You know the moment. Someone in the room says the words “capital campaign,” and everyone suddenly looks at the table. Or your consultant mentions that most organizations your size mail six appeals a year, and you only mail two, and something in your stomach drops.
That feeling isn’t strategy. It’s discomfort.
I’ve worked with hundreds of nonprofits, and the pattern is hard to miss. The biggest jumps in revenue almost always sit on the far side of something the staff didn’t want to do. Not something they couldn’t do. Something they didn’t want to do.
Your Comfort Is Not a Data Point
When a new idea comes up, the objection usually arrives dressed as donor research. “Our donors would never respond to that many mailings.” “That’s not who we are.” “Our board isn’t ready for this.”
Sometimes that’s accurate. Most of the time, nobody has actually tested it. What’s really being said is that the idea feels unfamiliar, and unfamiliar feels like risk.
Meanwhile, the numbers are sitting right there. Organizations that mail more appeals raise more money. Put your executive director in front of major donors every month, and your major gift revenue climbs.
None of this is a close call in the data. It only looks like a close call from inside your own hesitation.
Trust the People Who Have Already Done It
You wouldn’t talk yourself out of a diagnosis because you didn’t like what you heard. You’d ask the doctor how confident she was, and then you’d act.
Your fundraising deserves that same respect. When someone who has run forty capital campaigns tells you your organization is ready for one, that assessment is worth more than your gut. When the benchmarks say your appeal schedule is thin, believe the benchmarks. The expert is not guessing, and neither is the data.
This is part of what I mean when I say fundraising is leadership. Leadership includes overriding your own instincts when better information is on the table.
The Ledge Is Narrower Than It Looks
Big, scary initiatives are usually built out of small, familiar parts. A capital campaign is a feasibility study and a case for support, followed by a long run of one-on-one conversations. You have had one-on-one conversations before. You can have more of them.
So look hard at whatever you’ve been avoiding, and ask whether it’s really made of things you already know how to do:
- Adding two more appeals to the annual calendar
- Asking your best donor for ten times her last gift
- Getting the ED into four donor meetings a month
- Retiring the gala that everyone privately admits loses money
- Making the phone call you’ve rewritten as an email three times
Not one of those requires a skill you don’t have. They require you to go first.
For more on pushing past polite fundraising, read 5 Ways to Be More Aggressive in Your Fundraising Efforts.
Your Organization’s Mission Doesn’t Wait for You to Feel Ready
The people you serve don’t get a pause while you work up the nerve. The program that needs funding this year needs funding this year.
Your discomfort is real. It’s also temporary. The gap between what your organization is raising and what it needs to thrive is neither.
So take the leap. Then systemize it, so the second time it isn’t a leap at all.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
