I’ve been a high school and college umpire for 35 years and have learned that successful capital campaigns are a lot like baseball. A pitcher needs to prepare and strategize before throwing the ball; your ministry needs to plan and set goals before pitching your campaign. Great pitchers deliver the ball with precision and accuracy to the catcher; great capital campaigns communicate their message clearly and effectively to potential donors. The main difference is in baseball the goal is to strike out the batter but in fundraising the goal is to encourage your donors to hit the ball out of the park. A pitcher also needs a strong team behind them to support their efforts; your ministry needs a dedicated team of staff, volunteers, and donors working together to achieve your fundraising goals. Without these key elements, both the pitcher and your ministry risk striking out. Implement these 12 winning principles:

1. Start with a quality strategic plan: Develop a comprehensive plan that includes clear objectives, timelines, and budgets. Identify potential donors and build a strong team to execute the plan.
2. Develop a strong case statement: Clearly articulate your organization’s vision, mission, and values. Show how the capital campaign will help you achieve your goals and make a significant impact in your community.
3. Measure your weakness: Identify the gaps in your organization’s capacity and create a plan to address them. This will help you avoid potential pitfalls and ensure the success of your campaign.
4. Raise capital dollars when you need them: Timing is critical in capital campaigns. Plan your fundraising efforts around specific milestones and capital needs to maximize your success.
5. Big capital donors are attracted to big capital visions: Develop a compelling vision that inspires donors to give generously. Clearly communicate the impact of their gifts and recognize their contributions.
6. A capital campaign is a series of small, individualized campaigns with 10-100 of your most capable donors: Focus on cultivating strong relationships with your top donors. Develop customized solicitation strategies that match their interests and capacity to give.
7. Everybody wants to receive large gifts, but few are willing to invest the time required: Plan for the long haul and invest in building relationships with donors. This will pay off in the long run and help ensure the sustainability of your organization.
8. Major donors are both customers and salespeople: Treat your donors as valued partners in your organization’s success. Ask them to encourage their friends to partner with you.
9. Campaigns involve both fundraising and goodwill: Use your campaign as an opportunity to build goodwill in the community. Develop strategies to engage volunteers and leverage social media to raise awareness of your organization’s work.
10. Your CEO must become your #1 fundraiser: The CEO plays a critical role in fundraising efforts. They should be visible and engaged in donor cultivation and stewardship.
11. Recruit campaign leadership wisely: Build a strong campaign leadership team that is committed to your organization’s mission. Choose individuals with strong networks and experience in fundraising and management.
12. No large ask should be a surprise, but too low may be an insult: Be strategic in your solicitation strategies and ensure that your asks are appropriate for each donor’s capacity to give. Communicate clearly and transparently about your needs and goals and recognize the value of each donor’s contribution.

Keep pitching your vision to your key donors. These simple steps will help you meet and exceed your campaign goals. We know what it takes to win and can coach you to a successful campaign!

About the Author: Pat McLaughlin President/Founder – Pat started The Timothy Group in 1990 to serve Christian ministries as they raise money to advance their missions. TTG has assisted more 1,800 Christian organizations around the world with capital, annual, and endowment campaigns. More than 25,000 of Pat’s books, Major Donor Game Plan, The C Factor: The Common Cure for your Capital Campaign Conundrums, and Haggai & Friends have helped fundraisers understand the art and science of major donor engagement. Pat makes more than one hundred major donor visits annually and provides counsel to multiple capital campaigns.

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” What a great fundraising principle! The first gift is the hardest gift to ask for and receive but a $100 entry level gift could eventually grow into a $1 million gift if you carefully and prayerfully guide your donor along the generosity path. Five mile markers lead to a game-changing gift: (1) Information, (2) Education, (3) Cultivation, (4) Inspiration, and (5) Solicitation.

INFORMATION
We live in an information age. Everything we need to know is virtually at our fingertips. Donors with different capacities–entry level, mid-range, major, and mega donors–need different types of information to distinguish what makes your organization unique. There is truth in the phrase, “You never get a second change to make a first impression.” In this information phase of the relationship, you need to clearly share your mission, vision, and core values. Your mission is who you are and what you are about. Your vision statement states where you are going or at least want to go. Your core values express what you hold dearly. Let me say it another way, “What is the single most persuasive idea you can convey about your ministry?” Share what sets you apart from the other 1.8 million 501c3 organizations in the United States. Go beyond mission, vision, and core values—define your critical core competencies. What do you do best and what is unique about your ministry?

