Capital campaigns have been a vital fundraising strategy in America for more than a century.

Churches, hospitals, colleges and YMCAs were early pioneers of organized fundraising. They focused on volunteer-led efforts to build facilities or endow programs, typically through peer-to-peer appeals within close-knit communities. Yale University’s (1890s) and Harvard University’s “Million Dollar Campaign” (1919) are among the earliest large campaigns in higher education.

The YMCA’s campaigns in the early 20th century, often guided by fundraising consultants from John Price Jones and Associates, are widely seen as the prototype for today’s professional capital campaigns. These campaigns included a fixed timeframe and defined goals. Philanthropist and fundraiser John D. Rockefeller, Sr., believed that philanthropy should be strategic and organized, and he developed several best practices.

The decades to follow would see a rise in fundraising counsel and professionalism, along with the identification of best practices that exist today. Those practices include strategies and benefits of the quiet and public phase, leadership gift strategy, case statements, the gift pyramid and campaign feasibility and planning studies. Universities would often be the pacesetters for campaigns that grew more complex in scope and longer in duration.

Campaigns have continued to evolve and include annual and planned giving. Specifically, higher education campaigns of today are seeing increased goals with many surpassing $1 billion.

The impact of campaigns has been transformational, allowing donors to effect changes and achieve goals they did not see as possible. Today, campaigns face many challenges, impacting organizational success and the level of philanthropy, donor retention, ethics and the nonprofit sector.

Here are a few of these challenges:

Campaign Goals and Duration

The desire for ever-larger goals often drives a campaign to lengthen in duration.

Campaigns should be about achieving extraordinary goals, not merely larger ones. This does not mean that an organization should be in a perpetual campaign. Goals may ebb and flow with changing needs across the organization’s life cycle.

“Institutions get into trouble when presidents set goals based on competitive envy rather than donor data and research.”

— Jerry Panas

 Currently, campaigns are often open-ended, lasting “as long as needed”.  Such campaigns fail to conform to The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition which includes the concept “of limited duration”.   Note that CASE’s Campaign fundamentals describe a campaign as “an intensive fundraising effort designed to raise a specific amount of money in a defined period of time for a particular project.”

“A capital campaign is a concentrated effort… its power is in its focus and urgency. Let it stretch out too long and it becomes a permanent state of asking.” 

— James Greenfield

Campaigns that last too long:

• Struggle to maintain excitement.
• Encounter turnover among key donors and staff.
• Compete with emerging institutional priorities.
• Risk message drift and diminishing ROI on stewardship.
• Can lead to donor frustration.
• Lose momentum, clarity and donor urgency.

The accounting of campaign gifts still varies widely, even with standards such as CASE. Presidents who realize that a more modest  goal might be the right thing, especially when they follow up with questionable gift accounting, are still under pressure to raise more than the last campaign.

Presidents and CEOs often want their tenure marked by a record-breaking campaign. This pursuit of legacy can lead to setting aspirational goals untethered from organizational capacity or donor readiness.

“Campaigns built on ego instead of empathy will erode donor trust.”

— Kay Sprinkel Grace

Campaign Strategy

Having the right strategy is essential to the fulfillment of any campaign’s potential. and the right strategy requires valid research.  Without a strategy  supported by valid research, an organization is just repeating procedures that are not tailored to a campaign for the particular organization at that stage of their fundraising and organizational development.

 “Campaigns must be about urgency, structure and purpose—not just asking.”
— John Price Jones

Campaign components should be derived from the organization’s strategic plan. 

For decades,  feasibility and planning studies have been an accepted best practice as a vital step before embarking on a campaign. Properly conducted, these studies provide valuable information that can help an organization mitigate risk and be successful. . Studies can inform recommendations on:

• The organization’s leadership and programs
• Interest in prospective project(s)
• Current level of financial support
• Strategies to increase the campaign’s potential
• Issues that must be addressed
• Positives that should be accentuated
• Communicating about the organization and prospective projects
• The level of donor excitement about the prospective project/menu of projects
• Organizational readiness to embark on a major campaign
• Specific next steps and a timeline toward a potential campaign 

Unfortunately, improperly conducted studies are too common and damage the organization while tarnishing the image of consulting firms and the nonprofit sector generally. Common missteps include:

• Consultants failing to explain the rationale behind a recommended goal
• Organizations inadequately preparing for campaigns
• Clients’ confusing cultivation and research thereby introducing bias and invalidating research. .
• Consultants violating a pledge of confidentiality  made to potential donors..
• Organizational staff – and even development staff – not understanding campaign best practices and the structure and benefits of a study.

“When individuals are aware that they are being observed by someone in a position of power or authority, they are likely to engage in impression management, tailoring their responses to align with what they believe the CEO wants to hear.”

• Angelo Valenti

A campaign plan is essential and it should be based on research and data. The larger the campaign’s complexity, the more robust the plan.  Strategy should come from:

• Confidential insight gained through a campaign feasibility and planning study
• An understanding of the organization’s mission, culture, programs and goals
• Data from previous campaign, annual giving and deferred giving
• Observations from the study and review of materials relating to internal readiness
• Advice of professionals who have a successful history of securing gifts and directing campaigns

“Throwing tactics at a problem without strategy is like throwing spaghetti at a wall. You make a mess and waste resources.”

