Can a Small Dev Team Pull Off a Capital Campaign? What We Learned

The following is a guest post written by Jacqueline House, MBA CFRE. Jacqueline is the Vice President, Communications & Community Engagement at Safe Children Coalition. More about Jacqueline »

Nails on a chalkboard.

That’s the sound and image that came to mind before launching my first capital campaign.

I had never done it.

It wasn’t my goal to ever do it.

When my brand new employer mentioned that the agency was in a capital campaign, I said to myself:

“Self, we are going to ignore that as long as possible because they are not paying me enough to manage and build a brand new development team, resurrect a defunct annual giving program, do events, and do a capital campaign”

I was familiar enough with what a capital campaign was, and had worked on an advancement team during a $100 million campaign at a previous employer, so I had my eyes wide open.

Leading a Small Dev Team through a Capital Campaign

I knew a capital campaign was not to be taken lightly. And I knew that because we didn’t have a working annual giving program, it was going to be even more challenging to establish enough presence in the community to build both at the same time. I knew that bringing in an outside consultant to lead our campaign was also going to be overwhelming. I would still have to do the background work for the consultant.

In the end, I did step up to lead our capital campaign.

And here was the reason why: the need for a new facility wasn’t going away and a core program would cease to exist without the funds needed to build a new facility. Children and families who needed our help the most would not be helped. That’s the bottom line and the entire reason I accepted the challenge and jumped in with both feet.

But right before that bottom line was the fact that this need had existed in my community for decades, and how cool would it be to be the catalyst to finally get this done?! As a human being and a fundraiser, I was energized by a challenge!

My next realization was this: it was going to be nearly impossible to pull off a successful campaign with 1.5 FTEs. The first order of business was finding support to help me figure out the next steps (that’s where Capital Campaign Pro came in).

Once I had that resource under my belt, I was off to the races.

5 Capital Campaign Lessons from a Small Dev Team

Here are the top five things I learned about managing a campaign with a small development department:

Lesson #1: Start prepping all hearts and minds for a feasibility study.

And in this case, a new, modern Guided Feasibility Study.

Every organization embarking on a campaign needs to prepare their board and their organization for the campaign, including engaging lead donors early, getting feedback on your plans, and assessing the working goal.

One additional benefit of the feasibility study is the final board report, which should make recommendations on how to proceed — including what resources you will need to be successful (beyond just saying so). Among many other benefits, the feasibility study gives you the background and fuel you need to advocate for consultants, staff, technology, and other services you know will be needed.

Lesson #2: It’s okay to slow down to speed up.

You’re likely to have board members who have participated in other capital campaigns in other organizations under different circumstances. And those board members may have been on the outside looking in.

You may even have donors who are expecting your campaign to move at the speed of large universities who have a deep bench of fundraisers working every angle of a campaign.

Be comfortable with the speed of your campaign and the time it will take you to ramp up. You can’t be ready to go until you are ready to go. And skipping steps can be detrimental to the success of your campaign.

Lesson #3: In your guided feasibility study, make a case for more staff.

Especially a campaign assistant whose full-time job is to help you to keep track of the moving campaign. This someone will help you:

• set up reporting systems
• manage your calendar
• keep track of items owed to prospective donors after meetings
• track gift agreements
• find and conduct background research on potential donors
• help organize campaign events
• work with vendors, etc.

Lesson #4: Find the hidden gems in your database.

By hidden gems, I mean donor(s) within your database (or who come to light during your feasibility study) who are passionate enough about your cause to help you connect to others in your community.

Being in a small shop, and perhaps being the only fundraiser in your shop, you will need the voice of passionate volunteers who are willing and able to connect you to donors with the capacity to give and will consider giving if only because their friend asked them to give.

Additionally, a thoughtful partnership with a few donors that you regularly check in with can do wonders to boost your energy and the momentum of the campaign.

Lesson #5: Resolve that the campaign will have many twists and turns and that you will do the best you can.

Resolve that neither you nor the campaign will be perfect.

Become okay with the fact that you will take as many meetings as you can, you will talk to as many people who are willing to listen, and you will spend as many hours as humanely possible to make the campaign a success. But at the end of the day, you must be willing to yield to the unique pace of the campaign that will be created by the campaign.

For some campaigns, this will mean it will go faster than anticipated. For others, especially if the campaign is taking place in a seasonal community that is also shouldering many other capital campaigns, your campaign may take a bit longer.

But as long as you are pushing, the campaign will live the life — from start to finish — that is meant for it to live.

Learning More from My Campaign Success

Of course, there are many more lessons learned beyond these top five. But I believe these are the most critical for other small development teams who have a capital campaign in their future.

When I think back on my capital campaign, I have a much better image than nails on a chalkboard. And if you follow these tips, I bet you will too!

If you missed my webinar with Amy Eisenstein from Capital Campaign Pro and Laura Retherford, the Vice President of Development at the Maine College of Art & Design where we discussed more in-depth about how a small development shop can run a successful capital campaign, you can watch the recording for free here.