Mastering a fundraising feasibility study starts with asking the right questions—and engaging the right people. Far from being just a preliminary step in campaign planning, these studies are strategic tools that uncover key insights, shape your approach, and set the foundation for fundraising success.
A successful campaign feasibility study is more than just a preliminary assessment – it’s a strategic roadmap that sets the foundation for your fundraising efforts. While many organizations view a feasibility study as a simple checkbox in their campaign planning, the reality is that a study serves as a crucial foundation for successful fundraising initiatives. Building on our previous discussion of feasibility study basics, let’s dive deep into the critical components that make these studies effective tools for campaign planning and explore how each element contributes to your campaign’s ultimate success.
Table of Contents
The Right Participants Matter
Gathering diverse perspectives isn’t just helpful – it’s absolutely essential for a comprehensive feasibility study that truly represents your stakeholder landscape. We typically recommend a multi-pronged approach to data collection that ensures no valuable viewpoint goes unheard. This includes conducting 40-70 one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders, organizing one to three focus groups, and implementing a broader public survey reaching 100-300+ individuals, depending on the campaign goal.
The reasoning behind these numbers is strategic. In our experience, forty interviews represent the minimum threshold for gathering enough qualitative data to identify meaningful patterns and trends. With fewer interviews, you risk missing crucial insights or drawing conclusions from an unrepresentatively small sample. When we expand to 70 or more interviews, we can capture nuanced perspectives across different stakeholder groups – from major donors and board members to community leaders and program participants.
Focus groups add another layer of valuable insight by creating dynamic discussions where participants can build upon each other’s ideas. The interaction between participants often reveals concerns or opportunities that might not surface in one-on-one interviews.
The public survey component ensures broader community representation and can validate (or challenge) the themes emerging from your more targeted research.
Information Collection Methods
While the three primary methods of information collection – one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and online surveys – each serve distinct purposes, the art lies in how you integrate these different data sources to create a complete picture.
One-on-one interviews allow for deep, nuanced exploration of individual perspectives. These conversations often reveal sensitive information about giving capacity or personal motivations that wouldn’t surface in group settings. They’re particularly valuable for understanding potential major donor interests and concerns.
Focus groups excel at generating dynamic discussions that can uncover unexpected insights through participant interaction. The key is carefully curating group composition to ensure productive discussion while avoiding power dynamics that might inhibit honest feedback.
Online surveys provide quantitative data that can validate qualitative findings from interviews and focus groups. They’re particularly valuable for testing specific assumptions about broader community interest and support levels.
Setting the Stage for Success
When conducting a feasibility study, participants react to a concise, two-sided summary of the project – but the creation of this summary is an art in itself. This intentionally brief document outlines essential elements: the identified need, organizational background, fundraising goal, and project timeline. However, what’s equally important is what’s left out of the summary.
The summary’s brevity serves multiple strategic purposes. First, it encourages questions and promotes deeper discussion about the project’s various aspects. When participants aren’t overwhelmed with details, they’re more likely to engage critically with the core concepts. Second, it allows you to gauge what additional information participants naturally seek, which can help identify potential concerns or areas of interest that might not have been apparent to your organization.
The summary should be crafted to spark curiosity while providing enough context for meaningful discussion. It should present an overview of your project without becoming a comprehensive campaign document. Remember, you’re not trying to sell the project at this stage – you’re gathering honest feedback about its viability.
Creating the Right Environment
The setting for gathering information isn’t just a logistical consideration – it’s a crucial factor that can significantly impact the quality of feedback you receive. Private, closed-door environments foster open and honest conversations, allowing participants to share potentially sensitive feedback without concern for who might overhear. Note-taking should be subtle and shouldn’t interrupt the natural flow of conversation.
Building rapport with interviewees goes beyond basic pleasantries. It requires creating an atmosphere of trust and professional comfort where participants feel their opinions are valued and their time is respected. This means demonstrating genuine interest in their perspectives and maintaining a balance between professional distance and approachable warmth.
For virtual meetings, mastering the technical aspects is crucial. Recording capabilities can be valuable for ensuring accurate documentation, but they should never become a distraction. The interviewer must maintain strong virtual presence – making eye contact with the camera, using appropriate non-verbal cues, and managing any technical issues smoothly.
Recording and Documentation
Effective documentation in a feasibility study requires a systematic approach that captures both explicit and implicit feedback. Beyond recording what participants say, skilled interviewers note tone, enthusiasm levels, and non-verbal cues that might provide additional context to verbal responses.
