What Is a Capital Campaign? Ultimate Guide for Nonprofits

As a nonprofit professional, fundraising is always on your mind. After all, the revenue you receive powers your operations and allows you to make a difference in your community every day.

However, there will likely be times when your organization needs to complete—and fund—a large-scale project outside of your usual activities. This is where capital campaigns come in!

If you’re considering launching a capital campaign (especially for the first time), you probably have many questions about the process. To help you get started, we’ve created this guide covering all of the basics you need to know to successfully plan and execute this fundraising effort. Let’s dive in!

While healthcare organizations and educational institutions most commonly launch capital campaigns, any nonprofit with a major need that requires significant financial backing may choose to run one. These needs may include:

Naturally, the most significant benefit of running a capital campaign is generating the revenue you need to complete a large-scale project. However, there are some additional advantages your nonprofit can experience, such as:

• Increased community engagement. Capital campaigns can increase your organization’s visibility in its local community, spreading awareness of your mission and encouraging more people to get involved.
• Enhanced capacity to deliver services. Once you complete the project your capital campaign is intended to fund, you can use your new investments to significantly impact those you serve.
• Long-term donor relationships. During your capital campaign, you’ll likely acquire new high-impact donors and identify existing donors who could upgrade their giving. Then, you can cultivate relationships with them that lead to lasting support.
• Momentum for future fundraising efforts. The first capital campaign you run will probably be the most challenging. However, by completing it successfully, your team will gain experience and implement systems that will fuel future large-scale fundraisers. Plus, you’ll build trust with stakeholders who will be more likely to get on board next time since you’ve already proved that you can handle major campaigns.

To maximize these benefits, your team will need to strategically manage all of the key elements of a capital campaign. Let’s examine those components in more detail.

The overarching questions you’ll need to ask to get your capital campaign off the ground are:

• What do we want to accomplish?
• How will we go about achieving it?
• Who will be responsible for getting us to our goal?

Since we’ve already covered the what—the purposes of capital campaigns—let’s dive into the how and who of these fundraising efforts.

Steps to Launch a Capital Campaign

To make these large fundraising undertakings more digestible, we’ve divided the capital campaign planning and execution process into seven steps for your nonprofit to follow.

Your approach to a capital campaign will only be as strong as your team. Let’s discuss all of the internal and external individuals you’ll need on your side for your campaign to succeed.

Internal Team Members

Capital campaigns are an organization-wide effort, requiring support from your:

• Staff: Executive leadership, major gift officers, prospect researchers, volunteer coordinators, event planners, marketing coordinators, and various other nonprofit employees will all need to contribute their unique expertise to your capital campaign.
• Board members: Your board of directors will be involved in the day-to-day planning and execution of your campaign in addition to providing strategic oversight. They’ll also need to approve campaign-related expenditures and should help your team secure major gifts. Additionally, they should consider how they want to participate in giving themselves (about 15% of capital campaign revenue typically comes from board members—less than in the past, but still a significant amount).
• Volunteers: Fill any campaign staffing gaps with the talents of your most loyal volunteers. Whether they’re sharing their personalized peer-to-peer fundraising pages or setting up for your launch party, volunteers will provide your team with additional bandwidth and help you reach more supporters than you could on your own.

From your internal team members, form a planning committee (who will, of course, plan the campaign) and a steering committee (who will be in charge of ongoing campaign maintenance). You’ll likely also form ad hoc committees for activities like budgeting, event planning, and marketing.

Most organizations recruit a volunteer campaign chair to oversee all committees and promote the campaign in the community, although some elect a board member or staff leader as the chair.

External Capital Campaign Consultants

Many nonprofits that conduct capital campaigns hire external consultants to help with some aspects of their efforts. While some consultants will chair the campaign themselves, others will provide advisory services and resources to help your team do most of the hands-on work.

Before hiring a consultant, make sure you know what you’re looking to get out of the partnership. Some questions to ask yourself as you start considering candidates include:

• What is your budget for working with a consultant?
• What kind of access do you need to your consultant (full-time in-office assistance, intermittent remote sessions, or somewhere in between)?
• Do the consultants you’re considering have high-quality samples of their work and positive reviews from past clients to show?
• Are your organization’s leaders on board with your hiring decision?

Your consultant should be committed to bringing your nonprofit’s vision for a capital campaign to life. Look for one who can serve as a true partner and is invested in your organization’s success.

If your nonprofit is ready to launch its own capital campaign, draw inspiration from these examples from real DonorSearch clients!