When I was young, I had a 100-piece puzzle of a western town. I can still see the picture on the box. There was a rowdy saloon, some old timers sitting on a bench in front of the barber shop, a hotel with a balcony, a livery stable and people and animals of every sort milling about. I kept the box on a rarely used table in my parents’ living room and went there several times a week to see how quickly I could put it together. After a while, I could dump out the pieces and arrange them without even looking at the picture. 

I am not a puzzle enthusiast. If one is convenient and if I’m not in a hurry and if my head isn’t washed with thought, I’ll sit down and begin my puzzle-solving process. I start by organizing the edges and the images that stand out, like a saloon sign or a woman’s big yellow hat. I do this because the edges and stand-out images are the easiest to see. They provide the best starting points, or ways of organizing hundreds of possibilities. 

Puzzles came to mind recently when our team was meeting with a nonprofit that has a beautiful vision. It incorporates public and private funding across several states. A project this diverse necessitates the highest levels of tenacity and fluidity to maneuver through endless layers of self-interests. During our talk they posed an interesting and not infrequent question: “Will you help us gain traction with this project through your company’s existing relationships with community leaders and philanthropists?” 

Consultant’s Existing Relationships with Donors

CampaignCounsel.org has knowledge of and influence in markets across the country. Sure, we can open a few doors and perhaps some of our contacts can help, but I’m always hesitant to address this question with a hard ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The main reason is that I don’t know if our contacts will have any interest in a project. Moreover, this question is finite — it puts boundaries around the possibilities and it puts the capital campaign into a puzzle-like metaphor. 

To envision a capital campaign as a puzzle, put your nonprofit’s vision of its completed project on the box cover. The pieces inside the box are representative of the leaders and donors who, when fit together, complete the picture of your finished project. All you need to do is open the box, organize the edges and stand-out images, and start putting it together. 

Simple, right? 

Unfortunately, there’s a problem with this metaphor. In all our years of capital campaign planning and management, the completed puzzle we had at the end of the campaign has never matched the picture on the box at the beginning. This is because capital campaigns evolve and adjust, unlike jigsaw puzzles that have only one solution. Their shape, their size, their duration, even the people who we envision being a project’s greatest champions change. Going back to our puzzle metaphor, it’s like looking for a piece to complete the woman’s yellow hat, only find that the hat has become the sun, and it’s now at the top of the puzzle instead of the middle, and the woman is completely gone! 

Organization Relationships Drive Capital Campaign Success

Now you can understand my hesitancy in answering the question, “Will you help us gain traction with this project through your company’s existing relationships with community leaders and philanthropists?” Because of the fluid nature of capital campaigns, an affirmative answer to this question may mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, and it’s not something I would encourage my clients or prospective clients to depend upon. 

A good capital campaign consultant understands that it is the client’s willingness to foster and build win-win relationships that drives success, not the consultant’s willingness to share connections. To follow the puzzle metaphor, it is the client’s ability to accept and understand that the picture and its pieces are fluid. To take it one step further, the client should think of the campaign puzzle as an edgeless design. Edges are limiting. They are finite, but if the client follows an experienced consultant’s advice, he or she will realize that every puzzle piece can connect to another. 

It is through strategizing with your consultant that you will develop a list of donors and prospective donors who you can rely on to see you to your goal. The value of your consultant is in his or her ability to help you find and cultivate those people who have a true philanthropic interest in your project and your organization. Consultants who claim to have the ability to deliver you to your goal through their own personal connections should be evaluated carefully. 

Learn more about how to Carefully Consider Donors for Capital Campaign Success.

Kevin Wallace is president of CampaignCounsel.org.