'But How Do You Know?'

The flip answer is you can’t know absolutely. Fundraising doesn’t come with 100 percent certainty on the front end, however much we’re able to judge success and failure down to the most minute of variables once a campaign’s returns are complete. But that’s not to say there isn’t a lot you can know going in, information that helps you pick contenders more wisely than the “eeny-meeny-miney-moe” method.