Are You Actually Ready for a Capital Campaign? A Candid Readiness Check

Feasibility studies get sold too early. A consultant will happily take $30–60K to tell you what you could have figured out for free: you're not ready. Here's the pre-study readiness check I wish more boards ran before they signed a contract.

1. Do you have a project the community actually wants?

Not a project you want. A project a critical mass of your top 50 supporters would describe unprompted as urgent and necessary. If you can't name five current donors who have said, in their own words, "you should be doing this," you're not there yet.

2. Is your annual fund healthy?

Campaigns don't fix annual funds. They cannibalize them. If your annual giving is flat or declining, running a capital campaign accelerates the problem. Get annual giving growing for two consecutive years before you launch.

3. Do you have a lead gift in sight?

The rule of thumb: your top gift should be at least 20% of the campaign goal, and your top ten gifts should cover 60%. If you cannot name a real prospect capable of a seven-figure gift for a $5M campaign — not "we hope someone shows up" — the campaign is not viable at that goal.

4. Is your board all in?

Every board member must give personally, at their capacity, before the public phase. Every one. If two board members privately tell you they won't, you have a board problem to solve before you have a campaign to run.

5. Do you have staff capacity to run it?

A campaign is a second full-time job for your ED and development director for 2–3 years. If your team is already stretched, the campaign will either get shortchanged or your core operations will. Add capacity — staff or campaign counsel — before you start.

6. Is your case for support written and tested?

Not a brochure. A one-page narrative that answers: why this, why now, why us, why this amount. Read it to five prospective donors before you commission a feasibility study. Their reactions will tell you more than any study will.

7. Are your finances audit-clean?

Sophisticated donors will look. Ninety days of runway, a clean audit, and a board finance committee that can talk about the numbers without notes. If any of that is shaky, fix it first. Nothing kills a lead gift faster than a donor discovering surprises in the 990.

What "ready" actually looks like

You have a project people are asking you to build. Your annual fund is growing. You can name your lead gift prospect by name. Your board has already begun their own giving conversations. You've added or planned to add capacity. Now — and only now — a feasibility study will earn its cost.

What to do if you're not ready

Don't skip the campaign. Delay it. Spend 12–18 months building the conditions above. The organizations that launch too early raise 60% of their goal, exhaust everyone, and set themselves back a decade. The organizations that wait until they're ready raise 105% and finish stronger than they started.