Are You Ready for a Campaign?

by | Nov 9, 2022 | Uncategorized

The September 2022 TDG newsletter explained that there is a process to develop a successful campaign. You want to be sure that you have all of your elements in place before you begin. 

Ultimately the first step in preparing for your capital campaign is to hire professional fundraising consultants as your guides. They will advise you that the first phase in preparing for your campaign is to conduct a Community Assessment. This step is crucial – it is where you test your community’s understanding and buy-in of your project; it will also test the availability of leadership, community capacity to give and the timing of the campaign. 

But before you begin, even before you hire your fundraising consultant, pause to ask yourself if you are truly ready? Do you have a solid vision, sufficient resources and the data to support the first step? Ask yourself these questions:  

Vision: 

  • Do you have a strong vision?  
  • Is your organizational leadership (i.e., Board, CEO) supportive? 
  • Why is your organization uniquely qualified for this project? 
  • Is the scale of the project realistic to your organization’s history? (Consider your past philanthropic efforts, the size of your community, prospective donors/sponsors/partners, etc.) 
  • Have you developed the project details (i.e., architectural renderings (or conceptual), building details – how big, where, etc.)? 
  • Do you have a realistic preliminary budget (projected costs and a few ideas of potential funding sources)? 
  • Have you considered the sustainability of the project (i.e., how will you fund the operations budget to maximize the building)? 
  • Have you had initial inquiries with the municipality/region/province about your project? Are they supportive?  

 Resources: 

  • Is the funding in place to hire professional consultants (architect, engineering, fundraising, etc.)? 
  • Do you have the organizational resources in place to support the Community Assessment (i.e., part-time administrative support/volunteer) and the ability to provide the time to prioritize the work involved to maximize the efforts of the Community Assessment. 

 Data: 

  • Do you have a consolidated list of past donors, sponsors and volunteers (with contact information)? 
  • Do you have testimonials from beneficiaries, early partners to demonstrate the impact of the project, based on the organization’s past work? 

With these tools in place, you are ready for the Community Assessment Phase. This phase will answer the question, ‘are we ready to run a campaign’? If the answer is yes, the next step is to begin planning. If the answer is ‘no’ or ‘proceed with caution’, then you have the information you need to determine the next steps. 

 Your professional fundraising consultants will help to guide you through these elements to prepare you to begin your campaign process. For more information on planning for and managing your campaign, contact The Dennis Group Inc.