Podcast: Lessons from a Campaign Trail: Strategic Fundraising Insights with Courtney Leonard

Season 4, Episode 9

In this episode, Amy Eisenstein of Capital Campaign Pro sits down with fundraising expert Courtney Leonard, who shares her experiences from an 18-year career in philanthropy. Currently serving as the Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Clark University, Courtney delves into the challenges and triumphs of leading a $40 million comprehensive campaign at a small university.

This episode is packed with practical advice for nonprofit leaders, from how to approach capital campaigns in smaller institutions to the importance of following a structured plan.

Tune in to hear Courtney’s reflections on lessons learned, unexpected challenges, and how the right planning can set a campaign up for long-term success.

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Amy Eisenstein:
Today we have a very special guest with us. My colleague and client and friend, Courtney Leonard, has been a professional fundraiser for 18 years.

She spent the first portion of her career in healthcare philanthropy, working for regional healthcare systems before transitioning to higher ed. And she’s been part of the Institutional Advancement team at Clark University for the past 11 years, which is amazing staying power in our sector. So we’re so thrilled about that.

And even more exciting, this month, Courtney will begin her next appointment at Clark University as the Vice President for Institutional Advancement. So congratulations, Courtney. Thank you so much for joining me.

Courtney Leonard:
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. So I just want to point out to our regular listeners, Andrea is taking a break today, and so it’s just me, Amy, and Courtney here today. But I am so excited because Courtney is one of our brilliant clients here at Capital Campaign Pro, and we are going to hear about her campaign journey and some lessons learned. So I’m super-excited to be talking with you today.

About Courtney’s Capital Campaign

Courtney, so let’s start with some campaign basics. What started the campaign at Clark? What prompted it, and where are you right now? So just tell us a little bit about your campaign.

Courtney Leonard:
Sure. Well, we had a president join our university community about 18 months ago, and when he came, he was charged with finalizing our strategic plan. And so the strategic plan really was the impetus for our future campaign. The strategic plan that we have in place is focused on new student recruitment as well as retention.

Right now, Clark’s total enrollment is right around 1,000 students. We’re hoping to see that build to about 1,200 students. We feel that that’s a sustainable level. But where we could see a lot of progress is in our student retention, particularly between the first and second years that students were with us. And so we’re really looking at reinventing our campus footprint with those initiatives in mind.

It’s a little bit of a unique campaign from a capital standpoint because it’s re-imagining existing spaces on our campus rather than building new. So we’re looking at creating a new student success center in our library, reducing our current library footprint to fit today’s needs of students and the fact that they don’t need maybe the same level of books that they once did because we have something called the internet that we didn’t have 40 years ago. Also making some much-needed modifications and renovations in our residence hall facilities and our classroom facilities.

All of those upgrades are totaling approximately 25 million as part of our overarching working goal of 40 million. The remainder of that goal will be secured through endowment support, and we’ve set a target of approximately 10 million for that and 5 million for unrestricted operating support. So it is a comprehensive campaign that we’re looking at.

Amy Eisenstein:
Many universities opt to do a comprehensive campaign, so I think you’re in good company. And I think what’s really interesting about your campaign for our listeners is that you’re a small school. By university standards, you’re a fairly small organization. And so you have some of the benefits of being a university and also some of the challenges of being a small organization. And I think those challenges and opportunities are reflected throughout your campaign, which is why I’m so excited that you’ve agreed to talk to us here today.

So I think that’s great. Thank you for setting the stage and sharing that background. And so many organizations start a campaign with a strategic planning process, and I think it’s a really smart way to first assess where are you going as an organization and then what does that look like in terms of campaign needs, and you have some capital needs and some programmatic needs as well. So what were your biggest worries or concerns at the beginning of the campaign and did they materialize? And if so, how have you overcome them?

Courtney Leonard:
So we started off with a target goal of $40 million, which that has now become our working goal because we have completed the Guided Feasibility Study. But I would say that that goal was one of the biggest fears going into it because it does represent one of the largest goals in university history.

The other piece that we were nervous about was the fact that there isn’t new construction as part of it, and would our donors respond as favorably to the re-imagination of current spaces as they would with the prospect of a new building or something like that? And so those were our primary fears, I would say, or concerns going into the process.

Amy Eisenstein:
And so how do you feel about that? Well, I’m going to ask how you feel about that working goal now. And also you mentioned the Guided Feasibility Study, which for some listeners is a familiar term because at Capital Campaign Pro we talk about it all the time.

Doing a Guided Feasibility Study with Capital Campaign Pro

But I would just love for you to share a little bit about your experience doing a feasibility study with us and to share that in our model, we train you, the leaders of the organization, to interview your own donors as part of the fundraising feasibility study. So talk a little bit about how that experience was and how you came to this $40 million working goal.

Courtney Leonard:
Well, I’m a big proponent of the Guided Feasibility Study. It’s one of the things that we felt set Capital Campaign Pro apart. It was what interested us most when we were looking at different consulting firms to assist us in the early planning stages, and ultimately what led us to the decision to partner with CCP.

