← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Capital Campaign Success in 2024: Insights with Steven Shattuck
00:36:12
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- [00:00]
A
Convincing your board to invest in nonprofit tech can feel like a challenge. And that's why Neon1 created Six Steps to Sell your board on nonprofit technology. This guide walks you through identifying your needs, showing how technology can streamline operations, and tackling common objections, all to make your case confidently. Just visit neon1.comjulia to download it free and empower your mission with the right tools. That's neonone.com Julia. All right, on to the show. Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation PODC to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people, and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hello. Hi, it's Nonprofit Nation. Thrilled to be here with you today. This is Julia Campbell. Today I am welcoming Stephen Shattuck, the director of engagement at Capital Campaign Pro, a highly respected thought leader in the nonprofit sector and one of my oldest friends and colleagues from the sector. And Steven's going to share perspectives on the 2024 capital campaign benchmark report findings and how nonprofits of all sizes can achieve their Capital Campaign goals. And, Stephen, I'm just so excited to have you here today. Welcome.
- [02:05]
B
Thanks for having me. Yeah, we've been buddies for. I think we're in the second decade. Can you believe it?
- [02:10]
A
Yeah. Since we took a picture when you were in the banana costume camp. Oh, yeah. We should find that. Oh, I'll find that for the show.
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B
Hopefully that's not lost to time. That would be a real shame for everyone involved.
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A
Gosh, was that. I don't know. I don't even want to venture.
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B
Fourteen, maybe.
- [02:26]
A
Long time. Oh, my God. All right.
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B
Our kids were babies.
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A
Well, speaking of, I mean, you've been a key voice in nonprofit fundraising for over 15 years, and your work really spans a range of issues, you know, from donor engagement to digital content. So kind of what led you to specialize in these areas?
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B
It was a total accident. Some people may have heard this story, but I was actually a film and video and creative writing major. When I got out of college, I happened to go to work at a marketing agency that just so happened to serve nonprofits. Wasn't a goal of mine. It's actually a goal of my wife's and that's what she does. So she's kind of annoying to her. But yeah, that's kind of where I learned fundraising, storytelling, donor communications, all that good stuff. And then when the opportunity to join Bloomerang, which is where I was for a really long time, jumped at that, and that's where I think we met. Right. So definitely by accident. But I've always kind of loved communication, storytelling, and so much of that comes to bear and fundraising as you know that it's, it's been a really good fit. Yes.
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A
And we both wrote, I wrote my second book the same year you wrote your book, Robots Make Bad Fundraisers. And I really love that book. That book focuses on the importance of heart and digital fundraising. So how does that and how does all of this apply to your work in capital campaigns?
- [03:51]
B
Well, the dirty secret is it applies to every fundraising discipline. Right. Because, you know, the old adage, people give to people is kind of what inspired that book. And, you know, wrote that pre pandemic, certainly pre AI and some of these things. Right. And there's a lot of people that have been saying, hey, maybe you should update it since, you know, everyone's on ChatGPT now and there's all these awesome AI tools and they are great. Right. You know, the book is not anti AI at all, but to me, it all boils down to keeping that personal relationship at the center. But surrounding yourself, or maybe arming yourself is the better way of saying it, with information, data analytics, engagement, all the things that the robots, in this case, not just AI, but your CRM, you know, wealth screening tools, all of those things should arm and equip you to better foster that relationship personally. That really is at the heart of the book. And with capital campaigns, which is a discipline I didn't really know much about before joining my current gig or we sat and didn't have too much exposure to everything gets turned up to 11 in that case because it's high stake asks, big solicitations, big goals. And it is so, so important to have that personal relationship because it's very unlikely that you're going to get a million dollars, $5 million from a total stranger. It happens and we hear about those things. It makes the news when some nice little old lady donates $5 million to her local animal shelter or something like that. But it's not something you can necessarily count on, right? So in our work at Capital Campaign Pro, we, and I think any Capital campaign consultant would agree is embracing technology, embracing data analytics about your donors to help you not just build relationships, but grow them. And not just during the campaign, but well afterwards. So that's sort of been my philosophy when it comes to not just digital, but really all things major. Gifts, capital campaigns, legacy giving, it all applies there.
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A
Now, for someone that might not know, maybe we should back up to discuss exactly what a capital campaign is as opposed to maybe an annual fund or year end giving, if people are not familiar.
