If you’re one of my longtime readers, you know that for the past 10 years, I’ve been writing and talking about how to raise major gifts. From my free online Major Gift Fundraising Guide to the Major Gifts Challenge to my online course, Mastering Major Gifts, I’ve focused my career on helping you raise major gifts.
So what comes next?
Well, the natural next step for me (and likely for you, too) is to segue into capital campaigns. That’s because if you’re not currently in a capital campaign, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll start planning for one at some point in the next few years.
Capital Campaigns Are Like Running a Marathon
Have you ever considered how capital campaigns are similar to running a marathon?
Capital campaigns take time, effort, stamina, endurance, patience, lots of practice to complete a big goal with a huge payoff — just like running a marathon.
If you stay the course and follow the plan, you’ll make it to the finish line. And at the end, you’ll have accomplished something life-changing.
Yet here’s the sad fact…
Too many organizations try to run a capital campaign marathon before they’ve even learned to walk. In this analogy, raising major gifts is akin to walking before you learn to run.
Learning to walk comes first… usually.
I did it a little differently. I was forced to learn to walk and run at the same time.
In other words, I learned to raise major gifts right smack in the middle of a capital campaign.
The first time I really learned to raise major gifts was during my time at Rutgers University. They were running a capital campaign so I was essentially thrown into the deep end of the pool and it was sink or swim. So while I recommend raising major gifts before you start a capital campaign, it doesn’t always work out that way.
The bottom line is this:
Major gifts are the backbone of any successful capital campaign.
Therefore, whether you raise major gifts for the first time for your annual fund, or if you’re headed into a capital campaign, either way, you do need to learn to raise major gifts! So it’s a good thing you’re here. 😉
Making Fundraising Simple, Starting with Major Gifts
One of the skills I am repeatedly recognized for is my ability to simplify a complicated activity, like raising major gifts. Whether in a blog post, book, keynote, or workshop, people tell me I’ve made a complex topic seem simple and achievable.
Take the Major Gifts Challenge, for example. Major gift fundraising is broken down into weekly, doable steps.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the next logical step for me was to simplify capital campaigns in much the same way.
Well-known capital campaign expert Andrea Kihlstedt and I began working together on this task. Our goal was to provide an easy-to-follow system for nonprofit professionals to be able to lead their own campaigns. We spent over a year trying to determine the best way to break down a campaign. It’s the biggest beast in the world of fundraising and taming it was no easy feat. After all, campaigns are complicated!
However, once we wrestled the beast to the ground, the Capital Campaign Toolkit emerged.
What we didn’t understand when we started is that we would be changing the landscape of capital campaigns — a landscape which has long been heavily reliant on consultants.
Reimagining Capital Campaigns
What was originally an effort to simplify capital campaigns into practical, everyday terms and manageable steps, turned into a complete reimagining of capital campaigns and the way they work — including the important role that consultants play.
In the recent issue of the AFP magazine, Advancing Philanthropy, they featured a special report called Rethinking Capital Campaigns. One of the articles (written by me) talks about the changing role of campaign consultants in the face of emerging technological trends.
As you know, change can be hard. Especially when that change could impact the way you earn a living. So suggesting that there’s a new role for consultants in capital campaigns has been met with some controversy.
Nevertheless, we live in a technological world, and times do change.
The Changing Face of Fundraising
You know as well as I do that technology has changed the way we work and live over the course of our lives and careers. And it will continue to create change faster than we can even imagine. The evidence is all around us.
It’s hard to imagine a road filled with self-driving cars, but someday in the not too distant future they will be on the road in full force.
Only 25 years ago, my freshman class in college was the first where all incoming students were automatically assigned email addresses. Up until that point, having an email address was optional.
And only 15 years ago, it was unimaginable that anyone would do their taxes without an accountant. Now people just trust TurboTax.
Want to create a legal contact or a will without a lawyer? Just logon to LegalZoom.
And today, we’re reimagining capital campaigns.
A New Role for Capital Campaign Consultants
For 100 years, capital campaigns have been run almost the same way… until now.
Consultants who are willing to change with times know there’s a new way to do business. It enables you to run just as effective a campaign, but it’s more practical and affordable.
No longer does your campaign consultant need to fly in and spend a full day with you and your board. Instead, they can leverage technology for meetings and communication.
Video conferencing has opened up an entirely new way to meet. Gone are the 9-to-5 days with consultants, when you can accomplish the same amount in an hour-long video chat. Documents can be shared and edited remotely, and all parties can see changes in real time.
If your consultant isn’t offering to save you time and money by using the latest technology, it’s time to turn elsewhere for your capital campaign needs.
The Future is Here: Leading Your Own Campaign
In today’s world, where you can use software to handle your taxes and their help team to answer your tax questions, you can do just fine without an accountant. In other words, coaching and advising are becoming mainstream. Just a little bit of advising where and when you need it can help you work through any obstacle you face on your own.
It’s not only professional athletes who have coaches. There’s coaching available in all walks of life:
- Business coaches for business executives
- Fitness coaches for weight loss
- Life coaches for living your best life!
The marriage of coaching and technology marks the future of capital campaigns. This is a future in which you can lead your own campaign, with access to tools and coaching in the same way you can create your own legal documents with LegalZoom.
Consultants can now serve as advisors (i.e., coaches) for helping you take the reins of your own capital campaign. After all, who better to lead your major gifts effort or capital campaign than you!
- You know your mission
- You know your donors
- You know your community
And you know all of these things better than any outside consultant ever will.
So keep the control in your hands. Use the technology and tools available online to take charge of your biggest and brightest fundraising efforts. Use consultants as coaches and advisors in areas when and where you need them, rather than having them run your entire campaign from start to finish.
Not only will you have a vested ownership in your own capital campaign, but you’ll also save a fortune on consulting fees — which can help you get that much closer to your campaign goal.
Download the entire special report on Rethinking Capital Campaigns. This is a great series to put in your pocket, even if a capital campaign is a ways off.
Rethinking Capital CampaignsHow has technology changed the fundraising landscape at your organization? Leave a comment below.
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