One of the things that we really valued about the experience was the fact, as you said, we get to complete the study ourselves and we get to deepen the relationships with our constituents and answer the questions, many of which we felt an outside consultant maybe wouldn’t have been equipped to answer in the same way that a staff member or a leader from the organization would be able to answer.

And knowing that from a university picture, we have a new president, there were other questions that people were going to have as it related to the full state of the organization, that we were really able to leverage those conversations to answer a whole range of topics beyond just the questions that we knew we needed to get answers for as it related to the campaign specifically.

And so people were very responsive to our invitations to participate. We were able to complete it in what I would consider to be a pretty quick timeline, which was nice because of when we launched it and what our typical travel schedule is. And so it really worked out well for us.

During that process, we did affirm that our $40 million working goal was aspirational yet attainable. based on the sample size, it certainly will take a lot of alignment to reach that target, but it’s not out of the question. And so that’s what we needed to hear to get our marching orders to move forward.

Amy Eisenstein:
I think that’s the perfect goal, aspirational and attainable, right? I mean, you don’t want it to be so easy, then there’s no point in doing a campaign. It should stretch everybody’s sensibilities like, “Oh my gosh.” It should feel a little like, “Wow, can we really do this?” And yet you have the data and the conversations to reasonably expect that you probably can get there.

Courtney Leonard:
Right, exactly. And through the study, we’re laying the groundwork for the cultivation of these major donors. We’re being able to introduce these campaign topics and get a feel for where they see their support landing through some of their comments so that we ultimately can structure their proposals to be much more meaningful and tailored to them.

Whereas if we were just to lead with a solicitation ask or an introductory cultivation conversation that didn’t ask for their feedback, I don’t know that we could have gotten to that place as quickly as we did.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, that’s great.

On Interviewing Donors during the Feasibility Study

I’m wondering, one of the concerns that we hear frequently when we’re talking about nonprofit leaders going to interview their own donors as part of a feasibility study is that donors won’t be open and honest with them. Did you find that to be the case? Was that a concern and did you experience any of that?

Courtney Leonard:
No, I wouldn’t say that we experienced that necessarily. As you would find in the training that we completed and things like that, getting people to disclose a gift range can be challenging.

And so sometimes you have to work at it from a couple different angles. But I would say that was the hardest part of the conversation was to try and get to a true range or a true number, but the strategies that we learned through our training really equipped us to be able to do that.

But as far as giving baseline feedback or feedback regarding the case for support narrative, their feelings towards the institution as a whole, they didn’t hold back.

Amy Eisenstein:
They didn’t hold back. Yeah, that’s true. And I have to tell you that consultants also have a hard time getting that number. So if they’re trying to get an early gift indication as part of those interviews, I’m guessing that you did as well, or better than a consultant going in to ask those questions because frequently as a consultant, we don’t get people to disclose that either.

Courtney Leonard:
Well, and I would also say because we’ve heard the information firsthand versus it being distilled through a third party, we could infer in a lot of cases where maybe a true number wasn’t given, what that range might be based on other factors like their average gift history, what they gave in the last campaign, things like that, so that we could make some reasonable estimates without being completely outside of the box.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. All right, great. Well, thank you for sharing that. I just want to remind listeners that if they’re interested in learning more about our feasibility study model that they should head on over to the Capital Campaign Pro website. We have a little four-minute explainer video that they can watch there and learn more.

Overcoming Challenges During the Campaign

Okay, so I’m curious if you’ve experienced any unexpected challenges, and if so, what bumps in the road have you come up against?

Courtney Leonard:
Sure. I don’t know if it would necessarily be unexpected, but early on, there was a desire to really expedite our planning timeline. And by doing that, there were conversations taking place about whether or not a feasibility study was really necessary. How much time should you be spending in the pre-campaign planning stage? We really wanted to expedite to that quiet phase as quickly as possible.

And, Amy, I give you a lot of credit because we had a pretty candid conversation. And I remember you saying:

“We can expedite the steps, but you should not skip the steps because if you skip the steps, you’re going to truly limit your ultimate revenue generation. And so it’s better to be consistent than to just hurry and get it done.”

Luckily, I work at an organization who listened and we all listened to that advice, and we were able to complete the steps as we needed to and in many cases, expedite those steps. So we are still on a pretty swift timeline, but we didn’t skip anything.

Amy Eisenstein:
Great! So talk a little bit more about that, because I know a lot of nonprofit leaders feel a lot of pressure to do a campaign quickly and to skip the feasibility study or skip other steps.

About the Pace of the Capital Campaign

So I’m wondering how you got your administration to listen, to slow down, and maybe what has made you able to expedite it when you could? When was it better to slow down? When has it been okay to speed up? Say a little more.

Courtney Leonard:
Well, one of the ways that we were able to help expedite the [campaign] timeline was we reorganized our internal department. And so a lot of the things that I was doing in my role that were unrelated to the campaign, we were able to restructure and shift to other individuals in our department. So that means that 85% of my time was then spent on the campaign.