- [06:10]
B
Yeah, definitely. We're talking about something that usually doesn't happen too often. You know, you mentioned the research which we can talk about, but usually there's many years between capital campaigns, sometimes as much as 10 years, even longer. Usually it centers around some big kind of one time project. Right. A building a new facility, maybe purchasing land and also expanding programs is something very common. You know, a nonprofit sees an opportunity to expand what they do to maybe a new geographic region or add a program, an arrow to the quiver of what they're already doing. But usually we're talking six, seven, eight figure goals here. It's a big, audacious campaign to make something new and really big happen for the organization. And you mentioned annual fund, which we can talk about, but it stands alone. And one thing that that is really important in a capital campaign is to make sure that you don't let the annual fund suffer because you got to keep that going in addition to the campaign. So none of those things kind of stop. It's additive and it can be a big project for everyone involved. But that's sort of the research that we've been doing over the last two years is how do people approach capital campaigns and how successful are they? And what makes the difference between success rates in terms of how they leverage their board or their ed. Do they do a feasibility study? So all of those things we've been looking at in kind of a scientific and empirical way.
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A
So the recent report, the one that you had sent me, the 2024 capital campaign benchmark report, I found this really interesting. It highlights a 96% satisfaction rate for capital campaigns.
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B
Yeah.
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A
With organizations raising an average of 106% of their goals.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Which is amazing. What is driving this success?
- [07:57]
B
Well, we were all a little surprised. Right.
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A
I love that.
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B
Obviously we're consultants.
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A
Happy news.
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B
Yeah. And again, I think most consultants say this is that, you know, when you work with a client and really help them, it's going to go well. But we surveyed over 500 nonprofits here in the US and Canada and that Was one of the questions we asked, you know, were you happy? It wasn't so much. Was it successful? Right. Because I think a lot of people kind of gravitate towards, oh, they got to raise 100% or more to be successful. But vast majority, like you said, 96% said they were happy with the campaign, even if they only raised 75, 80, 90% of the goal. I mean, that percentage of millions of dollars is still a lot of money. So, you know, we were. We were happy, not just surprised to see that for the most part, if people embark on a capital campaign, see it through, they certainly raise a lot of money, but are happy even if they fall, you know, slightly short of the goal. But many people also overachieved, which is great. And I think one of the things that drives it is we asked people what was sort of the catalyst for the campaign. And also an overwhelming percentage of people said that we went through a strategic planning process and coming out of that, decided it's time for a capital campaign. We think we can do it already. We have a big goal. Like I said, we want to build a new facility. You know, we want to build a new performing arts center on our campus, or we want to add a new program to our mix. Let's do it. So having that foundation of the strategic planning, I think is a big, not the only driver, but a big driver of those success and satisfaction rates.
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A
For sure, you might have answered this, but how long does the typical capital campaign run?
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B
So our average number was 3.7 years. And that includes sort of that pre campaign planning process all the way through. Feasibility study, quiet phase, and then the public phase. It can be shorter or longer. Right. If you kind of dig into the data, which I did, the bigger campaigns tend to take a little longer, although that's not always a black and white distinction there. But I think the bottom line is you got to be in it for the long haul, right? I mean, I think certainly one to two years, probably at a minimum is what you should expect. But there are a lot of reasons that campaigns can go longer. Maybe you do a feasibility study and realize, hey, we can raise a lot more money than we thought we. So let's aim big. Right? Or maybe you get through it and say there's an opportunity here because of maybe a challenge gift or something like that to expand the campaign. But I think what really drives the length is proper planning, feasibility study, really making sure your ducks are in a row before those kind of quiet phase solicitations. That's really not Just what sort of elongates a campaign but also ensures its success when you really do a lot of good work on the front end.
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A
So if a campaign is running for that amount of time, then there's probably going to need to be other fundraising happening like the annual fund. And I was surprised. I wasn't actually very surprised, but I think people might be surprised to hear that the research indicates that annual funds continue to thrive even during capital campaigns. So how can we balance this messaging and strategy needed to sustain both campaigns simultaneously?
