The Truth About “Truthfulness” in Campaign Feasibility Study Interviews

In my role at Capital Campaign Pro, I have had the opportunity to give dozens of webinars and presentations to thousands of nonprofit leaders on the subject of capital campaigns, leveraging technology, and engaging donors.

In these sessions, the topic of feasibility studies often comes up. I always mention that there are different models for approaching stakeholder interviews. At Capital Campaign Pro, we teach nonprofit leaders to conduct interviews (strategic conversations) with their donors, rather than sending in a third-party consultant.

And every single time, without fail, someone in the audience or chat pops up with the same familiar line from the traditional consulting playbook:

“Well, actually, a staff interviewer will never get truthful answers.”

It arrives with the same tone every time — confident and certain. Delivered as if it settles the matter.

The Myth: Only An Outsider Can Get Donors to Speak Honestly

The idea is simple: apparently only an outsider can get donors to speak honestly. The consultant enters, asks their questions in the “cone of confidence,” and donors suddenly reveal thoughts they keep hidden from everyone else.

There is a major issue with this claim: it’s simply not true. And it’s unprovable without time-machine-assisted A/B testing.

Unfortunately, this talking point continues to circulate, almost as a built-in justification for why traditional campaign consultants must conduct feasibility study interviews.

Capital Campaign Pro was created in part to pull back the curtain on this kind of thinking. Traditional consulting models have long treated their methods as mysterious, proprietary, and non-transferable, as if donors only open up for a certain type of person. It is a condescending stance, and it steers nonprofits away from the very relationships that make campaigns successful.

After coaching nonprofit leaders to conduct their own interviews for more than seven years, we know they get donors to open up to them.

And we’re not the only ones. According to our capital campaign benchmark report, about 30% of (and growing) feasibility studies are conducted this way.

The Claim Rests on Assumptions, Not Facts

The idea that donors hide their real thoughts from staff relies on a set of untested assumptions:

• Donors supposedly avoid honesty or soften their opinions with people they know, out of politeness.
• Consultants supposedly draw out truth simply by being unfamiliar faces.

There is nothing concrete to support this.

Staff and board members often know their donors well. They have built trust over many years. They have personal history. It is far more reasonable to think donors would feel comfortable speaking freely with people they already know than with a stranger. Familiarity breeds honesty. People tend to be candid with those they believe care about the mission and the outcome.

Our work since 2017 has shown this repeatedly. Organizations that conduct their own feasibility interviews consistently report strong, open conversations with donors. No mysterious withholding. No guarded answers. Just real dialogue grounded in trust.

What We Have Seen: Stronger Relationships and Stronger Campaigns

If no one can prove that a consultant gets more “truth,” something else can be demonstrated with real experience:

When staff, board members, and volunteers conduct feasibility interviews, their relationships with donors grow stronger. We hear this constantly. The conversation itself becomes a meaningful touchpoint. It creates momentum and deepens connection. It can lead to new forms of engagement, renewed enthusiasm, or a stronger sense of partnership.

One reason why this happens is because our clients do, in fact, hear honest (and very candid!) feedback from donors!

Contrast this with the traditional process: a consultant meets with donors privately, gathers information, writes a report, and moves on. The organization receives the report but misses out on the critical relationship-building that could have happened during those conversations.

Feasibility interviews should strengthen donor relationships. They should not be outsourced.

A Story Traditional Consultants Rarely Tell

There is another issue with the traditional model that almost never gets mentioned. This one comes from long and direct experience.

Our co-founder, Andrea Kihlstedt, spent decades as a traditional campaign consultant. She was very good at her work and well known, which meant she was hired by multiple organizations within the same communities again and again. Over time, she ended up speaking with the same donors on behalf of many nonprofits. Sometimes the conversations were only months apart.

Eventually donors became so comfortable with her that they began asking things candidly, like:

“Should I give to this organization?”

Once that question enters the room, the entire process shifts. When one consultant becomes the recurring voice speaking to many nonprofits in a region, a strange dynamic forms:

• Donors start responding to the consultant rather than the organization.
• The consultant’s own impressions influence how donors think.
• The nonprofit loses ownership of its relationships.
• The consultant ends up as an unintended advisor to donors across multiple missions.

This is far more of a conflict than anything staff involvement could create.

Our feasibility study model avoids this problem. Donor relationships stay where they belong: inside the organization.

When a Third-Party Interviewer Makes Sense

Another thing that makes our firm different is we aren’t afraid to say that external interviewers have a place. The reasons are practical ones:

1. No staff (although, with training, board members and volunteers can make great interviewers if they are so inclined).
2. Not wanting to learn how to execute the process or find the time to do it.
3. Fear of critique from donors.
4. Lack of trust that organizational leaders will be effective interviewers.
5. Other internal culture issues.

These are operational realities, not truthfulness issues. If a team is stretched thin and has no desire to embark on this type of process out of a perceived fear that the workload will overwhelm them, a third-party interviewer can be helpful.

But those situations have nothing to do with donor honesty.

You would be hard pressed to find a nonprofit with an excess of staff bandwidth. Our clients successfully complete feasibility study interviews themselves (with coaching) because they’ve made the decision to prioritize it, while outsourcing or de-prioritizing less-critical work. After all, what could be more important than talking to your closest supporters?

Feasibility Studies: Truth and Consequences

One harsh truth remains: If you don’t make time to speak with your biggest prospective donors prior to a campaign, how will you make time to cultivate and solicit them during a campaign?

The fact is that feasibility study conversations create a “head start” on receiving gifts to the campaign.

Traditional consultants have repeated the “truthfulness” argument for years. It sounds authoritative at first hearing, but it is built on assumptions rather than facts. And the more you examine it, the more it reveals itself as a way to defend a traditional role rather than serve the nonprofit’s long-term relationships.

Since 2017, Capital Campaign Pro has helped organizations run their own feasibility interviews and grow stronger because of it. We have seen staff, board members, and volunteers build deeper connections with donors. We have seen campaigns benefit from these relationships in lasting, meaningful ways.

So the next time someone says, “Well actually, donors will not tell staff the truth,” the best response is simple:

How do you know?