And that was probably the biggest difference, Amy, because I was the one that was in the weeds every day trying to make sure we were getting the appointments, making sure that we had all of the pre-campaign planning checklist items done, communicating with various committees, things like that. And so to really have that dedicated point person was key. And so I would say that that was probably the biggest opportunity that we found ourselves having.

Amy Eisenstein:
Okay, that’s huge. That’s amazing. I mean, restructuring is one thing. Were you able to add any staff or outsource anything? I’m just curious because I know if an organization is listening and they’re like, “Well, every staff member’s at capacity, how do we restructure to free up my time?” Were you able to do anything?

Courtney Leonard:
We haven’t added any staff at this point. We had enough leeway that we could restructure and promote some individuals and things like that. But no, not at this point, we haven’t —

Other Capital Campaign Lessons Learned

Amy Eisenstein:
Okay. All right. I just thought I’d ask the question — what lessons have you learned so far? Now, I know you’re just getting deep into your campaign, so you haven’t finished, but what lessons have you learned so far and anything that has surprised you in a good way?

Courtney Leonard:
Yeah. I would say some of the lessons that we’ve learned, just being very diligent in completing each of the steps in the phases that have been outlined in your toolkit. It’s very easy to follow and we’re able to be very structured and intentional in our outreach.

The other thing that I would say is we’re trying to be very intentional in our outreach strategies with our donors to keep the campaign top of mind for them in non-solicitation ways. And so trying to think through, what other updates can we share? How can we leverage some of our other communications, so we’re maybe not creating something new because we do have limited staff resources, but we’re adding a campaign section into that? So just really looking at all the tools in our toolkit to say:

“How do we keep the campaign at the forefront, but also recognize that we’re still in the quiet phase and things could shift?”

So the only thing quiet necessarily is the goal at this point, which was also a lesson learned, I would say. I always thought the quiet phase was you talk about the campaign, but you’re very elusive about it. But it truly is just the goal. Try not to mention that number because it could shift.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah, I think that’s a really important point for listeners. Many people don’t understand what is quiet about the quiet phase or what they can and can’t talk about. So really you’re talking about the project and the programs and the vision and what you’re keeping quiet, except for with some key donors that you’re soliciting in the quiet phase, is the working goal or the draft goal. So I just wanted to clarify that. That’s great.

Thoughts on the Capital Campaign Pro Approach to Campaigns

So you did talk at the beginning a little bit about why you chose Capital Campaign Pro. Any other thoughts instead of a more full service or traditional consultant because we of course do things very differently around here, don’t we?

Courtney Leonard:
Yes, in a very good way, I would say.

I would say again, the Guided Feasibility Study piece was a huge deciding factor for us, but the model as a whole was also very attractive to us. Both our VP, who I was working under as well as with my own experience, we didn’t necessarily need the day-to-day hand-holding that we feel a traditional firm often can provide. We needed tools and resources more as a refresher because it had been a number of years since we had both completed our last campaign, and we both had been involved in varying degrees of it.

And so to have resources like the online toolkit, the weekly calls with our peers where we can bring questions, our regular communications with our dedicated advisor, those were really appealing to us because we felt like it right-sized the services based on what we needed.

Amy Eisenstein:
Amazing. All right. So what do you wish you had known at the beginning of the campaign that you know now? Or what advice would you give to yourself and others I guess, who are starting campaigns and thinking about a campaign?

Courtney’s Advice: Don’t Rush the Process

Courtney Leonard:
I would go back to that statement around don’t rush the process. You’re going to have much better results in the long run if you stay true to the course. And don’t underestimate the importance of the pre-campaign planning stage. I was very naive going into this partnership thinking:

“Okay, three months we’ll be done. There’s seven things that we have to complete.”

And boy, did I not realize the complexities of those seven things that needed to be completed. And so I think that was one of the things that I would share as advice is don’t underestimate pre-campaign planning. It’s incredibly important.

Amy Eisenstein:
We are such a believer in that if you set up your campaign for success and do the work and the homework on the front end, your campaign is going to go so much more smoothly than organizations. And unfortunately, we see this all the time. People will call us, they’ve raised 40% or 50%, or sometimes even 60%, but then they’re stuck. But they didn’t do the hard work of planning and preparing and researching at the beginning, and so they just dove in.

And now it’s much harder to get an organization unstuck from a campaign and to get them back on track because they’ve already made mistakes that are hard to undo, like under-asking somebody who should have been a lead donor. They significantly under-asked, they didn’t do the research, whatever the case may be. So I’m so happy that that was a lesson learned, that you did it well, and I know that you’re set up for success in the next couple of years.

Final Thoughts

Well, Courtney, thank you so much for joining me. I love hearing about your campaign and how well it’s going and your big exciting promotion. And I can’t wait to have you back in 18 months and hear about your progress, because I know you are going to have raised many, many millions of dollars in the next 18 to 24 months. So if it’s okay, we’ll check back in.

Courtney Leonard:
Sounds great. Thank you so much.

Amy Eisenstein:
All right. Thanks so much for joining us.