Take the high ground

Thoughts of a major capital campaign during a recession may seem a bizarre notion, but actually this is a good time to think long-term and plan to meet your school’s future needs, writes Alison Graham

New facilities still need to be built, endowments increased and bursary schemes financed: all these can benefit from a capital campaign. The economic downturn offers a breathing space to prepare your institution so that you are ready to undertake a major campaign when the recovery comes.

So what needs to be in place for successful fundraising? Consultants are often engaged to assess whether an organisation is ready to run a big campaign, and there are several key indicators that can give a clear sign of the school’s general good health and its capacity to achieve a campaign’s goals.

Look strong
People like to give to something deemed successful, so a school needs to review its operations and management to ensure there are no underlying weaknesses that might be exposed and that could damage a fundraising campaign. Supporters must feel confident that the right leadership and management are firmly in place and those running the school are capable of reaching the target and delivering the project for which they are raising money.

They need to understand your finances so that they see that, however wisely you use your resources, there is a real and pressing need to raise new money for this exciting and important project. Inspiring leadership is crucial in any successful campaign. All those involved in decision-making and leading the school should endorse the reasons for running a major campaign and feel confident they can achieve the goals. They must be personally willing to participate in the campaign by making their own gifts and working for its achievement.

Togetherness
A good relationship between the head and chair of governors will create a powerful team: potential major donors will want to discuss the campaign project with those responsible for strategy and decisions within the school. These two figures are the best people (though not the only ones) to articulate convincingly the school’s vision for the future and to explain persuasively why and how this campaign will make that vision a reality. A major campaign will require a large amount of the head’s time, something that is always at a premium. What will be the implications on the school and its management when the head is devoting the equivalent of a day a week to campaign work?

The governors cannot shoulder all the responsibility for a campaign themselves: other volunteers in the form of enthusiastic donors should be recruited to the cause as members of a fundraising committee, the chair(s) of which will be one of the campaign’s leaders. If you are asking parents and former pupils to contribute, your approach will be far more effective when someone says: “I’m a parent/alumnus and I’m involved because I believe passionately this is the right thing for the school.”

Forceful argument
You need a compelling and attractive case for supporting your fundraising campaign. Some schools print a campaign brochure, thinking this will make the case for support. Resist this urge. The case is the set of persuasive arguments, backed by a raft of supporting information (financial, building designs, FAQs, case histories etc), out of which the fundraising material will come, but it also sets the context for your school, touching on its past successes and outlining the vision for the future and the requirements that vision needs to become reality. The outline case should be no more than three or four pages long and, by the end, the reader should be inspired to join the campaign.

Before launching a major campaign, you must be confident that your supporters, especially parents and former pupils, share your plans and want to help them come to fruition. Do not announce your plans to all and sundry at this stage, but test the case out on your critical friends to see how well-received it is to decide if a campaign is realistic.

Build a case
If you are aiming to undertake major construction, you will carry out a building feasibility study: the wise school also runs a fundraising feasibility study, and this is one thing that must be carried out by external help, to gather honest feedback during confidential, one-to-one interviews. Take these views into account – they may give other projects a higher priority.

This market-testing produces much helpful, empiric information, since an external consultant can ask potential donors whether they would give to such a campaign if it is run and to indicate the level of their support. This gives a reasonable indication of how popular your plans are and how much people will be willing to back them: thus an achievable target can be set. Avoid making the cost of your plans as the target, unless you know that the amount can realistically be raised from your community.

The numbers game
The third requirement is that you need a sufficient number of people ready and willing to give, especially at high levels. It is one of the fundraising truisms that no major campaign succeeds without major gifts and these need to be secured early, before you go public with your campaign.

Sometimes, schools say: “If every family/former pupil gives £X, then we’re home and dry.” Fundraising does not work like that. School campaigns are achieved through roughly 10 per cent of the donors contributing about 90 per cent of the total, so you need to build a detailed database of all your supporters and well-wishers and analyse it carefully to find those few people who can make gifts that together add up to about half your target. Then get to know them well, find out their interests and how your plans can match those interests and, most importantly, involve them in your planning. Do not pounce on them for a gift too soon, but draw them in and engage them until they are ready to contribute. They should be some of the first people interviewed as potential recruits to the campaign committee.

Lastly, do you have the people, budget and resources to run a major campaign over some 18 months? You need a well-populated, relational database, ideally with several thousand supporters about whom you have appropriate information and with whom you have been effectively communicating about the school and its work. You may already have fundraising experience in-house or perhaps you will have to acquire this from new. During the planning stage, the head and governors should discuss the ethics of gifts and agree some policies and guidelines about any sources of money that would be inappropriate; how benefaction will be recognised; the question of naming rights; the nature and level of stewardship and reporting to donors. Is there currently an experienced development director on your team who can manage the actual campaign and provide all the back-up the campaign chairs, the head and the governors will need, and who will be in post to ensure good stewardship of your donors afterwards? Will you need to recruit extra staff to oversee all the extra administration a campaign requires? What work can reasonably be done by volunteers and who will manage them? Campaigns are hard work, not cheap and take time, but the rewards (not just the money raised) are well worth the effort.

Alison Graham is a senior consultant for Brakeley Ltd. In 1994, she established the Minerva Fund & Network for the Girls’ Day School Trust, then moved to James Allen’s Girls’ School in 1999 to expand their development programme. She has also worked as interim development director for Godolphin & Latymer School.

Return to General Fundraising