Capital Campaigns

They are one of the most difficult aspects—and the most rewarding—of fundraising, yet crucial when contemplating raising large sums of money.

This article from Contributions Magazine, “Confessions of a Capital Campaign Chair” is excellent.

An excerpt.

“It’s almost 8:00 pm and I am sitting in my hotel room: day four of a ten-day trip. I’ve spent the last twelve hours facilitating a fundraising training, returning phone calls, checking my email, and wolfing down a couple of unremarkable meals.

“A file sits on the desk in front of me: Beth Jacob Synagogue Capital Campaign. I open it with a mild sense of dread. My call list. Good news: so many prospects. Bad news: so few of them have been contacted. I am way behind.

“If I start now, I think, I can get in an hour of calls, maybe talk to a few folks. I could set up an ask meeting for next month. I could get a pledge or two over the phone. I could check a few names off the list. Wouldn’t that feel good? If I don’t start now, I can watch something mindless on television. Wouldn’t that feel really good? God knows I’ve earned it.

“I groan, knowing that karma always wins. I’ve spent the day teaching people that fundraising is not as difficult as they think – it just requires passion, persistence, and patience. At the moment I’m not doing so great in the passion department, but I pick up the phone anyway. In the words of the Hebrew sage Hillel, if not me, who? And if not now, when?

“Mrs. Bernstein? This is Andy Robinson. I’m calling from Beth Jacob – do you have a moment?”

“Let me tell you about our synagogue. First of all, Beth Jacob is a small community –about 90 member households – comprised of every sort of Jew, ranging from very traditional to very secular. We have four different sets of prayer books, each representing a different branch of Judaism. As I like to tell my gentile friends, if you can imagine a church comprised of ten Catholics, five Baptists, some Lutherans and Methodists, a few evangelicals, three Unitarians, two Quakers, a Mormon, and a couple of people who don’t really care about religion one way or the other – well, that’s our synagogue.

“Founded nearly 100 years ago, Beth Jacob has survived and sometimes prospered thanks to the work of many volunteer lay leaders and the occasional part-time, circuit-riding rabbi. We have no full-time rabbi, and have employed one for only three of the last 70 years. We now have a part-time rabbi to supplement the efforts of perhaps half a dozen different people who lead services, choosing the prayer book they prefer. I like to think of Beth Jacob as an experiment in grassroots democracy: messy, complicated, non-hierarchical, opinionated, and at times transcendent.

“We occupy a small two-room building on a residential street in Montpelier, Vermont’s capital city. It’s an old house made more tenuous by poor design and deferred maintenance. When it rains, water flows through the basement, undermining the foundation. We were advised by an engineer that we really shouldn’t use the sanctuary in winter – after a big snow storm, he said, the roof might cave in. Well, this is Vermont and we get a lot of snow…

“So now we’re in the middle of a capital campaign.

“I am meeting with a donor, a well-respected member of the community. Because he’s so prominent, we really need to have him involved. He asks a lot of thoughtful questions: “Has the entire board pledged? How much have you raised so far? When you’re talking to people, what are you hearing?”

“Finally he says to me, “You know, I gave to the building fund years ago. Nothing happened then, and I’m not convinced it’s going to happen now. So here’s my offer – I will make an additional pledge, but I’m not writing the check until construction begins.”

“Fair enough,” I say, thinking – not for the first time – every gift is an act of trust. We better deliver on our promises.

“I’ve been raising money for thirty years, including staff positions at five different nonprofits, and consulting for more than fifteen years. However, this is my first time chairing a capital campaign – for the record, I don’t even have the title of “chair,” but apparently I am the lead volunteer. The experience has forced me rethink some of my assumptions about how fundraising works. Out of necessity, we’ve ignored several best practices and modified others – and we’re having success. Despite the current recession, we’ve raised more than $465,000.

“Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

“1. There is no perfect time to raise money, so ask for it anyway. We began the process with about $150,000 available from our existing building fund, a surprise bequest, and a large anonymous pledge. This was very encouraging; less encouraging was the state of the congregation, which has been perennially divided over a variety of issues: modes of worship, membership dues, the need (or not) for a full-time rabbi, whether we should require donations for admission to High Holiday services (many congregations do, we don’t), and of course the question of Israel and Palestine, which divides Jewish communities across North America and around the world.

“As I have told the synagogue’s board and members many times, had I been hired as their fundraising consultant, I would have advised against launching this campaign until the community was more united and confident. Unfortunately, given the sorry state of the building, waiting for a better moment wasn’t really an option.”