Capital Campaigns
(Originally in SIGNAL, Fall 2000)

By Rob Lavery, SOLS Resource Development Consultant

It’s becoming more common for libraries to be faced with the responsibility of managing a large fundraising campaign for a capital project. More often than not, this news is greeted with great anxiety.

The anxiety over the prospect of a capital campaign is usually compounded by the fact that very few libraries have established fundraising programs. They have no donor records to research, no history of supporters giving generously to the library. This is a very disadvantageous position to be in. Successful, large-goal capital campaigns rely heavily on mature fundraising programs from which leadership giving prospects can be identified.

It’s important for libraries entering into a major fundraising campaign for capital projects that they approach the campaign strategically and only after lots of careful planning. Capital campaigns are executed in a very specific way that’s quite different from an annual fundraising program. And you risk stalling the campaign short of your goals if you do not take the time to plan your strategy first.

What is a capital campaign?

The classic definition of a capital campaign is a time-defined fundraising campaign with a large dollar goal for a capital purpose (i.e. the revenue is not operating income). The essential objective of a capital campaign is asking wealthy people for major financial contributions.

The success of a capital campaign will be determined by a very few people – those donors who exhibit community leadership, both in volunteerism and giving, by giving "once in a lifetime" gifts, and then leverage additional gifts. These gifts can be pledged over the period of the campaign so that donors can pay by installments.

The capital campaign requires an intensive volunteer commitment over the campaign period as solicitations are based on personal relationships. Volunteer canvassers are organized into divisions or sectors for solicitation.

The capital campaign is divided into distinct phases, which are:

Fundraising Feasibility Study (or Planning Study)

Planning phase (preliminary goal setting, campaign   planning, document building, testing the case for   support with community leaders and prospective   donors, volunteer leadership recruiting and training)

Cultivation phase (developing the interest of   prospective leadership gifts)

Solicitation phase (volunteers canvassers ask for contributions)

Public phase (public announcement of goals and accomplishments - presuming you’ve reached 50-65% of campaign goal through major gifts, special events, smaller pledges from individuals, celebration of reaching goal)

Post campaign phase (thank yous to volunteers, data entry, charitable receipting, collecting on pledges, recognizing leadership volunteers)

Theoretically, before any actual campaign work is begun, a library should undertake a feasibility or planning study. In the context of a proposed capital campaign, a feasibility study is an environmental scan of the community to solicit information about support for the project.

The planning study will consist of 30-50 confidential interviews of key constituents – community leaders, stakeholders, known philanthropists. An independent capital campaign consultant will, over a one to two month period, conduct these interviews to determine the community support. The preliminary work of the planning committee is tested with these community leaders to verify the assumptions made by the group. From these interviews, the planning committee will learn the community leaders’ willingness to participate in the campaign, where the top gifts might come from, if the case for support is compelling, if the gift table is achievable, and if the project will get the support needed to reach its goals.

Once the assumptions of the planning committee are tested and verified through the key constituent interviews, they can confidently establish the campaign goal. It is very important in a capital campaign to be able to ascertain the dollar goal of the campaign and create the gift-range tables.

The gift-range table will determine:

•  the approximate levels of giving required to reach goal;
•  the number of gifts required to attain those levels; and,
•  the number of donor prospects and volunteers needed.

A capital campaign focuses on the top levels of giving first, so it is very important to determine the campaign goal. Once you have your dollar goal, you can then establish the top gift level, traditionally between 10-20% of your campaign goal. So, if your capital campaign hopes to raise $500,000, your top gift should be in the $50,000 - $100,000 range. It’s very important to the success of the campaign to solicit for that gift first.

The Planning Phase is often the most difficult – there is a very human resistance to planning. Eager staff and volunteers, excited about the prospect of a new library in the community, want to move ahead as quickly as possible, and tell everyone they know. Despite this natural tendency, it’s crucial to the success of the campaign that you "win the campaign on paper" first.

It will seem like endless meetings on space requirements, functional relationships, architectural renderings and costing – and that’s just to aid you in creating the campaign marketing materials. But this information is very important for leadership recruitment and rallying community support. You need to build the circle of support for the project and you need good sales tools to do that. And you need to be certain that there is a shared vision of the final product that is consistent.