Developing a standardized but flexible documentation system helps ensure consistency across multiple interviews while allowing for unexpected insights to be captured. This might include templates for basic information and key questions, plus space for unique observations and follow-up items.
Key Areas of Investigation
A truly comprehensive feasibility study must delve deep into several critical areas through carefully crafted questions that build upon each other. The organization’s reputation and leadership assessment is particularly crucial – it’s not enough to simply ask about community image. You need to understand the nuanced perceptions of your organization’s impact, effectiveness, and leadership capacity.
Questions about organizational reputation should explore both current perceptions and historical context. How has the organization’s image evolved over time? What specific actions or programs have shaped these perceptions? Understanding these dynamics helps predict how potential donors might respond to your campaign.
Project-specific questions need to go beyond surface-level awareness. They should explore the perceived urgency of the need, the appropriateness of your proposed solution, and how it fits within the broader landscape of similar initiatives. This section often reveals unexpected competitors or potential collaborators.
Here’s a brief sampling of what to ask in a study:
Organization reputation and leadership
- How would you describe [organization’s name] community image and reputation?
- What would you say its strengths and weaknesses are?
- On a scale of 1-5, 5 being very visible, how would you rate the organization’s overall visibility? (Scale 1-5)
- On a scale of 1-5, 5 being a top interest, how would you rate [organization’s name] among your philanthropic interests? (Scale of 1-5)
Project specific questions
- Do you know about [program you’re raising money for]?
- Do you participate in the program?
- Do you know about anything similar to the program offering?
Structure of the project, the type and timeline
- What questions do you have about the project?
- Do you think the project is sound and feasible?
- Based on the project summary, what are the benefits of the project?
- What are your concerns?
Financial feasibility
- How do you perceive the project? Is it too ambitious, too conservative?
- What challenges to the success of the campaign do you think might exist?
- Who would you suspect may be the largest contributors to this campaign?
- Please list other major fundraising campaigns current under way.
Campaign leadership and volunteerism
- In your opinion, who within the community needs to be involved in the campaign?
- Do you have a recommendation for someone that has credibility within the philanthropic community to serve as general chair or co-chair of this campaign, should it move forward?
A blanket question to gather any remaining thoughts, comments, questions, concerns
- Do you have any final thoughts you wish to share?
The Art of Asking Questions
The methodology behind question-asking in a feasibility study is both an art and a science. While maintaining neutrality and exhibiting genuine curiosity are fundamental principles, the real skill lies in knowing how to sequence questions to build natural momentum and depth in the conversation. Effective interviewers understand the psychology of information-sharing. They begin with broader, less challenging questions to establish comfort before moving into more specific or potentially sensitive areas. For example, starting with questions about general community needs before diving into specific project details helps contextualize the discussion and puts participants at ease.
The timing and pacing of questions are equally crucial. Good interviewers read verbal and non-verbal cues to determine when to probe deeper and when to move on. Examples of cues include a pause or the introduction of a related but broader topic connected to the current discussion. They understand that silence can be a powerful tool, allowing participants time to reflect and expand on their initial responses. This patient approach often yields richer, more thoughtful insights.
Professional neutrality in feasibility studies goes beyond simply avoiding reactive responses. It requires developing a sophisticated approach to handling both positive and negative feedback constructively. When participants express concerns, skilled interviewers acknowledge them without defensiveness and probe deeper to understand underlying issues.
Efficiency in interviews doesn’t mean rushing – it means maintaining purposeful forward momentum while allowing space for important tangents. Every question should serve a specific purpose in your information-gathering strategy, and interviewers should be prepared to guide conversations back on track when they stray too far from core objectives.
Putting It All Together
A well-executed feasibility study is far more than a simple assessment tool – it’s a strategic process that can transform your understanding of your organization’s potential and challenges. By following these expanded guidelines for participant selection, question development, and information gathering, organizations can build a solid foundation for campaign success.
The key is remembering that every element of your study – from participant selection to question design to documentation – should work together to create a comprehensive picture of your campaign’s potential. This thorough approach not only helps identify potential challenges early but also builds crucial relationships and momentum for your campaign.
Brianna is a purpose-driven fundraiser and marketer, passionate about helping nonprofits amplify their impact. She is committed to supporting organizations in streamlining their fundraising efforts, allowing them to focus on bringing their vision to life with greater clarity and purpose.
