Is Your Nonprofit Organization Capital Campaign Ready? Four Simple Questions To Ask Yourself.

In this episode, we dive into four simple questions you can ask yourself to determine if your organization is ready to consider a capital campaign.

• Project: Do I have a project that aligns with the reasons people donate: to save or transform lives? We touch on common project types, including new construction, renovations, and expensive equipment purchases.
  
  
• Donors: Do I have the right donors needed based on campaign goals? We provide a simple breakdown using a $100,000 campaign as an example, and discuss the need for lead gifts, and how many donors you might need at different giving levels.
  
  
• Leadership: Do I have the right leadership needed to be successful? With a focus on the time commitment required from the Executive Director and the need for a dedicated campaign cabinet. The role of a campaign consultant and the challenges of a DIY approach for first-time campaign leaders are also discussed.
  
  
• Infrastructure: Do I have the organizational infrastructure needed to be a campaign home? Lastly, we discuss the necessary infrastructure for a successful campaign, including administrative support, a donor database, and the identification of potential lead donors.
  
  

Is your organization ready to even consider a capital campaign? If the answers to all four of these questions are yes, then you are in good shape to go to the next step in considering a capital campaign.

Transcript

Nathan Ruby: 0:01

we should do a capital campaign. Every executive director, sooner or later, is going to hear that phrase. It might be from a board member, a longtime donor, a volunteer, and sometimes it's even bouncing around in your own head. Just because someone says it, even if it's you that are saying it, it doesn't mean it's true. Let's explore four simple questions you can ask yourself when anyone says we should do a capital campaign, welcome to the Practice of Nonprofit Leadership. I'm Nathan Ruby, all right. Well, we are talking about capital campaigns today and four simple questions you can ask yourself to know within almost instantly, or at least within a couple of minutes, of whether this is something that you should put more in time and energy into exploring. Okay, so four key questions you should ask yourself. Number one do I have a project Now, the project of this capital campaign?

Nathan Ruby: 1:27

So what are we going to do that we're raising the money for? This project must tie back to the two primary reasons that people give to your organization. And why do people give to any organization? Well, it's to save a life or transform a life. So your project must align intuitively with how you save lives or transform lives, and if you can't articulate how your project will help you significantly impact the people you serve. Then you don't have a project, so you start with a project. Now, there are three types of common projects. There's maybe some others, but these are the three primary ones that most people run across as executive directors. So the first one is new construction and this is typically the most common and it's what most of your donors, especially your high-end donors this is what they'll immediately think of when they hear that your organization is thinking of or doing a campaign. It'll be oh, they're building a building.

Nathan Ruby: 2:42

So common examples of that would be universities and hospitals. So universities and hospitals are either in a campaign planning a campaign coming out of a campaign. They're just constantly in campaign mode. And so in a traditional model, you have that. You know you have the, the, the new building, and somebody makes the lead gift and their name goes on the building, uh, you know the so-and-so family, uh, building of whatever, uh. And then you know you get some of the smaller gifts still sizable gifts, but not as big as the lead gift and then those names go on rooms or other areas within that same building. And then, of course, every capital campaign would not be complete unless they had the donor wall and you've seen them at hospital. Again, hospitals and universities are really good at this. You walk in and there's a wall or a statue or some type of thing and it's got all of the campaign donors on it and this range of gifts that they gave to and this building possible through our wonderful donors, and so that's kind of the typical example of new construction. So new construction is definitely a common type of project that you would find in a capital campaign, definitely a common type of project that you would find in a capital campaign.

Nathan Ruby: 4:07

Another type of project would be renovating an existing building, also very common, probably not as common as new construction. And there are all kinds of issues that come up when you are renovating buildings. And that's beyond the scope of today's episode. Maybe I'll do another one specifically on campaigns for renovating buildings, because you can get yourself in trouble. I'll just do this little teaser. With a new building they make a plan and a construction plan and sure, sometimes that can run over budget. Maybe they make a mistake or maybe the cost of materials goes up and they didn't plan for it, but usually they put in a contingency fund for that. But when you're renovating a building you can get into issues that nobody knew about, the architect didn't know about, the builder didn't know about, until they dig into something. And then all of a sudden it's 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% higher than what you thought it was going to be. But you've already done your campaign and you've already talked to your donors. So you've got to be really careful when you're doing building renovations. We'll cover that in another episode.