EDUCATION
There is an art and science to donor development. This is the art phase. Education can be defined as “the purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty.” You have shared information with your potential donor, now help them understand your organization. In the education process, we often try to weave in this question, “We wonder who would address these specific needs if we were not in business?” Donors have many giving choices. Why should they give to you? You are educating your donor about your organization, and they are educating you about who they are and their hot buttons. What is a hot button? It’s what makes a donor pound the table as they emphatically state, “This must be accomplished, and I will make it happen.” Information and education might not motivate your donor to make a 7-figure gift—there are a couple more steps, but you’re getting closer.

CULTIVATION
Cultivation is drilling deeper with your donor relationships. Ask your ministry partner how they want to receive information. Do they prefer snail mail, e-mail, text, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, in person, by phone, or smoke signals? Make sure you are communicating in ways they will receive your messages.

Both previous steps are important but in the cultivation phase you are personally communicating the human need you have identified and how you are addressing that need. Cultivation is sharing how your ministry is changing lives. It’s not about bricks and sticks, or endowment, it’s about the power of the Gospel in the lives of people—real people with real needs and how the work of Christ in their lives can change them for eternity.

Listen to the donor during this cultivation period. It’s a discovery phase for you to determine what really gets them excited about giving to your organization or a specific project. What gives them great satisfaction in their giving? A sign along a rural road in Kansas says, “Pray for a good harvest… but keep on hoeing.” A synonym for hoeing is cultivating. Work the soil of the mind, the heart, and the checkbook.

INSPIRATION
Donor development is story and plan. The inspiration step is all about your story. Share with your donor success stories of the people you serve. Let them see what you do through the lives of your service recipients, such as a student whose life has been changed, a homeless person who found Christ through your ministry, or a couple who have benefited from your counseling program. Let the people you serve help tell your story.

Inspiration doesn’t happen through a brochure, e-mail, or text. It’s the life-changing story you tell in person, or on zoom, or a video you share on your iPad. It’s your mission, vision, and core values seen in a real person who has experienced real change because of what God has accomplished in their lives through your ministry. Here are four words to help define inspiration: spur, stimulate, motivate, and encourage. Show your donor how you are impacting lives and how their gift can make an eternal difference. This inspirational message may come from your CEO or your Executive Director. It’s not about hype or empty publicity. This is where you meet the need of the donor “to know.” They want to look behind the scenes and be confident you are using their money wisely.

SOLICITATION
Here’s the fun part—the culmination of this donor process—the Ask! If you have been successful in building toward this with the other four steps, this one is truly enjoyable and easy. Consider this acrostic ROOF—Reason, Opportunity, Observation, and Follow Up.

The Reason for the donor visit should have been clearly defined by what you have shared with the donor in the ramp up to the Ask. By the way, 98% of the time this is a personal visit.

The Opportunity is the project you are asking them to fund and the timing of that funding.

Observation involves watching and listening to their response. Did you ask too low, too high, or about where you should be with this donor? Very likely if they do not gasp when you make this request you may have asked too low. Rarely will a donor who has been through this four-step process be offended by the Ask, even if it’s a large one.

Follow Up is working through their responses: Yes, Maybe, No, or even No Not Now. Once again, your response should be personal, which means following up with a phone call, text, and a handwritten note. You will need a signed commitment device or a letter of intent to confirm their commitment.

Overcome your FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) in the solicitation process. This is a friendly family discussion. Practice the Golden Rule, ask them as you would like to be asked. There is no reason to be shy! Utilize this 5-step process with Mid, Major, and Mega Donors on your file and you will achieve success by the Grace of God. In closing, please practice Pat’s 4 C’s:

• See the People!
• See the People!
• See the People!
• See what God’s going to do with the relationship!

As high tech we get in our fundraising process, don’t forget high touch!

About the Author: Pat McLaughlin President/Founder – Pat started The Timothy Group in 1990 to serve Christian ministries as they raise money to advance their missions. TTG has assisted more 1,800 Christian organizations around the world with capital, annual, and endowment campaigns. More than 25,000 of Pat’s books, Major Donor Game Plan, The C Factor: The Common Cure for your Capital Campaign Conundrums, and Haggai & Friends have helped fundraisers understand the art and science of major donor engagement. Pat makes more than one hundred major donor visits annually and provides counsel to multiple capital campaigns.

