4 Mistakes Nonprofits Make When Starting a Capital Campaign

By Rachel Cyrulnik

No one goes through life without making mistakes. When I inevitably made mistakes as I was growing up and even in my adult life, my dad would remind me, “Good judgment is based on experience. And experience is based on bad judgment.” A smart person learns from their mistakes; an even smarter person avoids them by learning from the mistakes of others.

I recently met with a board chair of an independent school who clearly fell into the category of an “even smarter” person. While embarking on a capital campaign, she asked me to share the biggest mistakes that I’ve seen other nonprofits make when they delve into such a campaign.

I shared them with her, and I want you to have the chance to learn from these four capital campaign mistakes as well.

1. Missing the Mark on Leadership

When nonprofits ask what they need to do to be successful — and this applies across engagement types — I answer that the most important component to their success is their participation. The nonprofit should lean into its relationships and interact with donors, cultivating them and soliciting gifts. Meanwhile, they should rely on their consultant to provide guidance, strategy, analysis, project management and collateral materials to forge a true partnership.

I have seen time and again that when the leaders at the helm of the campaign cabinet are engaged, they drive the campaign forward and the whole committee takes its cues and follows suit. Conversely, when the campaign chairs fail to complete weekly to-dos and choose to focus on anything but fundraising — rewriting or designing marketing materials, concentrating on technical components of the campaign or simply procrastinating — the campaign is stymied. Therefore, progress will take longer and may be more limited.

To ensure you have engaged and motivated lay leaders, set expectations early on and ask for their agreement to participate. I have seen organizations just assume their donors will join the committee and rope them in — this is not a recipe for engaged leadership.

To plan for and launch a capital campaign, an ideal campaign cabinet should consist of a committee of four to six experienced, motivated volunteers who will give lead gifts and solicit others, possessing strong relationships with and influence over other lead gift prospects. As the campaign moves into the major gifts and then community phases, the committee will expand and evolve. However, the one constant is the need for their proactive involvement.

2. Avoiding Hard Decision-Making

Whether it is avoiding letting go of staff who are not meeting performance expectations or evading necessary budget cuts to operational or construction budgets, failure to take swift action on tough decisions will shake donors’ confidence in the institution’s leadership and efficiency.

I have seen this happen firsthand. For example, one faith-based organization had an inflated staff that was a vestige from pre-pandemic days. Donors were concerned about the organization’s sustainability (How will it maintain its annual operating budget long after the capital campaign was complete?) Failure to make these difficult decisions resulted in inertia. The campaign did not get off the ground, and the organization never had the chance to grow.

Similarly, an arts organization had a development team of two that had not proven its ability to take key development activities off the plate of the executive director. This type of arrangement hamstrings growth, creating a bottleneck with the executive director, as their list of responsibilities includes items outside of fundraising, their own portfolio of donors and, by default, all other development responsibilities.

3. Hiring Consultants Too Early

When is the right time to bring on fundraising counsel? It is nearly impossible for most nonprofits to align the fundraising and construction timelines perfectly. Rushing to fundraise before key components of the construction are clear will make it difficult to develop collateral materials and communicate with donors about the project. However, waiting too long can create donor fatigue. Donors may be tired of hearing about an upcoming campaign and seeing no action.

Bottom line: Assess your donors, your community and your leadership to take your best educated guess about when to launch. Take external factors into account. You may want to launch earlier if you know other community institutions are planning campaigns in the future or launch later if other organizations are in active campaigns.

4. Not Having a Foundation of Major Gifts

This one may seem obvious but you would be surprised that organizations sometimes are ready to launch a capital campaign without a solid major gifts foundation. If your organization does not yet have a robust major gifts pipeline, a capital campaign is not out of the question, but it will likely be an initiative for which you will have to make preparations. A strong base of major gift supporters provides the foundation of your campaign, as the rule of thumb is 80% of donations from 20% of your donors.

Engaged leadership making good decisions at the right time and a strong donor base are the key ingredients to launching and executing a capital or other special campaign. As an “even smarter” person, I have faith that you will learn from these tips to advance your campaign and strengthen your organization’s mission.

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.