Nathan Ruby: 5:25

So, new construction renovation, and then the third type of project that's most common is some type of overly expensive piece of equipment. So it's not as common, but it does happen. So what's an example of that? Let's say that you're a rural hospital you know, not one of these big behemoths that are, you know, massively big but let's just say you're small town, very rural, kind of a standalone clinic or hospital, and you want to replace your CT scanner. Well, a CT scanner, it could be, it could be like $50,000, or it could be $2 million. You know it could be like $50,000 or it could be $2 million. You know it could be anywhere inside of there. And if you're talking a $50,000 scanner, well then you're probably more likely to go to a handful of donors and kind of get it done quietly and do it as a major gift component, as opposed to if you need the $2 million version. Well, now you're probably thinking more of a broader campaign, just because $2 million is a lot more than $50,000.

Nathan Ruby: 6:32

So new construction, renovating an existing building, and then some type of large piece of equipment that you need. So those are typically the three types of projects. So, all right, that's number one. So those are the typically the three types of projects. So, all right, that's number one. You need a project that conveys or that connects just intuitively with your reason for saving or transforming lives. All right, now one little warning that comes with projects and the order of how you do things is incredibly important when you're talking projects and the correct order is fundraising first, then groundbreaking, then project. So fundraising, groundbreaking and then finishing the project. Already started construction of a new renovation or of a new building, or if you have already started the renovation process, or if you've already bought the CT scanner, well then you are no longer in a capital campaign, you are in a major gift mode or you're in a debt reduction mode because you've already spent the money or you've already triggered the transaction to start construction or to buy the equipment. So, fundraising first, then groundbreaking, then project. That's the order, okay, so number one is project.

Nathan Ruby: 7:56

Number two this is the second question you ask yourself. And the question is do I have the donors to do a capital campaign? Now you could really be saying, well, duh, that's kind of obvious that we need donors. Well, how many donors do you need? Well, that's a bit more nebulous to determine. So I got here's a simple answer for you the bigger the campaign, the more donors you need. So see, that's simple the bigger the campaign, the more donors you need. Well, okay, let's kind of let's give you a little bit more than that.

Nathan Ruby: 8:36

Let's back into this, let's go into this backwards and see if we can figure out at least a rule of thumb so you could kind of determine if this, if it will fit for you. So let's assume a, uh, a hundred thousand dollar campaign. All right, uh, so that's our goal. And we use a hundred thousand for a couple of reasons. One, because it's easy math. It's easy for me to do math on a hundred thousand and, uh, it's easy math for you. So, as I go through some of these numbers, if you want to do a $200,000 campaign, then you just double the numbers we're going to go through. If you need to do a $50,000 campaign, then you just do it and cut them in half and then you know 300, 400. So you can extrapolate some of the data from this. So, all right, so we have our $100,000 goal.

Nathan Ruby: 9:25

So the first thing that you're going to need from donors on a $100,000 campaign is you're going to need a lead gift of about 30%. Now it doesn't have to be exactly 30%, it could be 25%, it could be 35%, it could be 37.2. You know it doesn't have to be exact, but in round numbers, on a $100,000 campaign you're going to need about a $30,000 lead gift. So that means that somebody or some company or some organization, somebody is writing you a $30,000 check. All right, next is you're going to take about 80% of the remaining goal. So we started with $100,000. We just had a $30,000 gift. That gives us $70,000 left, and now about 80% of that gift so about $56,000, if my math is correct is going to come from 10 to 12 donors, give or take. So you've got a lead gift of 30, you've got 10 to 12 donors giving you about 56, and then the remaining, which is $14,000, that's going to come from about 50 donors. So, again, it's not going to be exact, but it's going to be round numbers that way. So, all right, let's add that all up, 14, 16, about 60 to 65 donors.

Nathan Ruby: 10:54

Give or take is what it's going to take to do a $100,000 campaign in a traditional campaign model, and that is then with at least one donor who can write a $30,000 gift and then another 10 or 12 who can write a $5,000 check or more. So, okay, that's not so bad, but there's a catch, and here's the catch For your lead gift and for those 10 to 12 mid-level donors that are between 5,000 and 20,000, give or take, you're going to need two to three prospects for each gift, because if you could get one out of three, that's a pretty good ratio. Sometimes you could do more, but let's just, we're going to use one out of three. That's pretty respectable, and so if you need that many gifts so now you are talking 33 prospects who can write a $5,000 check or more. That's a lot of people. And again, it's not exactly like this, because you could theoretically and I've seen this happen you could get two donors who both want to write the $30,000 check. Well, how cool is that, and I've also seen it on some of the smaller campaigns I've done. You may find somebody who says you know what? I would love to write that check and I want to cover the whole amount.

Nathan Ruby: 12:33

Now, the bigger your campaign gets, the harder that is to happen, but it does happen. So it's never exactly like that. However, use these numbers as a way to think in your head. Am I even in the ballpark to start thinking more seriously about a campaign? So you've got to have enough donors with enough capacity to reach your goal. All right, number three sorry.

