Podcast: Unveiling Capital Campaign Success: Revealing New Research Findings!

Season 3, Episode 27

Join host Amy Eisenstein as she engages in a discussion with Steven Shattuck, Director of Engagement at Capital Campaign Pro, about these game-changing discoveries. Explore pressing questions like, “Do campaigns work?” and “Can small organizations excel in the realm of capital campaigns?”

They delve into crucial findings, including the remarkable success rates of capital campaigns, their impact on annual funds, and the surprising reality regarding the significance of a high-powered board. Prepare to be inspired and informed as they debunk misconceptions and unveil the data-driven truths about achieving success in capital campaigns.

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Amy Eisenstein:
We are so excited to be introducing first of its kind research on capital campaigns. So, if you’ve ever wondered, “Do campaigns work?” You’re going to find out today.

Hi, I’m Amy Eisenstein. Today, Andrea’s taking a little time off and I have our Director of Engagement, Steven Shattuck, here with us today. Steven, I am so excited to be talking to you about this research project you did for us. Set the stage for us.

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah. Thanks for having me. It’s fun to be on the podcast. Yeah, I’ve been working with you and Andrea for a little over a year now and it seems like we’re always hearing things from the people we’re talking to about helping them with a capital campaign. “Is this going to be successful? Is this going to be a huge disaster? What’s the success rate? Is it going to mess up all the other things we have going on in terms of the annual fund?”

And we thought, we know the answers to those questions based on our own professional and personal experience, but like so many other things in fundraising, that tends to be what drives a lot of decision making.

The anecdotes, personal experience and all that is good, but why not put some actual concrete data with all of those opinions and histories that we have, to finally settle some of these longstanding questions that there are about capital campaigns? So, that’s what we did in the spring of 2023 is we put together a series of surveys and sent them out to our list, we had some great partners that helped us promote those surveys as well and got some really, really interesting data back.

And now we’re ready to unveil it. So, this is exciting!

Capital Campaign Research: Three Survey Cohorts

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes. I can’t wait to have you share the results. So, you talked about, “We sent the survey to thousands of people and we surveyed three groups.” Who were the three groups?

Steven Shattuck:
We did. So, capital campaigns, as you know, and probably most listeners will know, can last a long time potentially. So, we wanted to ask people within different phases of a campaign.

Cohort 1: Those Considering a Capital Campaign

So, the first cohort was people who are thinking about doing a campaign in the near future, within the next year or so. So, they haven’t started one, but they’re gearing up for it. And we wanted to ask some things like:

• Hey, how are you preparing for [a campaign]?
• How are you thinking about what you’re going to do?
• What’s driving the campaign?

Cohort 2: Those Currently in a Capital Campaign

The second group are people currently in a campaign. So, they’re not done, but they are within a year or two in the campaign. “How is it going?” Right? In addition to all the other questions that we asked the first cohort:

• How’s [the campaign] going?
• What roadblocks are you running into?
• What benefits have you already seen?
• Are you feeling good about hitting the finish line of that campaign?

Cohort 3: Those That Recently Completed a Capital Campaign

And then the last group is people that have recently finished a campaign. So, they’re over the finish line. Again in addition to the previous questions to the other two cohorts, the main things were:

• Was [the campaign] successful?
• Do you consider [the process] a success?
• How much money did you raise compared to your goal?
• And then critically, what impact did the campaign have on your annual fund?

This was something that we were really, really curious about. It’s a question we get all the time. Not just the effect that it had during the campaign, but also in the years after the campaign.

So, very different cohorts there. And then within each of the cohorts we also broke the data down by size of the organization in terms of their annual fundraising revenue. So, anywhere from small shops, people raising less than a million dollars a year, up into multiple, double even triple figures of millions of dollars a year.

So, we have the data not just by where they are in terms of the campaign, but also how big of an organization they are in terms of their annual revenue.

Amy Eisenstein:
Great. And I just want to clarify one thing and that is the post-campaign cohort, those that have completed their campaign, it was within the last two years?

Steven Shattuck:
Yes.

Amy Eisenstein:
So, it’s not like we were asking people who had finished campaigns five years ago and 10 years ago.

Steven Shattuck:
Right.

Amy Eisenstein:
So, within the last two years they completed a campaign so that the data was relatively recent and fresh.

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah. Fresh in their minds. Yeah.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. So, we have some super interesting and exciting data to share and this is the first of what I hope will be surveys that we do for years and years to come, so that we’ve got a good history. But this is an amazing baseline initial survey and we got hundreds of responses. So, we looked at campaign success rates.

