A potential client once told me that she didn’t feel a feasibility study was needed for the capital campaign.
“It doesn’t matter what you find out,” she told me, “I’m going to complete this project.”
She didn’t change her mind. Years later, that particular project is nearing completion, with a ground breaking scheduled for just months away. Over the course of the campaign, we have both learned a lot, and I still admire her ability to maintain the original vision for the project, while incorporating changes along the way. Still, forewarned is forearmed, and I suspect the amount of time and money we would have saved along the way with some advance planning might be substantial.
Whether a campaign will succeed or fail has a lot to do with the people involved. Successful campaigns are led by passionate visionaries who can maintain enthusiasm for a project even in the face of bureaucratic hang-ups, fundraising lulls, and economic anxiety. Regardless of the level of enthusiasm of campaign leadership, I firmly believe that every organization contemplating a major fundraising effort will benefit from knowing a few things that a feasibility study can provide.
A thorough study, conducted by an organization outside your own (more on this later) will reveal information that will be critical in developing your campaign, give you direct knowledge about how your message is received, help you understand more about the audience(s) you are approaching, their concerns, influences and ability to help, and provide direct, impartial evidence of how well your project is received in light of other community concerns, including a flagging economy.
Impartiality is important to this process. As a consultant, I have been involved in more than one study interview in which the interviewee was chosen as someone considered friendly to the organization and perhaps even predisposed to support the project. It turns out there can be skeletons in any closet, and an interview subject may have some weighty information they’ve been interested in sharing. At best, this opportunity to do so with an objective third party can be highly constructive – giving an organization the information it needs to affect change, while avoiding hurt feelings. In some cases, the interview subject may need to express very deep seated frustrations with the organization that might need to be addressed, and would otherwise never have come to light.
What is the message?
Often those closest to the organization have a difficult time crafting the most compelling message. They’re simply too involved in the perspective of what’s best for the organization. An effective case for support will convey a message about how the project will benefit the community, expand the organization’s capacity for benefiting the community and/or broaden or deepen the impact it has on the community. How a project might help the organization perpetuate itself, give it an edge over the competition or keep it from going belly up might be compelling to those on the inside, but can even be offensive to people who are considering your project in light of what might be more pressing community needs. It is actually surprising how many organizations fall into the trap of communicating a message that is more organization-centric than anyone meant it to be.
Fast Tracking the Cultivation Process
In major gift campaigns, such as for endowments and capital projects, cultivation is a process that includes introducing a prospect to the project, building enthusiasm for the project, making a direct and considerate ask, and following up. This can take months. In times of economic upheaval, the process is the same, but takes even longer. People are still giving generously, but taking longer to make decisions about major gifts.
Not only can a feasibility study help you understand how your message is received, it can jump start the cultivation process. It is important to choose your interview subjects carefully for this reason. There should be a healthy sampling of people who are already close to your organization, who could potentially be supportive of the project, and whose candid opinion you value. They will be receptive to an interview and a follow up meeting going over the results of the study. They will be impressed that you are doing your homework and investing the proper amount in such an important project by planning carefully.
Redirecting the Campaign
Sometimes a study will reveal very surprising results, leading organizational leadership to take a completely different track, scale down or up significantly on the scope of a project or change the message altogether. To varying degrees, some form of change has happened the development of every capital campaign I have ever been involved with, and every other campaign I have had any exposure to, as a result of information discovered in the feasibility study.
Often during the course of a campaign, an organization will redirect at least once. Changes in the economy, the leadership of the organization, or other factors will make such redirects necessary. Even so, campaigns can mitigate the damage this redirection can cause to a campaign by studying all the potential variables beforehand, and compensating for or addressing what it can. Wouldn’t it be nice to uncover any potentially damaging or embarrassing information prior to publicly embarking on such a long and difficult process?
Ultimately, if an organization is convinced it will move forward whether a campaign is “feasible” or not, I recommend some form of pre-campaign planning. A well run study is money, time and other resources very well spent. If semantics get in the way, the word Feasibility can be changed to Planning. Most experienced business professionals recognize the value of planning and development in the corporate world, and prospective donors usually respect and admire a nonprofit organization’s willingness to invest in such an effort prior to engaging them in a process that will ultimately ask them to take a risk (especially in the initial stages of a campaign) by investing in your vision.