Nathan Ruby: 13:02

Third question is do I have the right leadership? Now, this could be a really tough question, and there are three pieces of when you're considering this question. There's three pieces that you want to think through. First of all is your own personal time, and now I don't know your own personal time at work. So you as the executive director, your work schedule. Now, I don't know a lot of executive directors who have big chunks of time available for extra work. I'm sure there's some out there and maybe you're one of those which, if that's you, that's awesome, but in my experience, most don't. So if that's you and you don't have a lot of extra time. So just think through this for a second.

Nathan Ruby: 13:52

So let's say, going back to our $100,000 example, and we've got 33 prospects that we are trying to connect with, that you personally are need to go visit, share the vision of the organization, share the, the, the project and why it meets that vision, how it's meeting the, the um, the needs of your people that you serve, and connecting to the donor's desire to give. How many emails and texts and phone calls and the actual visits where you have to go, and then you're on the way in the car and then you get a text oh, I'm sorry, my work schedule changed. I got called into work, oh, my grandchild is sick, I have to babysit, and then you have to reschedule. It is a colossal amount of communication with donors to get through that portion of the campaign. And then how are you going to accommodate those 33 visits or more? How are you going to accommodate that in your schedule that you do now?

Nathan Ruby: 15:01

So if you're already overly busy with your day-to-day schedule and now you're going to add in this whole extra, you know, 33 visits or meetings in a 60-day period, can you do that, you know? And another thing is who's going to do the work that you normally do. While you're out doing those 33 visits, who's going to chair the meetings? Who's going to go to the meetings? Who's going to handle the problems and the issues that come up day to day? You know, every time the phone rings, every time you get a text, there's something you have to deal with. All of a sudden, you're not there to deal with those things, and so you have to have somebody else who can handle that, or else the operations, your programming, your day-to-day work is going to suffer if you don't have somebody to come in and handle that for you. Who's going to do the thank yous?

Nathan Ruby: 15:59

Every time you have a visit, there's a thank you that needs to be sent and there's information. You go to the donor. You have a nice visit. They ask for something. Well, now the follow-up has to be done. There's another document to be sent or there's I don't know. There's 100 different things that can happen. So somebody has to be doing those things. So before you can even consider a campaign, you have to answer. If you, as the executive director, has the bandwidth to go into a campaign, ok.

Nathan Ruby: 16:35

Another type of leadership is volunteer leadership volunteer leadership, and typically on a typical campaign, you're going to want to have a small campaign cabinet or committee or whatever name you want to use doesn't make a difference and this is usually three to five people who are solely focused on the campaign. And maybe one could be a board member then kind of play like a liaison to the board, but typically it's not board members. Board members are responsible for the organization. Your campaign cabinet would typically be responsible for the campaign itself, and this group should be leaders in the community who can open doors for you and network for you. And another thing that they're really helpful is every campaign has its ups and downs. It's smooth sailing one day and the next day something happens and you're in a crisis mode. And then there's whys in the road where, where you, you had a plan and you get to some, something happens and the original plan is no longer valid and you have to go right or you have to go left. There's, there's a why in the road. And which way do you go? And having this cab, the campaign cabinet, is, oh, indispensable when it comes to helping you make those decisions, when it comes to helping you make those decisions. So do you absolutely have to have a campaign cabinet? Technically, no, but they sure make your life as executive director better, and personally I would not do a campaign without one.

Nathan Ruby: 18:18

Now, lastly, on leadership, I am going to bring up a capital campaign consultant. Uh, now, if this is your first episode, uh, with the practice of nonprofit leadership, uh, you will know that. Um well, I guess, if this is your first episode, just full transparency. I am a, uh, a fundraising coach and consultant. I also lead a nonprofit, but I also do some coaching and consulting on the side and I do consult on capital campaigns. So that's, if you're a new listener, if you're a listener of the practice of nonprofit leadership. You know, in the past I could be a little rough on consultants from time to time, and you know consultants are extremely beneficial and helpful in the right situations. Sometimes they could come in and charge a lot of money and you may or may not actually get the results that you paid for.

Nathan Ruby: 19:21

But when it comes to capital campaigns and consultants, the question then becomes can you do it yourself? Can you do a campaign all by yourself? And my answer is the first time you do a campaign, I am going to say no. It would not be my recommendation to do that. In my experience, I have never seen a successful do-it-yourself campaign with an executive director who has never led one before. Once you do two or three, then yeah, I think you probably could at least consider that. You may not ultimately decide to do that, you may decide to get some counsel, but at least you could think it through and decide if that's the right thing for you or not.