What Does Capital Campaign Success Look Like?

So, tell us, of the organizations primarily for this question that completed campaigns, what did success look like?

Steven Shattuck:
It was very high. We asked people flat out, “Do you consider the campaign a success?” And 94% of the people in that completed cohort said, “Yeah, we feel good about it. We think it’s a success.”

We also asked them what percentage of their goal did they raise? And the average number came in above 100%, it was actually 108%. One of the respondents recorded a whopping 170% above their goal, or of their goal I should say, which is great, maybe we should have them on the podcast because they did something right.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah.

Steven Shattuck:
And the lowest was only 75%. So, the question behind this question that we get is, “We want to do a capital campaign or we’re thinking about it, but is it going to be too hard? Do people crash and burn? Is this going to be a major embarrassment or setback for our organization?” And that’s certainly not our experience at Capital Campaign Pro, but it also does not seem to be the experience of people that do go ahead and commit to the campaign through to the end.

It can be a challenge, for sure, but one that pays dividends and large numbers or averages comes out being successful. So, even though it can be a multi-year process and this big thing, it’s not at all a foregone conclusion that it’s going to be not successful. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

So, that was great to see, right? And now we can finally tell people, “No, most people are successful if you do it, if you commit and you see it through to the end.”
Amy Eisenstein:
That’s right. And that’s what we experience here at Capital Campaign Pro. I mean, campaigns do have ups and downs and are roller coasters sometimes, but the reality is that when you see it through and you plan ahead and you have help and expertise, the reality is that you’re going to be successful. And we saw that.
And just a note there were, I don’t know exactly what the percentage is, but a vast majority of the survey respondents actually weren’t our clients.

Steven Shattuck:
Right.

Amy Eisenstein:
We surveyed our clients and non-clients. So, it’s the general population.

Steven Shattuck:
For sure.

Amy Eisenstein:
We were sure to spread the survey wide, much wider than just our client base because we wanted to see what was going on in the community.

Steven Shattuck:
Yes.

Does a Capital Campaign Cannibalize the Annual Fund?

Amy Eisenstein:
All right. So, one of the questions we get asked most frequently, whether it’s on a webinar, whether it’s prospective client, I hear all the time when talking about a campaign is, “Will the campaign cannibalize our annual fund? What is the impact of the annual fund during the campaign, after the campaign?” And we got some amazing results there too. What were those?

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah. There’s a lot of things like this in the nonprofit sector, right? We’re recording this in September and one of the ones that it always seems to come up is, “Does GivingTuesday cannibalize year-end giving?” Right? So, there’s all kinds of things like this. And now finally, we can at least put this one to rest with data because there seems to be very little evidence that the annual fund is cannibalized by a capital campaign during a campaign.

We’ll get to after a campaign here in a second, but we ask people who have completed a campaign and who are currently in a campaign, “What has happened to the annual fund during the campaign?” And 79% of respondents said that it is either increased or stayed the same.

And I think the increased mix was around 30, 40% and stayed the same was another maybe 25, 30%. So, it either has no effect, which is great because you’ve got that nice annual fund cranking on the side and then you’re also getting everything in addition to the capital campaign, or it actually increases the annual fund, which is a really nice benefit or bonus to doing the campaign.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yes.

Steven Shattuck:
And only 21% of respondents said that it actually went down. So yeah, this is a great thing because this is probably, Amy, maybe one of if not the biggest barriers to people being resistant to doing a campaign, right?

Amy Eisenstein:
Right. And so, of course there’s lots of questions around the 21% that reported during the campaign that the annual fund decreased. Now, of course, didn’t ask by how much, so it could be a small percentage. We didn’t go into details about how they asked for gifts or what they did to maintain the annual fund. So, there’s a lot still to speculate and to think about.

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah.

Amy Eisenstein:
But I think having nearly 80% say the annual fund stayed the same or increased during the campaign is very significant.

The Key Takeaway

And my key takeaway is that development directors and board members have control over what happens. And if you’re purposeful and you’re intentional about paying attention to the annual fund and working with your capital campaign consultant on making sure that that is paid attention to, the likelihood is very high that it will not go down, that it’ll either stay the same or even increase.

Now, we also looked at post-campaign, didn’t we?

Steven Shattuck:
Right.

What Do Things Look Like AFTER a Capital Campaign?

