Are you stuck in the mud, tired of looking at spreadsheets, organizing committees and writing your case for support? Does it feel like there’s never enough time to actually contact your donors? Do you feel like you’re not ready enough? Like you don’t have enough time? Like you’re not even sure who to contact?...
Andrea Kihlstedt
Birds of a feather flock together… but when it comes to your capital campaign, they’ll only flock well with successful leadership. Your capital campaign committee chairs must be well-organized and maintain excellent communication...
Over the last few decades, I’ve spoken with hundreds of people about their biggest fears of getting ready for a capital campaign. While I could make a list of campaign anxieties longer than your arm, three concerns come up again and again...
Heading into a capital campaign? Not sure if you have strong connections to the people who can make those top gifts? Here are five questions to help you attract major gift donors...
Having conversations about core values will help shape the future of your organization. And publicly posting what you come up with will help keep your organization’s values alive—even if that just means putting some Post-Its on the wall!...
The capital campaign industry has been operating more or less the same way for nearly a century. But now, fueled by the Internet, the traditional models are being replaced by new, more efficient systems and practices...
Complex capital campaign meetings are the new normal. In fact, it’s becoming rare to be part of a meeting where everyone is sitting around the same table. Some people attend in person. Others phone in. And yet, others attend via video conference.
When you think about the case for support, do you immediately think “brochure?” Do you imagine a beautiful, glossy multipage piece with wonderful images of the families you serve or the animals you save? Perhaps you imagine a donor reading it and being moved to write a big check...
If one of your largest donors asked you what would transform your organization—what would “take it to the moon” in terms of helping more people and having more impact—would you have an answer? Though capital campaigns are usually more practically focused than that, if you’re in a capital campaign, you ought to have an answer to the question…
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “Some people have all the luck.” And if you’re halfway reasonable, you wish you were one of those luck-struck folks—particularly if you’re working on a capital campaign...
I spent an hour talking with a client, Jenny, about capital campaign goals. She’d try them on and then toss them off again as though she was getting dressed in the morning and couldn’t decide what to wear...
It’s a rare day that I don’t spend two hours or more on the phone coaching groups of three to six people as their organizations get ready for capital campaigns, which often involve virtual capital campaign meetings...
Here are some key dos and don'ts of board giving. Following that, you’ll have a chance to quiz yourself by attempting to solve a real-world board giving dilemma, where the organization wrestled with how to ask their nonprofit board members for gifts...
As you know, capital campaigns rely on very big gifts for their success. In most campaigns, 10 big gifts account for more than 50 percent of the campaign goal. So to have a successful capital campaign, you’ve got to be able get some very big gifts from a few wealthy donors...
You’re planning a capital campaign to raise somewhere between $6 and $10 million. It’s based on a design of a building plan that’s just been finished. The costs are still a stab in the dark and it’ll take some time to estimate the real numbers. But on their way out of the meeting when the new building design was approved, three enthusiastic board members decided they wanted to make a big gesture of support...
