Wondering if your nonprofit is ready for a capital campaign? Learn how a Campaign Readiness Study from BrandRaise goes beyond a traditional feasibility study to give you a clear, actionable path forward.
When planning a major fundraising campaign like a capital campaign, understanding your community’s readiness and support is crucial. That’s where a Campaign Readiness Study comes in. This essential tool not only evaluates whether your campaign is viable but also uncovers key insights to shape a strategy that sets you up for success. It can also be incredibly overwhelming to dig into the details of what this process entails. Below, you’ll find the most common questions we field about what happens before, during and after a Campaign Readiness Study.
Table of Contents
What is a Campaign Readiness Study?
A Campaign Readiness Study is a tool that helps determine whether a fundraising campaign is viable and, more importantly, how best to execute it.
The study itself evaluates your readiness for a campaign by assessing factors like community support, brand awareness, donor interest, and internal capacity. We know that your needs are both valid and often urgent, so we don’t focus on limitations or roadblocks. Instead, we focus on possibilities. Sometimes that means suggesting a reduced goal or recommending an extended timeline, but we’re here to show you what can be done, not what can’t.
Our goal is to help you move forward with confidence, equipped with a strategy tailored to your specific needs and resources.
What’s the difference between a Campaign Feasibility Study and a Campaign Readiness Study?
You’ll hear both terms, and while they’re often used interchangeably, we think they represent different approaches.
A traditional Campaign Feasibility Study is designed to answer one question: is this campaign feasible? The result tends to be a yes or no based on whether the numbers and community support seem to line up.
A Campaign Readiness Study goes further. Rather than stopping at feasibility, it assess how ready your organization is to successfully complete a capital campaign.
For our process, that includes a brand and fundraising audit, a public survey, and in-depth stakeholder interviews all designed to give you a holistic picture of where you stand, and what it will take to succeed. Instead of a binary answer, you receive nuanced, detailed recommendations that account for your organization’s strengths and opportunities, all based on the real need driving the campaign in the first place.
The TL;DR version: a feasibility study tells you if something can happen and a Campaign Readiness Study helps you figure out how to make it happen regardless because the need is necessary.
What is a Study Committee and what do they do?
The Study Committee is a small group of 8-10 individuals formed at the beginning of the Campaign Readiness Study and their role is to be the first champions of the campaign.
The committee meets up to three times and their activities include:
- Brainstorming who should participate in the Study Summit as interviewees
- Reviewing the brand and fundraising audit results
- Providing feedback on the Study Summit communications materials
- Participating in the Study Summit as an interviewee
Beyond these activities, the committee plays a critical strategic role by making a formal recommendation to the Board on the capital campaign project. From a leadership perspective, this is where the first leaders of the campaign begin to take shape. In many cases, Study Committee members go on to become capital campaign committee members.
Want to learn more about capital campaign committees? Click here to read The Power of Committees in Capital Campaign Fundraising
Who from our organization participates in the project?
Both your Board and team members play an active role in the Campaign Readiness Study, though the time commitment is manageable and well-defined.
Staff participation typically looks like this:
- The Executive Director attends weekly meetings with the BrandRaise team, approximately one hour per week.
- An admin team member sends invitations to potential Study Committee members, approximately three to five hours total.
- An admin team member sends invitations and coordinates scheduling for Study Summit interviewees, approximately one to two hours per week.
- An admin team member sends reminders to Study Summit interviewees, approximately three hours total.
Board participation typically looks like this:
- Participate as an interviewee in the Study Summit, approximately one hour.
- Review the project summary and provide feedback, approximately one hour.
- Help identify individuals who might be invited to participate in the Study Summit, approximately one hour.
Involving a variety of voices from your organization while keeping time commitments clear and reasonable ensures the study reflects a well-rounded perspective without overwhelming you or your team.
Why do you need a Campaign Readiness Study?
A Campaign Readiness Study supports the success of your future capital campaign by replacing assumptions with real insight. It does this by uncovering unknowns before they become problems, providing a clear roadmap for what needs to happen and when, identifying the areas that need the most attention, and shaping preliminary content for a case statement that speaks directly to what your donors and community actually care about.
Uncover Unknowns
Sometimes challenges or opportunities aren’t obvious to everyone involved. The study helps reveal hidden obstacles so you can address them early. For example, in a past study it was revealed that the organization’s awareness was even lower than expected, which meant we needed to double down on awareness building to support the future campaign.
Focus Areas
The study helps zero in on the areas that need the most attention, ensuring every aspect of your campaign is aligned with your goals. For example, in a past study we learned just how much we would need to focus on education to overcome the stigma around homelessness, so we created more communication pieces than originally planned with that as a focus.
Building the Case Statement
The study helps all stakeholders understand what should be included in your case for support by uncovering the common questions and concerns that donors and community members actually have. Some of the most common questions and concerns can be addressed directly when we become aware of them in the Campaign Readiness Study, resulting in a stronger, more confident case for your project.
What happens if the study says we can’t achieve our goal?
This is one of the most important questions we hear, and one of the places where our approach differs from a traditional feasibility study.
Our answer is that the need doesn’t disappear because a study surfaces challenges. If your organization has identified a genuine need in the community, a difficult study result doesn’t mean the project shouldn’t happen – we don’t believe in delivering hard nos if the need is real. Instead, we get curious and wonder how we can get creative about moving forward.
