We know major gift campaigns can be large, intimidating and complex, but many stakeholders (including Board Directors and Committee Members) enjoy seeing progress communicated through tracking methodologies and simple reports.
Best Practice: As you move through a major gift campaign, you’ll want to pay close attention to five key metrics/questions:
1. How much have you received in gifts and pledges so far?
2. What is the percentage of cash gifts vs. pledges? (breakdown the dollars)
3. How many gifts are in your pipeline?
4. How many gifts still need to be identified and cultivated?
5. What activities will deliver desired results? (campaign goal)
Answers/Responses to these five questions are what you should be conveyed to your Board, Committee, staff and volunteers each month. It doesn’t need to be — and shouldn’t be — more complicated than that.
Questions to Ask Your Campaign Leadership Team
Ask your campaign leadership team:
· Who is in the pipeline and who is assigned to cultivate and solicit for respective gifts?
· Are we effectively identifying and cultivating prospective donors for new gifts?
· Which donors are 'at the one yard line' and what activities can help close the gift?
· What is the delta between what we’ve raised, gifts we’ve solicited, and dollars we believe we can raise?
As the campaign progresses, it should become clearer where gifts will come from. In theory, all organizational stakeholders should be able to see the path to your campaign goal based on the number of prospects you have in your pipeline and associated gift ranges [see GIFT TABLE example].
Good tracking practices will help you and your team stay on top of progress, delegate actions and make strategic decisions. Making Adjustments to your Major Gift Campaign
In many cases, organizations can add micro campaigns within the major gift campaign. For example, a donor may not want to give to capital needs…but has great interest in funding sustained programming through an endowment gift. Wonderful! And what if a donor sees the campaign nearing its intended goal…but has great interest in contributing to deferred maintenance for continuing operations? Awesome! A 1:1 match challenge (often offered by a significant donor) WITHIN a major gift campaign is a great way to draw awareness to a unique giving opportunity and highlight campaign momentum. Tremendous idea!
As an organizational leader, feel free to call a special session (Board or Campaign Exec Committee) to help navigate these unintended ‘gifts’ from your donor base.
Tracking Can be a Major Gift Campaign Lifeline
One of our clients, a Greek fraternal organization surrounding a $9M capital campaign, used this set of five questions to help track their progress.
As the fraternity was hoping for 50% involvement (alumni giving percentage), it was clear during the first six months that this dynamic was too hopeful. Given that the campaign marketing, communications and donor appeals were professional and effective for those fraternal members willing and able to give, one of the major donors completed the campaign (funded the balance) after regional Campaign HOUSE PARTIES were executed and 90% of the monies were raised.
The tracking system reviewed each month became a significant source of information and a reality check. The review forced the campaign committee to have serious conversations. Additionally, it prompted them to work even harder to educate and engage certain alumni.
Without a clear and regular system of evaluating progress, the committee might not have made mid-campaign adjustments. In the end, $9.5M was raised exceeding the $9M original goal.
Metrics are Critical to Your Campaign Roadmap
As with all things in life, having a roadmap to where you are trying to go (your campaign strategies, tactics and goals) will help you be more successful and make necessary course corrections along the way.
The Clemons-Associates team strongly recommends using proven visuals to help communicate campaign progress to stakeholders. Feel free to download best practice samples of GIFT TABLES from our list of resources. Or contact a Clemons-Associates team member if you are entering a major gift campaign and seek consultative services.
BONUS IDEA!
Use digital assets and affordable social media platforms to let the public (which includes corporations, philanthropists and foundations) know of your campaign progress. Consider have a FUNDING BAROMETER highlighted on the micro site dedicated to your campaign.
Clemons-Associates believes campaign communication, impact amplification and donor education is a key dynamic. It is why 40+ Clemons-Associates clients have collectively raised more than $720M in major gifts.
Bottom line:
There are many campaign activities nonprofits can leverage to successfully execute a major gift campaign. Imperatively, adopt simple methods of Tracking and Reporting to convey funding progress to your key stakeholders. Promise them (and deliver) updates on a frequent basis (e.g., monthly). As Board Directors, Committee Members, Volunteers are often very busy, err on 'over communication' with a State of the Union ONE SHEETER designed to illustrate campaign progress in a 60 second read.
Clemons-Associates works closely with each client on developing these mission critical elements (we have developed and/or collected quite a tool chest over the last 25 years). Contact one of our team members and we can share case studies, templates and best practices tools.
Craig Clemons with Friend, Philanthropist and President/Founder/Board Chairman of Express Employment Professionals, Bob Funk, Sr.
Seeking expert assistance from seasoned professionals?
Contact Craig Clemons at craig@clemons-associates.com or one of our rock star associates for more details. Clemons & Associates is on standby to help you with brand identity, strategic messaging, campaigns, digital assets, programs/projects and/or development endeavors.