Capital campaign trends, from the AFP international conference
The Association of Fundraising Professionals‘ 42nd annual International Conference on Fundraising was held in Baltimore last week. I thought I would share an interesting summary of one of the presentations. The Chronicle of Philanthropy (great newspaper!!) reported on how Sonya Campion, a Seattle fundraising consultant, sees capital campaigns changing. This definitely reflects what I see in the field.
- With the expansion of capital campaign goals has come the need for charities to increase the number of new donors they tap for campaign gifts, said Ms. Campion. In several campaigns she has worked on, she said, new donors have accounted for 50 to 60 percent of all contributors. In one nearly completed drive for a social-service group, she added, 80 percent of the donors had never previously given to the charity.
- As efforts to attract new donors succeed, Ms. Campion said, fund raisers do not necessarily focus as much on attracting six- or seven-figure gifts — which many groups have long done. Now campaigns are winning many more gifts in the $10,000 to $25,000 range.
- Although many groups try to persuade donors to put their names on buildings and other facilities in exchange for big campaign gifts, Ms. Campion said, donors are less and less interested in that type of public recognition. But, she said, they still want a lot of attention from the charities they support. In one campaign for a hospital, she said, a wealthy donor declined to have a cancer ward named for himself or his loved ones. What he wanted, Ms. Campion said, was “a lifelong relation with the cancer ward, he wanted to be informed of new research and advances in oncology.”
- Ms. Campion also says some charities are too careful and avoid contacting people who have already made a pledge to a campaign, when in many cases such donors would like to hear from the organization again. She says she was annoyed when one charity never got in touch with her after she made a three-year pledge to its campaign. “Finally I called them, and they told me that I was on a do-not-disturb list,” she recalled. “They thought they were doing me a favor by not contacting me until my pledge was paid.”
- Another change in capital campaigns: Few drives now rely on a single campaign chairman, a volunteer who makes a big gift to start the campaign and then solicits others. Such volunteer leaders have been replaced by multiple leaders or committees, each with specific goals. In an extreme example, a campaign by an art museum that raised $23-million five years ago had 13 committees, Ms. Campion said. She said one reason for the success of the campaign was that fund raisers encouraged the committees to compete to see which one could raise the most.
- People who make campaign contributions, said Ms. Campion, have become more skeptical in recent years. Increasingly, she said, donors are making “tester gifts,” a relatively small initial contribution that is sometimes followed by additional campaign gifts. “Fewer people want to sign five-year pledges,” she said.
Related Posts:
- Insights from the AFP International Conference
- Howdy from the AFP Western Fundraising Conference
- Enough about you, let’s talk about me
- The trends: fewer donors, larger gifts
- Tip of the Week: United Way does it right
