Why Capital Campaigns Are Important

Capital Campaigns Can Boost Your Major Gifts Fundraising Program

If you've not gone through a capital campaign with your organization in the past two years, you need to start preparing for one now.

You should always be in campaign mode — doing a campaign, wrapping one up, or preparing for one. We all read about these mega campaigns for $250 million, for $1 billion. How do they work?

First of all they're comprehensive campaigns, not just capital campaigns for bricks and mortar. They include all annual giving, special project funding, building projects, endowment, and planned estate giving. They count everything for 5 to 8 years. And, they focus fundraising through the lens of the campaign to energize the entire staff, the fundraisers, the fundraising volunteers, and most importantly the donors. They have excitement, energy, urgency, deadlines, additional resources, and provide a sense of direction to everyone.

So how do campaigns boost major gift fundraising? To help achieve camapign goals donors get caught up in the energy of the campaign, they find projects that interest them, and they make major 5-year pledges to the campaign. All of this is major gift fundraising work — and all of it is more fun and exciting in a campaign than in just everyday, year in and year out, fundraising.

TomWilsonMajorGiftsGuru@gmail.com

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