- [11:25]
B
Yeah, it's a great question. And the survey question, you know, asking people what happened to your annual fund? This was sort of at the heart of the report. The co founders at Capital Campaign Pro and our advisors, really the whole team, we encounter this question almost on a daily basis. Right when somebody sort of comes across our website, wants to talk, they know they're planning a capital campaign. And I'm having these conversations daily. I would say nine times out of 10, I hear the question, and it's often the first question, if we do this, is the annual fund going to suffer? And we, of course, as an agency and as consultants, say it doesn't have to. You know, part of our work is ensuring that it won't. And we've gone through this, but we sort of observed that that question seems to be top of mind for people. So we wanted to ask, because we have our client data, but we didn't want that to be just what the research was based on. We wanted the whole picture of the sector. So we asked that question because our instinct was that even if people don't work with us, if they do a capital campaign, it doesn't necessarily have to cannibalize the annual fund. That was our hypothesis. We thought we would get pretty positive data back, but the positivity of the data actually blew us away, that by and large, not only does the annual fund not drop during and after a campaign, but in many cases it grows. So there's a lot to your question. There's a lot of things to ensure this happens and to mitigate any cannibalization. One is making sure that donors, first of all, are anyone that you would solicit in a capital campaign context, their previous giving, which is probably going to be annual fund giving. Right. Needs to be acknowledged and recognized. And this is something that, again, extends beyond just capital campaigns. It extends an annual fund, major gifts, everything. Of course, you want to acknowledge that giving. When you go and ask for a big capital campaign gift without acknowledging that previous giving, that's what's going to hurt. Right. And then also not forgetting to remind owners that this is a special project, this is a special campaign. We want your support for these reasons, but also we still need to keep the lights on. And I wouldn't necessarily say it like that. That's not a great case for support, but I think you know what I mean. So asking twice. Right. Keeping a distinction between the annual gift, which you want them to continue doing, and also sort of this one time special, larger commitment to this new project that is really, really important to not cannibalizing the funds. And then, of course, if you are getting those gifts, keeping that acknowledgment and stewardship going, saying, wow, you gave to both. That's awesome. We thank you so much. We just want to recognize that you did that and you invested in us or believed in this project, whatever the language is. I think where people falter here is they just don't recognize the previous giving. Right. And don't draw distinctions between the two gifts. And there are other ways to kind of get around this, you know, comprehensive campaigns, which is something a lot of people do, where the annual fund is included in the capital campaign goal. That's another sort of strategy. But I think it all boils down to having a strategy and having a plan and not just saying, hey, we're going to. We're building a new gym. You know, do you want to donate? And again, that extends to all fundraising disciplines, not just capital campaigns. Not taking a one size fits all approach, not letting previous giving go on. Acknowledged. All of these things imply apply to capital campaigns, but the stakes are so much higher. Right. So you want to make sure you get it right.
- [15:13]
A
Absolutely. And generosity begets generosity.
- [15:17]
B
Yes.
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A
And Giving Tuesday releases this kind of information all the time. Like people are more likely to if you are a donor already or if you're a monthly donor, they're more likely to give that 13th gift or give an extra gift on Giving Tuesday. Because they're generous people.
- [15:32]
B
Yeah.
- [15:32]
A
It's like if you want something done, ask a busy person. You know, if you want a gift, ask a generous person. So I think that's really interesting because I know people might. Might think that all of these different campaigns are sort of cannibalizing each other, but it seems like it's like a rising tide kind of lifts all fundraising ships. And I love.
- [15:51]
B
Absolutely.
- [15:52]
A
So you emphasize the real power of strong donor relationships with capital campaigns. The majority of capital campaigns, at least I've worked on, often target major gifts.
- [16:05]
B
Yeah.
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A
How do you work with These sort of big ticket donors and like, how do you cultivate and sustain these relationships over time?
- [16:13]
B
Yeah, you're right. On most capital campaigns, the Pareto principle really kicks into gear. Right. So, you know, 80% of the gifts is going to come from 20% of the donors. And that varies, right. You know, everyone's gift range chart looks a little different. But most capital campaigns, and I'm not super legalistic about this, but the majority of the giving is going to come from a small group of major donors. So if you don't have a major gift program, a capital campaign is going to be a little bit of an uphill battle. Now it can be a good way to strengthen an existing major gift program for sure. But if you're raising, let's say $5 million for a new facility, you're probably going to want one lead donor around a million dollars, right. And then maybe a couple around 500k each. And you know, you can, you can kind of visualize how the pyramid would fill out. But that million dollar donor, again, probably not going to be a stranger. And it's not going to be Bill Gates or Oprah or, you know, your town's richest person. Unless of course, there is a relationship. And you know, definitely, perhaps better to have that relationship than not have it. But having those major donor relationships, people that maybe have already given big gifts, five figures, making that jump up to something larger is going to be a lot easier if there's an existing relationship or if you can leverage somebody else's relationship, a board member, someone else connected to the organization. It doesn't just have to be you. Development director and development team, leverage the board, leverage volunteers for those relationships. But it is really just kind of major giving at the end of the day, but a strong case for support, involving them in the process. Doing a feasibility study is very useful for that reason. But yeah, it's not just going to be a rich stranger, although it can happen, but it's not something to count on for sure.
