Capital Stewardship Campaigns: Fundamentals of Campaign Design

This is part three in a series of articles on capital stewardship campaigns.  The first article asks the question every organization needs to answer before launching a campital program, “Are you ready for a capital campaign?”  If you have not read that one yet, you can read it here.  The second article looked at 10 factors that impact potential.  This article outlines the fundamental elements of a capital stewardship campaign and things to consider in design. 

Strategic and proactive fundraising for capital projects has been around for many years in the Christian Church. Today churches can design capital stewardship campaigns based on proven principles of fundraising that work. Within those parameters there is ample room to design campaigns, so they fit the local church in terms of process.  Departure from basic principles though, usually results in a shortfall in generating the church’s full financial potential.

The basic principles that impact campaign design are communications, leadership modeling, giving motivation, an effective response process and campaign timing.  

Communications

Effective communication in church life is one of the major obstacles church leaders face. It is easier today with the advent of social media and technology, but there are still a lot of churches that are not utilizing these channels of communication as much as they could be.  How churches plan to communicate the message of the campaign is one of the key elements in the campaign design.

The goal is to reach the entire congregation whether they attend regularly or not.  The problem of effective communication can be particularly pertinent in churches that have a very committed core and beyond that, the soft side of individuals who rarely attend, are not that involved and seldom give. To maximize potential the campaign focus needs to be on the entire group, all households under pastoral care not just the core. That is why communication strategies have to be developed that contact everyone not just those who come to church on Sundays.

Leadership Modeling

One of the most trusted principles in all of fund raising and stewardship work is leadership modeling. Leaders need to lead and when they do, amazing things happen.

When churches launch a major capital campaign it usually requires a level of giving well beyond anything the church has ever achieved. It is sometimes a challenge for members and adherents to believe that those kinds of dollars are available. Particularly, if the church has been struggling to balance the budget or if the economy is struggling or simply because of the size of the challenge. One of the most effective ways to counter that believability issue is to demonstrate a level of success prior to inviting the congregation at large to respond.

Believability is one of the most important motivators to giving, and without it, can become the biggest barrier.

The goal, therefore, in all campaigns is to tap into the leadership core. The most committed people to your church or organization will be your biggest advocates and most sacrificial givers.  When this happens, it adds a high level of believability and dynamic to the giving process because people feel that they are participating in something that is already successful.

Giving Motivation – What motivates people to give?

One of the most asked question in almost every campaign is, “why do people give” or “what will motivate people to respond generously?”  The answer is directly related to the focus of the campaign.

A good campaign should accomplish a lot more than simply raising money. Capital campaigns are a window of opportunity to deal with much broader issues such as spiritual commitment, ownership of the vision, and helping Christians understand the basic biblical principles of stewardship, which form the basis of holistic stewardship.

Christian giving is not based on need but on character. The flip side of that is to say, even if the church did not need a dime, Christians need to give. If all that is accomplished is the raising of money, we would say the campaign has not been entirely successful.

Churches often overestimate what people in the congregation understand about what is being proposed. When churches launch building programs leaders often assume that because they understand and own the project, the same applies to everyone else as well. Not true.

All stewardship campaigns are a process of bringing everyone to the same level of understanding and ownership of the project. I refer to this as contextualising the donor and the obvious question is, “what information is needed within this context to generate a generous response?”

Clear sense of purpose – There is nothing that impacts giving more than a clear sense of the answer to the question, “why are we doing this?” The necessity of a clear purpose is indeed the fuel that drives the engine of a campaign.  

Biblical focus – Another major piece is a biblical educational focus. When Christians are presented with opportunities to support God’s work financially, they often struggle with their response because these opportunities become a test of their value system. When their need and comfort zones consume all their resources, they are tempted to define potential by what is left over.

Christians constantly need help to understand the basic principles of biblical stewardship, and how those principles impact their value systems.  Because it is out of those value systems that they allocate the resources God has entrusted to them.

In every campaign there needs to be a process in the public worship life of the church to do this educational focus. The theological focus of such teaching needs to be done by the ministry staff and needs to be consistent with the church’s theological position. It is absolutely essential to the overall success of the campaign in terms of response that this process of education and teaching happens.  

Worthy Cause – Is that the proposed project a worthy cause?  It is worthy if the express need that is driving the project is legitimate.  Capital items which are important to the maintenance of the building overall, vision driven projects and growth through additional staffing and outreach are all very worthy causes.

A crucial part of establishing whether the cause is worthy or legitimate is a needs assessment. When there is broad input into discussions related to the need, the issues of legitimacy or worthiness are usually easily resolved.

Modelling Generosity – Behavior and stewardship are a learned behavior, usually from some modeling of biblical principles in actual lifestyle. That is why testimonials of people respected in the church where they express their experience in giving and the resultant blessing of God or so very powerful. Anecdotal testimony of how people have responded to the concept of sacrificial giving in their own lives is so helpful to people who are asking questions about their own response and what it might consist of. The description of biblical passages which illustrate how God’s people have responded to God’s commands and encouragement are helpful because it is an illustration of obedient behavior.

Spiritual commitment – Moving the donor from simply giving token money to a project to an understanding of holistic stewardship where the response is part of their overall commitment to Christ, the church and their faith. If the perspective donor does this, not only does the money on the capital side come in, but budget remains healthy and may actually improve.  Properly focused campaigns can solve financial problems both short term and long term.

Efficient response process

One other factor that has a significant impact on the level of congregational response is the efficiency of the response process. The best response process includes the following general principles.

Principle One: Expect every potential donor to respond

It is reasonable to expect that if someone says Your Church is my home church, if they are involved, and if they give that they will give a response to the invitation to support the project. This is not to say that they will all respond financially, but only that is reasonable to expect that they will at least say something in response.

Principle two: Control the response process

It is extremely important to control the response mechanism. People need to be asked at the right time when they are ready to respond, and the response mechanism needs to be tracked. The best method of process is that each donor has a personalized response mechanism which is delivered and picked up by a trained canvasser during the canvass phase of the campaign.

Campaign timing

There are three windows to run a capital campaign assuming a four to six months timeframe 

The fall window – This is a good time to launch a campaign because people are back, ministry programming is in full swing, people are excited, and the fall is often a positive environment.  The fall campaign also goes through two holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, that are very complimentary to the concept of giving.

For fall campaigns it is recommended to start in late spring so that the initial set-up, which usually takes up to two months to complete, is done prior to the summer. This timeframe gives enough time to finish the campaign by the third week of November. Fall campaigns work very well and this timeframe is the most popular 

Fall winter window – The timeline here means the initial set-up is done from October to the end of November.  There is a break for Christmas from advent to the second week of January, meaning that the main part of the campaign runs from January to the end of March.

The January to March window is a good time frame given that there are no major holidays other than lent and spring break. The conclusion campaign usually happens in the Easter season. In general terms, this fall winter window provides an uninterrupted time frame however, some of your volunteers may be snowbirds who will be away for the winter.

Spring window – Campaigns that utilize this time frame run from January to early May. This means that all the setup and the whole campaign are run after January 1st.  The same challenges as above will apply with the Easter holiday, spring break and the snowbirds. All three of these timelines can work well depending on the activities in your church.   

Final considerations

The campaign needs to receive priority attention in the congregation. Meaning, they cannot be run with other major events happening during the same time frame, such as conferences or any type of events that involve a significant number of your congregation.  A final consideration regarding campaign timing is to try and incorporate any major church celebrations and anniversaries into the timeline of the campaign.