Yeah, “This organization is ready to grow and we need a new building,” for example, or, “We need new programs and a new building and here’s what it looks like over five years. And in order to do that, we’re going to need to have a capital campaign to raise the money to support that.” The board will come to those decisions. A board as a whole will make those decisions.

Now, the board as a whole has other responsibilities also. The board needs to make sure that the decisions made about the campaign are being made thoughtfully and with appropriate expertise, for example. The board has an oversight role in the entire financial health of the organization and a capital campaign is one of those pieces. So the board needs to keep an eye on what’s going on and make sure that it’s not going off half cocked, you know, off the rails someplace. So in that sense, a board has some kind of a leadership responsibility, but not in the sense of actually leading the campaign. It’s sort of an oversight responsibility.

Amy Eisenstein:
And let me just add that many individual board members won’t have a clue as to how to do that, which is fine. Two things. One is that’s why Sarah and I wrote the book, to help individual board members understand what their role is and how to do it, what their responsibilities are and how to do them.

So if you’re sitting here scratching your head or you know your board members don’t know how to do that, A Board Member’s Guide to Capital Campaign Fundraising is now on Amazon. But really collectively, the board has to decide, “We need to hire expertise.”

And one of the ways to do that and to get expertise is to interview campaign consultants and to make a decision that you do need to bring in an outside expert if you’re trying to raise more money than you’ve ever raised before. If your organization wants to raise five, 10, 20 times what you normally raise, you probably don’t have in-house expertise to handle some of the strategy, the planning, the decision-making process, the guidance, the training, and that’s where campaign consultants and expertise come in. So as a board, you can decide to help your staff and help your organization by making the decision to hire help.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
And you also be involved in and responsible for making sure there is an adequate budget for running the campaign, right. Fiscal oversight for your organization and fiscal planning is one of the roles of a board. So as you go into a campaign where you’re going to be raising a lot of money, it makes very little sense to say:

“Well, the same person, our development director who was already overworked with everything else she does to bring in the amount of money we need every year is going to raise $10 million on top of that without any additional help.”

Amy Eisenstein:
Right.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
So looking at the budget and making sure that there is an adequate amount of resources available to support the development staff in having a campaign is a perfectly good and important role for the board to play.

Amy Eisenstein:
So in case you’re listening and you’re thinking, “Well, our organization barely is holding on by a thread, we’re operating at a deficit,” maybe a campaign right now, this isn’t the right time for your campaign. If you’re thinking, “How can we hire help or hire expertise?” A campaign at this moment may not be right for every organization, and that’s an okay decision to make too. I think organizations really need to give some thought to that.

We talked to an organization the other day who is operating at a deficit and really needs to strengthen their annual fund and raise some major gifts first and work on building relationships with donors. And it’s not fast or easy, and a campaign isn’t the answer to all of your financial woes. So if you’re really scratching your head saying, “We absolutely can’t hire help or can’t think about hiring additional staff,” that is a fiscally responsible thing to consider and discuss and talk about.

You might be able to do that if you have some reserves or if you have board members or lead donors that give you some early initial gifts in order to hire that expertise and think about growing the staff. Campaigns are about capacity building, so can you do that? It’s an important question to ask.

Campaign Responsibilities: Your Board as Individual Board Members

Andrea Kihlstedt:
So Amy, we’ve talked about the first half of board roles, that is what is the role of the board collectively, right, the sort of governance roles of the board as they face a capital campaign. But there’s another set of roles which you alluded to, and that is that every individual board member also has some roles in a capital campaign, even though they are not going to be leading the campaign probably, each one of them has some roles.

And one of the roles is that every board member during a campaign should make a contribution to the campaign over and above their other giving to the organization that is as generous as possible given this financial status of each board member.

It makes no sense to say every board member needs to give $10,000 or $50,000. It makes no sense to do that. But to say that every board member needs to give a gift that is really a thoughtful, important gift to them to the campaign is absolutely appropriate. And in order to do that, every board member needs to fully understand why the campaign is happening, why it’s important. They need to be fully behind the campaign in order to make that gift and in order to be spokespeople in the community, right. As board members, they are talking to people in the community.

And as the organization goes into a campaign, people are going to be asking them, “Hey, I know you’re on the board of this organization. What do you think about the campaign?” So every board member needs to be informed. Every board member needs to be enthusiastic. Every board member needs to be committed to the campaign, and that’s super important.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. So listen, I just want to make sure that everybody listening really heard, they don’t need to be wealthy or well-connected. They need to make a gift that’s over and above their normal annual giving. They need to understand why it’s important to be excited about it, to make a gift that they’re proud of, and to be able to talk about it in the community. And I think that sort of highlights and summarizes what board responsibilities are and that it is the norm and it’s okay that they’re not “wealthy” or well-connected.