• Simone Joyaux

“You must have a plan. Strategy is the bridge that connects passion to performance.”

• Jerry Panas

Discernment and sound judgment are increasingly uncommon. Some practitioners cannot listen deeply, interpret information accurately or offer contextually appropriate recommendations. The capacity to assess a situation with clarity and insight is essential yet frequently absent.

It’s essential to recognize that many CEOs and fundraising professionals have limited firsthand experience with major campaigns, often having participated in only one or two throughout their careers. Sometimes they were at their institution during a campaign but not in a role that provided access to high-level strategy or decision-making. As a result, there can be gaps in understanding what truly drives a successful campaign—gaps that must be addressed through intentional learning and collaboration.

Recently, we encountered a telling example while assisting a university with its advancement strategic plan—intended to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive campaign. Reviewing the draft objectives, it became clear that the staff members assigned to coordinate the upcoming campaign lacked a foundational understanding of the essential steps required for campaign preparation and execution. This isn’t uncommon, underscoring the critical need for experienced guidance and structured campaign planning from the outset.

Campaign Preparation

To ensure maximum success, a major campaign should be planned years in advance. It should flow from an organization’s strategic plan and be supported by other plans, such as a prioritized master plan for building projects.

In a conversation with a CEO last year, they shared plans to launch a campaign quickly, even though they were new to the organization and had yet to build relationships with key major donors. Rather than prioritizing cultivation, the CEO hired a consulting firm to include them in planning study interviews and to make introductions.

We gently cautioned that this approach blurred the distinct purposes of donor cultivation and objective research. Trying to combine them, we noted, was a bit like speed dating—quick, superficial and unlikely to yield the depth of commitment a successful campaign requires.

Beyond ensuring that your top prospective donors have been personally visited by a key leader within the last six months —benchmarking campaign readiness should include the following:

• Clearly defined internal processes for campaign planning and approval, including early input from leadership and a clear path to board endorsement of the campaign priorities and funding “menu”.
• An engaged, generous board that gives at a leadership level and is willing to open doors, advocate for the institution and support campaign momentum.
• Consistent fiscal stability, shown by multiple years of balanced budgets, growing reserves and sound financial oversight.
• A deeply embedded culture of philanthropy, where institutional leaders (CEO, senior staff and board) view fundraising as mission-critical, not just transactional and are willing to invest in building capacity.
• A well-maintained donor database with appropriate donor management software that supports segmentation, tracking and analytics.
• Documented program impact, including quantitative outcomes and longitudinal success metrics that validate the case for support.
• Compelling human stories that connect the mission to individual lives and move donors to action.
• A strong annual fund or loyalty giving program, serving as a pipeline for major gift identification and donor engagement that is growing each year.
• Clear and consistent messaging across leadership, staff and volunteer leaders, with a strong elevator pitch and unified language around campaign goals.
• Staff capacity and readiness, with trained development professionals, clear roles and sufficient bandwidth to manage ongoing fundraising and the campaign’s added demands.
• Cultivated prospects for the campaign steering committee that brings influence, affluence and credibility.
• A comprehensive communications plan, including donor-facing materials, case messaging and digital engagement tools.
• Resources and a plan to support campaign costs, including any campaign-related capacity building, professional fees for a campaign feasibility and planning study and campaign counsel, campaign-related travel, events and materials
• A defined menu of prospective campaign projects including the rationale and outcomes. For capital projects, this should include preliminary renderings, floor plans and costs. These should be firm and not continually changing.
• Discernment over the need, viability and benefits of any short- or long-term finances to cover pledges or to support the projects – i.e., if they have earned income potential and if this can be included in a project budget.

Adjusting Course

We are sticklers for best practices and undergird every project with research. Sloppy fundraising has us in a mess. The facts are harsh: giving has been stuck at around 2.1 % of US GDP for decades and overall donor retention continues to slide. The encouraging news is: well-designed and faithfully executed campaigns can still deliver extraordinary results for your institution and the philanthropic sector at large. They can give donors greater meaning in their lives, save lives and change lives through the programs they support. Strategic campaigns can revitalize philanthropy!

Here are some tips:

• Hiring a consulting firm to ensure the feasibility study is grounded in donor insights, not ambition. A robust planning study reveals readiness, shapes realistic goals and helps avoid strategic missteps. 
• Engage your board and leadership in shared governance. Involvement in goal formation and strategy builds accountability and authentic advocacy.
• Center the campaign on impact, not just dollars. Emotionally connect donors to real outcomes.
• Define a clear timeframe and set strategic milestones. A well-scoped campaign builds urgency and momentum while yielding measurable progress.
• Design a transformative experience for donors. Tailored engagement helps each prospective donor see the scope of their impact and realize they can make a bigger difference than they imagined.

Donor numbers are declining across the board. That means deepening relationships, and campaign best practices must be non-negotiable.

By recommitting disciplined feasibility work, mission-driven case development, authentic donor engagement and stewardship rooted in impact, we can recast major campaigns as fundraising milestones and critical instruments of donor loyalty, institutional vitality, and philanthropic resurgence.

When we blend strategy with spirit, intentional engagement with urgency and systems with storytelling, campaigns don’t just raise money, they shape futures. And in today’s landscape, where every donor counts and every relationship matters, that’s precisely what our sector needs.