The crack cocaine of fundraising?

Feasibility studies are the crack cocaine of fundraising, says the author of a forthcoming book.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has run two pieces canvassing the for and against  this provocative suggestion.

Disclaimer alert! I happen to believe that one of the best, if not the best service people like me can offer you as a fundraiser is a feasibility study. I make my living, in part, from doing them. And, curiously, I have heard campaign director after campaign director stand up at fundraising conferences and say just exactly the same: how important it is to engage a consultant to conduct a feasibility study before embarking on a major fundraising campaign.

By major fundraising campaign, I am talking about major capital campaigns. 

A capital campaign, briefly explained, is a fundraising campaign aiming to raise a) a significant amount of money, b) in a defined period of time, c) mainly from very large gifts from wealthy individuals and institutions, d) for a specific, or series of specific projects.

A campaign of this nature can be extremely effective and extremely demanding of all those involved. And all those involved will include your CEO, chair and board and most of your senior colleagues. You will also need to budget spending somewhere in the region of 15% of your campaign target. So immediately, you are talking about a very major investment of your organisation's resources.

You are also going to be 'nailing your colours to the mast' by focusing a lot of your communications and publicity around your capital campaign once it is underway.

Should you seriously consider any of the above without having had a good look at the feasibility of your plan and its likelihood of success?

Could you do a feasibility study yourself? Yes, possibly. But would it be as expert and robust? Well here in essence is what a capital campaign fundraising feasibility study does. When you have finished reading ask yourself these questions again.

The feasibility study will put your case for support to people both within and outside of your organisation and ask, does this make sense? Can this be done? Would you support it? Do you know anyone else who would support it? How can it be improved?

The feasibility study will look at the leadership of your organisation and assess whether it is strong and focused enough to withstand the scrutiny that major gift givers will give it. The study will ask tough questions about the abilities of your chair, CEO and board to achieve what your case for support proposes.

The feasibility study will look at your existing donors and other connections. It will ask what research you have done? Who amongst these people are wealthy and well-connected? How strong is your relationship with them? How likely is it that they are either going to make large gifts themselves or lead you to large gifts?

It will test the information received from these last questions using a tried and tested algorithm – the capital campaign gift chart. From that study will conclude the likelihood of you achieving your target.

Now, back to those questions. Is this a process that you can see, hear or feel yourself undertaking? How honest will the people you know and work with be about your case for support? How rigorous will your questioning be of the leadership, the people who pay your salary?  How objective  do you think potential donors are likely to be when you test your case for support on them? What indication of the likelihood of a gift and the size of that gift will they make to you?