We asked the post-campaign cohort not only what happened during the campaign, but also what has happened in the ensuing years since the campaign to the annual fund. And those numbers look like they’re holding pretty steady.

Now, a lot of people, actually over 50% of the people in that cohort said not enough time has passed, which is fine. We’re going to do this survey every year, so this is something we’re going to build on. But for the people where at least a year or two has passed, those figures held steady in terms of the piece of the pie, it was like 40/40/20, right? It was either increased 40, stayed the same 40, or decreased around 20%.

So, it seems like that trend continues in the ensuing year, but we’ll be back in a year and we’ll have another year of data to add to that, but that’s something that we’re going to be looking for. But so far it looks like that’s not just a during the campaign thing and it holds steady.

Amy Eisenstein:
That’s right. I mean, we have a lot of strategies here at Capital Campaign Pro that our consultants use with clients to ensure that the annual fund does not decrease during the campaign. That would in part defeat the purpose of capacity building because campaigns are about capacity building. Your organization needs your annual fund to maintain and grow and continue programs and services while you’re in a campaign, and it really would be negligent to not pay attention to it.

And so, any fundraiser that’s worth their salt is thinking about the annual fund simultaneously with the capital campaign. And based on these numbers, they are and it is not negatively impacted. I used a double negative there. It is positively impacted or certainly it maintains or goes up during and after a campaign, as anecdotally, we knew it did. But it’s nice to have some data to put behind our confident responses when we say that the annual fund should stay and hold and even increase during and after campaigns. And I’m so thrilled to see those results.

A High-Powered Board is Not Necessary for a Successful Campaign

All right, next topic, which is really interesting, and that is that a high-powered board is not necessary to a successful campaign. Which the truth is we talk about boards and campaign committees and what you can do if you don’t have a well-connected, high net worth or high-powered board, but now we have the data to back it up. So, what did we find?

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah. This one was the surprise of the data, I would say the biggest one that elevated itself into our top three of what we wanted to talk about. And this one’s nuanced, right?

An Engaged Board *IS* Important

We’re not saying that an engaged board is unnecessary to success. That’s actually the exact opposite of true. But what we found here is that a super-wealthy board that is giving a huge percentage of the goal is not necessary to meet that goal, and in fact, is not really what happens in most campaigns.

So, we asked people that are both in a campaign and have finished a campaign, so two out of three cohorts, “What percentage of your campaign goal was raised by board members?” And we didn’t really—

Amy Eisenstein:
From board members, not by board members, from board members.

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah, from. From.

Amy Eisenstein:
Right.

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah. So, the board member gave, you’re right.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Shattuck:
And that number was only 14%. The median was 9, and the mode was 10%. So, the mode is the most common response. So, in that low teens, right around 10 or 11% there.

So, this was interesting because as we were actually parsing this data, I don’t know if you remember this, Amy, but we got an email from someone who was maybe interested in working with us that said:

“We want to do a capital campaign, but we have regular members of our community and our constituents on our board.”

Which is really good, by the way. “We don’t have a bunch of wealthy people. Can we still do it?”

And now we were able to go back to them and say:

“Of course you can. In fact, you might even be better off versus a bunch of rich unconnected people to your mission on your board.”

So, remembering 96% of people were successful, they were successful despite only having 14% of the campaign goal coming from board members. And despite may be not be the right word.

Amy Eisenstein:
That’s right.

Steven Shattuck:
So, this should give people both the confidence, right? And most of this money is probably going to be raised early on in the campaign, but it’s by no means has to be half of your goal or a majority of your goal or anything like that.

Amy Eisenstein:
Right.

Steven Shattuck:
So, that was a really good confidence builder for folks and hopefully will inspire people who are listening to say, “That’s not going to be what holds us back, the fact that we don’t have mega-wealthy people on our board.”

Amy Eisenstein:
That’s right.

High-Powered Committees in Lieu of a High-Powered Board

Now, listen, one of the strategies at Capital Campaign Pro that we use is with organizations that don’t have high-powered, high net worth, well-connected board members is to form campaign committees of people who do have wealth and connections, because that is how some of the biggest campaign gifts come in.

So, it’s not that you’re not going to access and tap into those people during your campaign, but if they’re not existing board members, it’s not a barrier. I think that’s the key takeaway for me at least.

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah. I love it.

Get a Full Copy of Our Benchmark Research Report

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. So listen, before we get to small shops, I just want to let listeners know that they can get a full download of the research results at capitalcampaignpro.com/research. That’s capitalcampaignpro.com/research.