The information determined in the Planning Study will provide a blueprint to create the Campaign Plan. The gift-range table is an excellent solicitation tool in recruiting leadership support. Having excellent materials aids the planning committee and motivates and encourages everyone working on the project.

There is also an enormous amount of work to be done in getting volunteer commitment – and the right volunteers. Because of the need to confirm the largest gifts first, you need to be able to recruit the people in your community with real leadership qualities, the people with "social capital". And this could take a lot of meetings with potential candidates. You’re essentially hiring for a key volunteer position, and you want to take the time to recruit the right person. The planning committee can take primary responsibility to start the ball rolling for the capital campaign, but it is the Campaign Cabinet of community leaders who are going to do the solicitations and use their social and business connections to achieve the campaign’s financial goals.

Building the Fundraising Campaign Plan

There is more work for the planning committee than determining the community’s needs for the new library. The planning committee also builds the fundraising infrastructure that will support a major campaign. Often, this is done in collaboration with a capital campaign consultant – a specialist in short-term fundraising campaigns for large amounts of money. Much of what is needed to create the Campaign Plan is very specialized knowledge that comes with experience and training. The value of a professional consultant is past experience in capital campaigns, training in fundraising techniques, and experience in leading and training volunteers.

Some of the tasks involved in establishing the campaign infrastructure include:

• creating the campaign materials;
• building the case for support;
• creating the campaign standards and principles;
• developing the organizational charts;
• creating job descriptions;
• developing the outline for Prospect Review Committee;
• establishing a critical path and campaign budget;
• determining staff roles and requirements;
• developing the marketing and communications plan;
• creating the donor recognition program;
• establishing the gift-range table; and,
• as an attachment, the Planning Study report.

Once the Campaign Plan is developed, and you’re soliciting for your leadership volunteers, you’ll be glad you took the time to do all the planning. It will seem easy from then on in! The planning committee will have tested and confirmed materials to give to their canvassers. And the commitment from well-trained volunteers will win over prospective donors to the project. The "public" fundraising campaign should be formally announced only after at least 60% of the money has been committed and a sufficient number of prospects have been identified to complete the effort.

Smaller communities can be successful in capital campaigns as Cobden, Goderich, Innisfil and Port Carling have recently shown. Each community is at different phases of their campaign. But all are meeting great success in identifying community leadership that resulted in larger gifts than the library board ever would have imagined, with virtually no experience in fundraising, and no history of financial supporters since Andrew Carnegie.

Case Study: Cobden Public Library

Cobden Public Library had the unique opportunity to move into a shared space with a senior’s facility. This was particularly opportune since until then, the Cobden library had been located in a house trailer. Even faced with this prime opportunity, the library board had no idea they could manage it. The space was available to them, but they would have to fundraise for furnishings and any additional materials.

"Before" exterior (photo)

The first steps were to determine what the needs and priorities of the library would be: furnishings, such as shelving and computer stations, as well as creating a children’s area. They estimated that this might cost as much as $40,000. This seemed like an astronomical sum, given that Cobden is a very small community with little apparent wealth.

"After" interior (photo)

The campaign planning team, consisting of the librarian, board members and key volunteers, took on the task of developing the campaign: developing the campaign targets, identifying prospective donors, and developing materials needed for the campaign sales kit (letterhead and posters).

The key to a successful major fundraising campaign is to identify the large gifts first. Through their research, the campaign team discovered that there was a family foundation with ties to the area. The grant from the family foundation, along with a major commitment from the local Civitan group and additional money from Council, got the campaign more than half way to the goal.

At that point, the planning committee felt confident to go "public" with the fundraising campaign. The other service clubs in the district made small grants to add to the pot. Then the campaign team with additional volunteers undertook a door-to-door canvass that got them the rest of the way there – and more.

They achieved their target of $40,000 well ahead of schedule, and actually came up with extra cash. With the extra funds, the new library is able to purchase additional display units, enhance the collection with talking books, buy some storage units for computer software, and provide quality carpeting for the new children’s area. Quite a success story for this small community – congratulations!