The Capital Campaign Quest for Growth
A capital campaign: Is it a puzzle to piece together or a quest to undertake?
As capital campaign consultants, our team works with nonprofits around the country to help them embark on new and exciting adventures. The common goal among our clients is a desire to improve their facilities and programs. That’s the simple part. It gets complicated if the nonprofit is not accustomed to the level of communications, collaboration and sacrifice that are necessary to raise millions of dollars in a capital campaign.
Nonprofit leaders may envision their capital campaign will be like putting a puzzle together; the picture on the box is their facility or program vision and the puzzle pieces are their donors. I don’t mind that analogy, but it’s missing some elements. For example, the picture on the box can change from a castle to a cabin, or puzzle pieces might be missing or belong to an altogether different puzzle. For these reasons, I prefer comparing a capital campaign to a quest.
Your capital campaign may be a quest
Quests have personal growth as their central theme, with those on quests often experiencing mental and physical challenges that make them better people.
My favorite example of a quest comes from a nonprofit that started in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona, back in the Seventies called Vision Quest. This nonprofit works with youth and families in adverse situations (www.vq.com). What attracted me to the organization was its earliest methodology of helping troubled youth; counselors took them on covered wagon trips across the Southwestern desert. They crossed through wild and undeveloped land with no motors, no electricity, no beds or showers for days on end. They just had mules, basic provisions and 19th Century engineering. Imagine a group of young people, all strangers who had experienced varying degrees of personal challenges, coming together for a higher purpose - a purpose that required a level of communication, collaboration and sacrifice that they had ever experienced.
Achieving growth through a capital campaign quest
Vision Quest had to stop with their wagon trains decades ago, but the value of giving people of all ages the tools and experiences they need to achieve personal growth remains fundamental to many nonprofits’ missions. Libraries and schools do so through education. Healthcare providers do so through medicine and treatments. Religions do so through faith. Even the beloved nonprofit term, “providing a hand-up along with a hand-out” embodies the same theme of personal growth.
The quest that a nonprofit embarks on during its capital campaign is primarily focused on organizational growth. CampaignCounsel.org gives our clients tools like a case for support, campaign plan, solicitation training and materials and then leads and manages the organization through the process of raising millions of dollars to improve its facility and programs. But the capital campaign process does not solely focus on organizational growth. Just like a quest, it includes personal growth as well.
Think about the committee members who are helping raise the money. How many of them have ever sat down with a friend or peer and asked them to make a large gift to a campaign? Probably very few. The same goes for the nonprofit’s staff. They may have capital campaign experience, but its processes are atypical and perhaps even uncomfortable. And then there are the donors. Many of them have never given to the nonprofit or been asked to consider such a large pledge.
Before these three constituencies – committee, staff and donors – can deliver their best effort towards a capital campaign, they too need to experience personal growth. They need to communicate, collaborate and sacrifice at levels they may not be accustomed to. Here are some examples:
Communicate: The constituencies need to talk openly and confidentially about sensitive topics like prospect wealth and motivation.
Collaborate: The constituencies need to trust one another.
Sacrifice: The constituencies need to be willing to share their time, talent and treasure.
In some traditional types of quests, personal growth is chosen or demanded. In a capital campaign, personal growth is an unforeseen consequence; what looked like a leisurely puzzle turns out to be a challenging wagon trek.
Capital Campaigns Lead to Growth in More Ways Than One
I don’t make these comparisons to scare nonprofits that are considering capital campaigns. I do so to prepare them. It’s important to know that going on a quest requires personal growth. Welcome it and reward those who are brave enough to join in the journey.
Kevin Wallace is president of CampaignCounsel.org. Contact him by clicking here.
