 Capital
Campaigns - Here's your initial checklist
Any capital campaign
needs preparation to ensure success. Kent Dove, vice president for
development and executive director of campaigns for the Indiana University
Foundation, has prepared a 10-point Dove Preparedness Index, which
he offered at an international fundraising conference.
The DPI considers
10 prerequisites for capital campaign success, each scored on a scale
of 1 (the lowest) to 10 (the highest). Items 4, 6 and 7 are considered
the “key three.”
- Commitments
of time and support from all key participants (board, CEO, prospective
major donors, key volunteer leaders, staff, organizational family).
- A clear organizational
self-image and strategic plan for organizational growth and improvement.
- Fundraising
objectives based on important and legitimate institutional plans,
goals, budgets and needs.
- A written document
that makes a compelling case for supporting the campaign.
- An assessment
of the institutional development program and a market survey addressing
internal and external preparedness.
- Enlistment
and education of volunteer leaders.
- Ability and
readiness of major donors to give substantial lead gifts.
- Competent staff
and, perhaps, external professional counsel.
- Adequate, even
liberal, funds for expenses.
- Other factors
(age of the organization, caliber of the constituency, range of
the institution’s giving program, size and geographical distribution
of the constituency, previous fundraising success, quality of the
program and impact of its services, location of the organization,
human factors, state of the economy, competing and conflicting
campaigns, trends in the nonprofit sector, unfavorable publicity,
local issues).
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