That might mean adjusting your goal, phasing the project differently, changing a location, or addressing a gap before launching the campaign.
If a need is real and the community would genuinely benefit, our job is to help you figure out how that need can be met. If the need turns out not to be there, that’s actually valuable information too because it protects your organization from investing significant time and resources in the wrong direction.
Does the Campaign Readiness Study need to take place in person or virtually?
If you’re local here to the Minnesota Twin Cities, we are happy to do as much as we can in-person. That being said, we can conduct most of the study virtually. We’ve learned that meaningful engagement doesn’t require everyone to be in the same room; it requires the right combination of information, connection, and conversation. Regardless of the location, we build the engagement so that your team has enough context and confidence to move through the project successfully.
A non-negotiable, even if you’re out-of-state, is an in-person kickoff to the project so we can set the tone and build rapport to carry us through the entire process.
What is the timeline of a Campaign Readiness Study?
The Campaign Readiness Study typically takes five months.
The timeline is as follows:
Pre-Project: We handle all the setup, and you gather the appropriate information and answer our project questionnaires so that when we kick off the project, everyone is aligned and ready to move.
Month 1: Kickoff the project, confirm Study Summit and committee meeting dates, begin recruiting Study Committee members, draft the project summary, complete the brand and fundraising audit, and build out the public survey and communications plan.
Month 2: Conduct Study Committee Meetings 1 and 2, finalize the project summary and public survey, launch the public survey, and begin sending Study Summit interviewee invitations.
Month 3: Conduct Study Committee Meeting 3, finalize post-study communications, and complete all preparation for the Study Summit.
Month 4: Conduct Study Summit interviews and focus groups, and draft the Study Report and executive summary.
Month 5: Finalize the Study Report, and present findings to the Study Committee and the Board.
When is the ideal time to start planning for a Campaign Readiness Study?
Most organizations come to us assuming they’ll be making asks relatively quickly; that once you decide to do a capital campaign, you’ll begin soliciting within a few months of getting started. The reality is that our process is built around doing a lot of work upfront and behind-the-scenes. This means you likely won’t be making your first major gift ask until at least 15 months after your Campaign Readiness Study begins.
Here’s how the full timeline breaks down:
- Campaign Readiness Study: 5 months
- Pre-campaign: 11 months
- Silent phase: 4 to 10 months
- Public phase: 4 to 10 months
From start to finish, you’re looking at 24-36 months. And if construction is part of your project, there’s an additional timing consideration: we recommend not breaking ground or launching the public phase of your campaign until 60 to 70% of your goal is secured.
Want to learn more about the capital campaign phases? Click here to read The Three Phases of a Capital Campaign
What is included in the Study Report?
The Study Report is a detailed (and lengthy) document that compiles all the information gathered throughout the Campaign Readiness Study. It’s also accompanied by an executive summary for easy digestion and quick reference.
The report includes a situation analysis, full findings and analysis, tailored recommendations, and suggested next steps. The appendix contains the public survey questions and responses, one-on-one interview questions and responses, committee job descriptions, the gift table, and the brand and fundraising audit results.
We send the report to the Executive Director and then present our findings to the Study Committee and the Board. Both presentations include time for questions and clarification on recommendations, so your leadership team fully understands the findings and feels confident moving forward.
Can we complete a Campaign Readiness Study ourselves?
While some organizations choose to handle parts of the study in-house, there’s significant value in bringing in outside support. Conducting the study internally can introduce bias, even unintentionally. When an independent third party leads the process, participants tend to be more candid, and that honesty is where the most valuable insights come from.
External consultants also bring the experience of having done this across many organizations, which means they know what questions to ask, what patterns to look for, and how to translate findings into a strategy that actually works. Our goal at BrandRaise is to help you uncover the full picture, including the nuances that are genuinely difficult to see from inside your own organization.
What can our organization expect to learn in a Campaign Readiness Study?
As mentioned already, the readiness study is intended to give you a holistic view of your organization’s readiness to move forward with a capital campaign.
This includes:
Committee and timing recommendations: We provide guidance on forming your campaign committee and suggest the optimal timing to launch your campaign for maximum impact.
Favorable and challenging factors: We identify the strengths of your project as well as potential obstacles, giving you a clear picture of what’s working and what needs attention.
Tailored recommendations: Based on the study findings, we provide actionable guidance on how to move forward with your campaign strategy.
Interested volunteers: You’ll identify individuals and groups who are enthusiastic about your project and ready to contribute their time. These are often the people who go on to become campaign committee members.
Gift table: We help build a gift table showing how funds can be raised at different levels which provides a realistic view of the financial support needed.
Project feedback: You’ll receive honest, comprehensive feedback from stakeholders and the community, giving you a deeper understanding of how your project is perceived.
Total gift estimates: We offer projections on the total gifts your campaign could raise, based on the study data.
We recognize that you likely have even more questions than what we’ve outlined here, and that’s totally normal. Whether you’re in the early stages of exploring or ready to get started, don’t hesitate to reach out – we’re happy to offer support and be a sounding board as you think about next right steps. In the meantime, click here to explore all our capital campaign resources.
Kelly is a passionate brand strategist and designer who loves supporting nonprofits on their mission to do more good work in this world. She’s seen firsthand the power of creating a consistent and cohesive brand – from building better connections with your audience to streamlining marketing and fundraising efforts.