And we are super-excited for you to go download the results, take a look, let us know what you think, share them with your board members, circulate them among your team as you start to think about planning your next campaign. So, we’re really excited to be able to share the full download of results with you.

Small Shops Can Be Very Successful with Capital Campaigns

Okay. So, we’re going to share one more result, and that is that small shops can be successful, they are successful doing capital campaigns. You don’t have to be a university or a hospital.

We are seeing every day, of course, we know this anecdotally from our clients, we work with animal shelters and soup kitchens and land trusts and K to 12 schools and all sorts of small and mid-size organizations in addition to big organizations as well. But we specifically were interested in the data about small shops. So, what did we find?

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah. I mean, you said it, they can do it too. We asked a ton of questions. We’re not even scratching the surface of it in this podcast. So, download the full research, for sure. But every question that we asked, we looked at, we compared, I should say, small shop respondents versus the rest of the crowd. Right? And we were looking for, are there differences? Do small shops maybe struggle? Do they do better in some areas than other people?

And for the most part, the numbers came out very, very close when you compare them to the average of everyone and then also small shops versus everyone else. Now, there were a couple of nuances, for sure, and we’ll call those out, but the success rate, very similar to that 96% average. Andrea, our buddy, said something that with small shops, it really just comes down to the amount of zeros. And that was basically what happened there.

But there were a couple of interesting tidbits that small shops might want to keep in mind that stood out to us. One is, it tended to be their first campaign. Right? So, a lot of the other organizations, it was maybe their second, third or fourth because they’re bigger, they had been around longer. Those two usually follow the other. First campaign. But what was interesting for those small shops where they succeeded or excelled against everybody else is that they reported higher levels of major donor relationship building and fundraising system improvement. So, we asked everybody, “What were some of the other benefits that you saw in the campaign besides just dollars raised?” And small shops said that, “Major donor relationship building was a big one for us.” Bigger than all of the other folks.

And that makes sense, right? It’s their first campaign, maybe it’s the first time they’ve done leadership interviews or a feasibility study talking to major donors one-on-one. It might be a smaller knit group because it’s a smaller shop, but that’s a really good benefit. That’s something that if you are listening and you’re a small shop, and we define that as being less than a million dollars in revenue, which is arbitrary, but that’s where we saw a clear dividing line. Here’s something you don’t hear every day. Small shops may have an advantage over everybody else in terms of some of the extra benefits. But the point was that you’re not too small to do this, you’re not too small to embark on your first campaign in general. So also, don’t let that be a barrier.

Amy Eisenstein:
Right. I think that’s so important, Steven, because campaigns actually can be an opportunity or the springboard that these small organizations need to learn major gift fundraising in a sophisticated way, to improve their fundraising systems and infrastructure and staff sophistication. Because the chances are that you will grow all of those systems and infrastructure and invest in yourselves and probably invest in expertise.

And so, it is an opportunity really to springboard your sophistication, your fundraising. And so, they indicated a higher jump probably because they started at a lower level, which is fine. It’s a great outcome for these small shops who were really successful and raised an average of $3 million or more. For them was very, very significant and really made a big difference in what they were able to accomplish and getting them towards their mission and their vision.

Final Thoughts

So, all right, we talked about annual fund, the impact on the annual fund during a campaign that really for 80%, close to 80% of respondents, the impact was that the annual fund stayed the same or increased. We talked about not needing a high-powered board to be successful in a campaign, which was really, I thought, such an interesting data point and such a relief for so many organizations that they don’t need to wait until they have a high-powered board because they’ll probably be waiting forever to run a campaign. And that in general, campaigns are successful, overwhelmingly campaigns are successful. And so that if you put the right resources, expertise, time, effort, and stay the course, you’re going to be successful.

I’m so, so thrilled that you led us down this road of our first ever data-driven research project, and I’m just so thrilled to be able to share it with the community and the world. So, thank you.

Steven Shattuck:
Yeah, it was fun. I hope folks go and download [the report] if they haven’t already, because there’s a lot of stuff in there that we didn’t talk about. And if you’re a data geek like me, you’re just going to love it.

Amy Eisenstein:
Yeah. So, capitalcampaignpro.com/research. Just head on over to the Capital Campaign Pro website backslash research, but I’m sure you’ll easily also be able to find it from the homepage because we’ve made it really easy to find.

So, thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time.