All right, so what does an organization do that has a board like this? They’re committed to the campaign. They each understand that they need to make their own gifts that they’re proud of regardless of what the dollar figure is, but they can’t necessarily connect the organization to big gifts. So how does an organization like that run a campaign without a wealthy or well-connected board?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Right. Well, for the most part, campaigns have a well-developed volunteer structure. The campaign itself has a well-developed volunteer structure, which will include some board members, but doesn’t have to include all board members. And there will be a campaign chair or chairs. Those are the people who really step up and are leading the campaign as volunteers. There will be various committees, ad hoc committees that do various parts of the work.

There may be a campaign steering committee that comes together quarterly to review where the campaign is, that committee maybe may grow over time. And it’s those volunteers, and often that ends up being 30, 40, 50 people over the course of the campaign. It’s those volunteers that actually lead and move the campaign forward with the help of staff. They work closely with staff, particularly what we call a core committee, a leadership committee that works with staff to move the campaign forward.

Now, if there is a board member or two that is appropriate to serve in that capacity, that’s fantastic. But if not, there needs to be some overlap with your board so that one side knows what the other side is doing. The campaign volunteer structure needs to be fully attuned and communicating with the board so that the board is not surprised, right, and it’s important to do that. But the board is not leading the campaign. The campaign volunteer structure is leading the campaign.

Build and Strengthen Relationships with Community Leaders

And let me say just one more thing, that it’s one of the amazing things about Capital Campaigns that you can use it as a way to build and strengthen the relationships with the philanthropic leadership of your community in a way that you may not have done before and after a campaign, because all of you have recruited those people to actually help for the campaign. After the campaign, your organization will have those relationships and will be ever so much stronger than it was before the campaign.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, let’s say just a little bit more about that because that may be confusing to some listeners. So the idea is that you’re doing a big exciting project for the community, and the very nature of that will attract some people to get involved with your organization who don’t want to serve on your board or haven’t been involved when it was a little sort of average organization, but just by the very virtue of doing something huge and exciting that’s going to be transformational in the community will get people talking, will attract people who want to do big exciting things.

And so in the process of planning your campaign and doing feasibility, you will be introduced to people if you do this well, who may serve not for three years on your campaign committee, but as Andrea said, sort of in ad hoc positions. You might ask them to review your campaign plans and give you feedback.

And even though they’ve only participated for a few weeks or months or in one particular exercise, they’re involved and invested both sort of literally and figuratively. So you’re going to get more people aware of what you’re doing. They’re going to be more involved. They’re going to give you advice and feedback, and ultimately, hopefully, you will be finding people that will give you those big gifts.

Final Thoughts

Now, I don’t want anybody to leave this episode thinking that all the big money is out there somewhere and that it’s not already in your community, among your donors, people you know. So while a campaign is a wonderful opportunity to attract new people to your organization and get more people involved, you are going to start with the people who are already involved and invested. Yeah.

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Right. And so let’s talk about that for a minute, Amy. It’s very common for an organization to have people who are involved and invested, but who don’t want to serve on a board.

There are many more people like that than people who want to serve on your board, right. Board membership is not for everybody. There are people who travel, people who simply don’t want that kind of responsibility, people who don’t want to function in that way, but that doesn’t mean that your organization isn’t important to them. I mean, for example, they may have a family member who is served by your organization. We do some work, we’ve done some work with an organization called The Arc, and in that particular campaign that we worked with, there were people whose children were served by The Arc who were passionate about the organization.

They didn’t want to serve on the board, but when there was a campaign to increase the services, to increase the facility, increase the services, they were happy to get involved, gave them an opportunity to get involved in a way that they felt was better for them than serving on a board role. So understand that it’s an amazing opportunity to actually look at the people who are connected to your organization, and people can be connected in many different ways and ask them to do something that is more appropriate for them than asking them to serve on your board. And the campaign provides that opportunity.

Amy Eisenstein:
I’m so glad you raised that and pointed to that. I think many of your biggest donors probably don’t serve on your board, and that will continue to be true through the campaign, but they may serve or volunteer for various committees or various assignments throughout the campaign. It’s an opportunity to get them involved and get them to step up.

So I think the key takeaway here is you may not have a board that’s wealthy or well-connected. Hopefully you have one or two board members who will step up, fit that role to be that crossover, that link to your campaign volunteers. But really the staff drives the campaign and involves and engages committee members and volunteers that lead your campaign.

So Andrea, any other thoughts that you want to make?

Andrea Kihlstedt:
Well, just there is a ton to know about this, right. We’ve sort of given you a structure, a way to think about it and tried to ease your fear about not having a fundraising board, and can you still do a campaign, and yes, you can. But there’s a lot more to know.

And I really encourage you to get Amy and Sarah’s book because it does spell it out. And one of the things that you can do right off the bat is if your organization is thinking about a campaign, is to use that book as a way to teach and train your board so they understand what their roles are, what their roles aren’t, how a campaign works. I mean, that’s an early thing to do with a board, and that book is a tremendous teaching tool for that purpose.

Amy Eisenstein:
Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

All right, so if you’re thinking about a campaign, planning a campaign, ready for a feasibility study, I hope you’ll visit us at capitalcampaignpro.com and sign up to talk to us. We’d love to talk to you and your board members about how to run a campaign and how we can support you through it.