Your roof is leaking, your programs are stagnating due to a lack of space, and your fantastic new initiative can't happen without some significant renovations. You need a capital campaign, but how will you get one off the ground (and keep your annual fund up to par)?

To varying degrees, many nonprofit leaders have felt the strain of this predicament. And that is why I want to share three common traps that even successful organizations fall into, in the hope that this knowledge will make you the exception.  

1. The "Making Assumptions" Morass

It's all too easy to believe you know your donors like the back of your hand – after all, that constant relationship-building effort should count for something! Unfortunately, life (and people!) is unpredictable. But a good nonprofit fundraising strategy can help plan for those unexpected shifts.

We worked with a nonprofit that was certain it had $4 million of future donations locked in from four key board members. In fact, they were so confident that they opted to skip a planning study entirely.

They began the campaign, and the future looked bright… until reality hit.

As it turned out, they hadn't confirmed that $4 million ahead of time, and their new board chair disagreed with the organization's (and therefore the campaign's) priorities. Two sibling board members became entangled in legal proceedings, tying up their money with lawyers. The fourth potential donor experienced a personal tragedy resulting in a significant financial loss.

And just like that—poof!—$4 million vanished, and they had to abandon their campaign entirely.

They didn't understand their campaign's chances for success (or lack thereof) ahead of the campaign, and life's unpredictability hit them with the proverbial baseball bat. Without a collaborative partnership with their board and donors, failure was on the horizon. Research from Virtuous reinforces this. Donor retention and stewardship requires active, ongoing confirmation and not assumptions.

2. The Early Announcement Entanglement

Who doesn't love to share good news as soon as possible? Unfortunately, when it comes to capital campaign planning, announcing your goals and progress too early will cut you off at the knees.  

Here's why:

Interested parties will ask how it's going before you have made much progress. And nothing decreases enthusiasm like the goal and Mt. Everest's summit seeming equally unreachable.

This scenario happens so frequently that I couldn’t decide on one story to use as an illustration. So, I offer this illuminating amalgamation of the countless stories of early campaign announcements I’ve encountered:

An organization's leadership gets fired up about their new campaign initiative and throws a (initially empty) campaign funding thermometer on the website. Potential donors see that cold, mostly empty thermometer visual and think, "how could my donation even make a dent in this project?" Fundraising stagnation soon follows.

When we announce a campaign prematurely, we're setting ourselves up for a perception problem that can be nearly impossible to overcome.

3. The "Campaign as Side Project" Approach

Here's a linguistic fun fact: The word "priority" originally implied a singular, most important thing. Our modern usage of "priorities" as a plural is relatively new and departs from its original meaning, suggesting that you can have several "most important" things going on at once.

This usage raises the question:

Can you have several "most important" things when it comes to running a capital campaign?

Well, no.

And here's why:

We recently worked with an organization that viewed their campaign as a siloed part of development rather than the organization's central focus. Because they tried to focus on both their annual fund and the campaign, development staff felt pulled in multiple directions, donors received mixed messages, and leadership was unable to rally behind the effort unreservedly.

The campaign inevitably stagnated, faltered, and died an untimely death. Without an all-hands-on-deck approach, no campaign can survive.

If any of these pitfalls feel painfully familiar, know you're in good company. Before taking the leap, it's worth asking whether your nonprofit is ready for a capital campaign. Launching and running a campaign is arduous enough without these common issues, which the smartest people and most successful organizations encounter every day.

Here's to your next successful campaign! 

About the Author

Benjamin Domingue serves as a Director, helping AmPhil’s clients build and lead their development departments. His particular focus is on major gifts, planned giving, strategic planning, direct mail fundraising, capital campaigns, and transformational “non-transactional” fundraising.

Before joining AmPhil in 2021, Ben served as a major gifts officer with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students and as Director of Development with ACE Scholarships in Denver. He received his MBA from the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, with a concentration in Catholic Philanthropy. Ben earned his bachelor’s degree in International Trade & Finance from Louisiana State University, where he played on the SEC Championship football team. Ben resides in Littleton, CO, with his wife and children.

You can connect with Ben on LinkedIn here.