Nathan Ruby: 20:13

And what happens a lot of time is when things are going great and the big gifts are coming in, those lead gifts in our, in those, you know those lead gifts in our, in our uh 30 and our a hundred thousand dollar example. You know the $30,000 gift gets committed and all of a sudden there's a 25, and there's a couple of fifteens and there's a 10, and you're thinking, oh my gosh, this is, this is like easy, uh. And then all of those uh larger gifts dry up and and you get through that part and they stop flowing in. But now all of a sudden you've got, you know, on our $100,000 example, we've got $20,000 to go and we're out of our larger donors. Well then it gets a little harder and it gets a little more stressful and a little scarier as you're getting closer and closer to the end and you're not at the number yet.

Nathan Ruby: 21:06

That's when having professional counsel is worth its weight in gold, and I would recommend to wait and not hire counsel and say, well, let's just see how we're going to do it ourselves, and then at the end, if we need somebody, we'll bring somebody in. By then it's typically too late because decisions have been made that can't be unmade and it just makes it so much harder. So if you don't have experience with capital campaigns, I recommend you hiring somebody to walk with you and to help you so that you could bring home a successful campaign. All right, so we've got three, our three questions Do we have a project? Do we have donors? Do we have the right leadership? And then, lastly, is do we have enough infrastructure?

Nathan Ruby: 21:58

And in infrastructure I am talking about organizational infrastructure, and I'll say right off the bat if you don't have any administrative support or are unable or unwilling to hire some, then you really can't do a campaign. Go back to the section where I was talking about the executive director and the activities and the things you know sending thank yous and scheduling appointments and doing follow-up and what I listed out there it's at least double, maybe triple, the amount of work is what I listed out there. It is an incredible amount of work for an executive director and so if you do not have administrative support to take some of your day-to-day responsibilities and work off of your shoulders, you will really, really struggle in a capital campaign. So administrative support is going to be really crucial to success.

Nathan Ruby: 23:00

If you don't have the donor base, then you're not ready, and by this I mean donor base, not donors, I mean a database. You really need a donor database and if you still have all of your donors on an Excel spreadsheet or some other type of spreadsheet, you're not ready. It's too much information, things go too fast and when you come out of a capital campaign, especially a successful one, the information that you've captured about your donors is gold. It is so valuable moving forward 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 years, and you have to have a donor database in place and trained up on how to use it before you go into a capital campaign. Excel or Sheets or any other spreadsheet is not going to cut it. Um, what else? On infrastructure, another one Um, if you, uh, if you don't have that lead gift, uh, we'll go to go back to the donor for a second If you don't have somebody that can write that check for that 30, 35%, then you're not ready.

Nathan Ruby: 24:13

And when I say name someone, it means someone who is a current donor, someone who has strong ties with the organization, someone who you could stop this podcast. Don't stop this podcast, but you could stop this podcast. Pick up your phone, dial that person and they would either answer the phone or call you back. That's what I'm talking about. If you don't have a connection with one or two or three people that can write that size of gift, then you're not ready. And you know you cannot just say, oh well, we're going to go to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or you know whoever is the owner of the largest company in your town. That's not what we're talking about here. So if you don't have a deep relationship with to free up a significant amount of your time in order to dedicate to the campaign, then you're probably not ready.

Nathan Ruby: 25:22

So now, if you don't have the right infrastructure, it doesn't mean, oh well, we're never going to be able to do this. What it means is that you just you need to go, go back and spend some time working on that particular area. It doesn't mean that it's no forever. It may be no for just right now. So if you're weak in one of these four areas, now you know what you need to work on to get up to where you need to be so that you could consider a campaign in six months or 12 months or 18 months or whatever it is. So in that moment when someone utters that phrase, should we do a capital campaign? These are the four questions that you should immediately roll through your head. That you should immediately roll through your head Do we have a project that directly connects with how we save and or transform the lives of the people we serve? Do we have enough donors realistically to secure 80% of the potential goal or need? Do I have access to the right leadership to support a campaign? And lastly, do I have access to the right leadership to support a campaign? And lastly, do I have infrastructure that will support the needs of this campaign? So this is where you start, and if the answer is no, it's simple you spend time and energy to build the capacity in that area where you're weak. If the answer is yes, now you can really start exploring deeper if this makes sense for your organization or not.

Nathan Ruby: 27:02

Thank you for listening today. If you are benefiting from what is being shared on this podcast. Could we ask a favor? We'd love to have you share a review on whichever platform you're listening to us on. Let us know how the podcast is benefiting you. If you would like to get in touch with us, our contact information can be found in the show notes. That's all for today. Until next time.