- [18:03]
A
What are some mistakes that you see nonprofits making in donor communications during a capital campaign?
- [18:10]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of some of the things we talked about with the annual fund is, you know, taking a one size fits all approach. You know, people making six, seven figure gifts. I would imagine and have observed that there's perhaps a very personal reason. Maybe they were an alumni, maybe they had a family member who had that illness that you're trying to eradicate. Acknowledging that. Right. And not just, you know, sending a templated letter that Every other single kind of donor gets where you're just, you know, customizing the dollar amount that's probably not going to give people warm and fuzzies inside. Right. So, you know, involving those people for sure, not overloading them with, with a ton of data is something again that I see a lot. You know, the sort of the simple impactful storytelling is good, but also thinking about the lengths of campaigns, update them along the way. Like hey, we, we broke ground or the foundation, we've encouraged clients to take some of those major donors or major donor prospects on tours of the construction site, right. Give them a bunch of hard hats and show them, hey, this is going to be the beautiful new performance center that you're helping fund. Take them out into the field maybe where there are programs happening, involve them and let them see tangibly what it is their gift is going towards that's going to kind of get them excited, addicted to giving. And especially if people are in multi year pledges where maybe they're breaking the gifts up over time, that engagement is even more important just to kind of remind them, hey, this is still happening, right? And your gift is making this thing possible.
- [19:44]
A
Yeah. Talk about multi year pledges. Is this a way that we can maintain momentum and engagement? Is this a common practice in capital campaigns?
- [19:55]
B
Yes to all. And it also kind of makes it easier on the donor. Right. I mean again, if someone's making a big gift, the ability to kind of break it up into installments is great. I think one analogy is monthly giving and kind of ignore the dollar amount. So I'm going to compare a $5 monthly gift to a million dollar gift, which is somewhat silly, but I think the parallel there is not just sending that monthly receipt that is super transactional, not just sending a boring pledge reminder. Right. They feel like they're getting an invoice or a utility bill. Again, it's a stewardship touch point. It's an opportunity not just to remind them that hey, there's a pledge payment coming up, but update them on progress, say thank you. Of course there's a company called Givz that is just masterful at this and kind of recognizes the stewardship opportunity. So you know, you asked about technology for almost every aspect of this. There's really interesting and cool tools out there that sort of help facilitate this. Again, empowering the fundraiser, not sort of taking them out of the driver's seat. But again, I think the bottom line is these are all opportunities for stewardship. So seize on them. Right. I mean, you might as well if you're sending something, you might as well personalize it, make them feel really special about it, tell them a story, update them. But it is very common. We ask people and the vast majority of organizations of the 500 said, yeah, we have some sort of multi year pledge or pledging process involved here because it is just easier on the donor at the end of the day to be able to chunk up those payments.
- [21:29]
A
Yeah, yeah, I think that would, that's being empathetic to the donor but also just giving them multiple touch points and keeping them engaged. Because I would imagine if you know, the average campaign length is 3.7 years. I mean, this is a long term commitment for any kind of development director, which I don't know what the average stay is in a development director job.
- [21:53]
B
Well, that, yeah, that's a big piece. I mean, I know you talked about burnout and you know that that's really true. And I think the tenure is shorter than the average capital campaign. So I wish I had brought this up sooner, but a really big piece of this is taking care of your people, you know, avoiding burnout, but also staffing up appropriately. Because you said it before, like they've you got to keep the annual fund going, you've got your events giving Tuesday, all these things you've got to do. You can't just pull 10 extra hours or more a week from your people who are already probably pretty taxed. So one thing we looked at the research is we asked people, did you staff up? Did you hire a consultant to help send some people? A lot of people do both and there was a little bit of a difference in success rates, satisfaction rates amongst people who did not staff up. And I'm sure that burnout was a part of that. So not just hiring a consultant to kind of guide you through it, but you may need an extra admin person, someone else on the development team just to take that workload off. This is a really big piece of this for sure and it's one I'm passionate about. So I'm glad you brought it up. If you do see the whole campaign through or even part of it, maybe you join Midway or whatever, that's an awesome thing to have on your resume because you may for the rest of your career, just based on timing and luck, never end up somewhere that does a capital campaign. Right. Because we did one five years ago and we're not going to do another one for 10 or 15 years. So it's an awesome training opportunity, not just for you, but for your team. And I think they will reward you if you adequately provide professional development. Avoid burnouts. Maybe they will stick around because you sort of invested in them and helped them, you know, gave them the resources they needed to achieve and not, you know, completely burn out.