In every pre-campaign study, we ask the client to provide a profile for each of the donors they want us to visit in the personal interview process. I saved this typewritten donor prospect introduction that a school’s director of development attached to my interview form. I think you will find it interesting.

What I know of (name of donor) is that he just sold a local theme park (name of park) and netted $20 million. That apparently is a portion of his money. He seems very private and hard to reach. Our CEO told me he would take me to lunch if I even got him to answer the phone. After scheduling the appointment, I think my CEO should buy me dinner. He has grandchildren at our institution and is hopeful we will accept another special needs grandchild for the coming year. His family has offered to pay all costs associated with this special needs program. He gives $10,000 annually to our institution and I would not know (name of donor) if he walked in my office right now.

In the very cordial, one-hour interview I subsequently had with this donor, he shared a passion for both an annual operating/program-driven funding need as well as interest in seeing a major capital campaign launched. When we got to the range of giving/money section of the questionnaire, he would not indicate a specific amount. But he did make this statement:

“As a family we would like to see this educational program added to the school, and we are excited about the potential three-phased capital campaign.” (A pre-campaign study should position campaigns in phases.) He went on to say, “If those two projects have the potential of becoming a reality, we have the capacity to contribute several million dollars.” When I thanked him for his keen interest and then asked him what “several million dollars” meant, he told me in the $3-$5 million range.

This donor shared how busy and profitable their various companies were, and I became convinced this was a really high-capacity donor. I went back to the school and asked the CEO and director of development how fast they could get out and introduce themselves to this donor. Remember, the director of development said he would not know this donor if he walked into his office!

They got to know this donor and his family, who have since generously invested their time, talent, and treasure in the school. They have helped access their contacts in a variety of businesses and corporations to help in the capital project in particular. And, oh, by the way, to date the family has contributed $4,500,000 toward the school’s academic and capital projects.

How will you lay a solid foundation for a conundrum-free capital campaign if you do not ask questions and invite people to step up as never before to invest in your organization? How will you know who will serve on your campaign committees/teams and open new doors to foundations, corporations, philanthropists, and new giving sources? You need donor research, and certainly some of it can come from scientific, hard-asset research by one of the search organizations (Donor Search, Wealth Engine, Blackbaud, etc.). But you will never find the “millionaire next door” unless you sit down and have a discussion over a case statement and a questionnaire. As high tech as we have become in our society, organizations still need to be high touch with their donor base.

John Humphrey, a partner at the high-tech software company Pariveda Solutions in Dallas, told me that 67 percent of all business communication in the world is non-verbal. High-tech communication will not achieve the goal you desire in your donor research. A pre-campaign study allows you to be high touch in defining your current services and the need to move forward with a capital campaign to fund new programs, purchase new property, and add new personnel (the 3 P’s of capital campaigns).

Please understand, I firmly believe Psalm 127:1 (NLT): “Unless the Lord builds a house,
the work of the builders is wasted.” But I also firmly believe conundrum-free campaigns begin with good research.

The success stories I just shared with you may have become a reality without a study, but I don’t think so. I ask you to carefully and prayerfully consider all options before launching a campaign to give your organization a fair opportunity for a conundrum-free campaign. Plan your work, then work your plan. Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” A study gives you that additional opportunity with donors to test your organizational/campaign vision. It allows you to raise the flag and see who salutes. As good as you think your plan may be, if your donor base does not show your plan favor in a study you cannot and will not be successful.

Will you discover surprises in your pre-campaign study? Absolutely!

To learn more about planning and implementing a conundrum-free campaign, order your copy of Pat’s book, The C Factor: The Common Cure for Your Capital Campaign Conundrums. 

About the Author: Pat McLaughlin President/Founder – Pat started The Timothy Group in 1990 to serve Christian ministries as they raise money to advance their missions. TTG has assisted more 1,800 Christian organizations around the world with capital, annual, and endowment campaigns. More than 25,000 of Pat’s books, Major Donor Game Plan, The C Factor: The Common Cure for your Capital Campaign Conundrums, and Haggai & Friends have helped fundraisers understand the art and science of major donor engagement. Pat makes more than one hundred major donor visits annually and provides counsel to multiple capital campaigns.