- [23:51]
A
Now there's always going to be maybe an excuse or a reason not to run a capital campaign like this year is an election year or current economic conditions. How can nonprofits really navigate these, These challenges and the skepticism or the turbulent nature of the economy?
- [24:12]
B
We asked people this, and this has been in both iterations of the report, and we'll continue to do it. When we did the first report, we were asking questions in, I guess it was early 2023. Pandemic was still raging. Of course, the inflation had started and those conversations had started around recession versus soft landing versus hard landing. And we asked people, did you pause or delay the campaign because of any external headwind? Covid economy, I think inferred was of course, the election, like you said, and most people did it. Most people kept their foot on the gas. And that was kind of heartening to me because I've been encouraging people, if you've got a case for support, if you've got a great need and you've got a donor base that already supports you, ask, don't decide for them. They can say no and say, you know what, the economy hit me pretty hard this year and I just can't do it. No is great, but if you decide for the donor by not asking them, the answer is definitely going to be no. Right? You're not going to get anything. So there always will be something. And I don't mean to minimize what we just went through, not just in this, in 24, but in the last, you know, four or five years. Inflation, of course, was a big thing, right? People's construction costs increased.
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A
Oh, yeah, and supply chain.
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B
Yes, supply chain, lumber. I mean, you know, the cost of nails, these, you know, because we're dealing with construction projects, so often these things came up and they were real headwinds. And I'm not saying ignore them or don't worry about them, but keep going, right? And ask, hey, you know, donor, could you give a little more? Because, you know, just once in a, in a lifetime, hopefully once in a lifetime inflationary period happens. Ask, don't decide for the donor. You know, there will always be an election, natural disasters, hopefully not on the pandemic or a recession. The people who kept their foot on the gas tend to see the benefits versus the ones who said, you know what, let's Take a year or two. There's always something that's just another year or two. They're not going to have that awesome program that's going to feed kids or change the lives of seniors or whatever it is. And that's a shame. And you said it. But people in times of tough times do respond. And people may, you know, the election, people are angry. You know, this may be a great time to leverage some of that, those feelings, then turn them into dollars.
- [26:38]
A
Yeah. The ACLU did a fabulous monthly giving push right after the election that I thought was really interesting. And I think that a lot of us are scared to put ourselves out there because we're scared to get pushback. But like you said, if you don't ask, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Right.
- [26:57]
B
There you go.
- [26:57]
A
Gretzky that said that.
- [26:59]
B
Yes. Via Michael Scott.
- [27:01]
A
Oh, right. Oh, my gosh, Michael Scott. I totally forgot about that episode. Oh, I love that. So what is maybe your most essential piece of advice for a nonprofit that is considering their very first capital campaign?
- [27:20]
B
Yeah, and we asked that, we asked, you know, is this your first, Is this your fifth? You know, how long. And a good chunk of people, it was their first. And having talked through this with you in the way that we did, Julia, I think it goes back to getting help. Right. Because this is tough. This is again, and for a first campaign, the orgs maybe are smaller and the goals are smaller, but the success rates were just as high. And one thing I noticed in the data is they were actually more likely to ask for help. So I think there's a recognition that small organizations first campaign, you know, one or the other or both, a recognition that, hey, we should get some help and there are people like us and, you know, you don't have to use us. There's lots of great capital campaign consultants. They've seen it all. Right. And no matter the org type, the project type, there is kind of a consistent playbook. Of course, there is room for nuance and customization based on, you know, the individual campaign. But for the most part, there is kind of a playbook. And making that investment, I think not only is going to make you more successful, but also, I'll say, a dirty little secret. And we're happy to say this, as an agency, you get help the first time, you're not going to need nearly as much the second time. This is something that you can do, Right. If you've gone through it, of course, some coaching is never going to hurt. But make that investment on the front end. And then maybe for the organization's next campaign or if you change jobs and they go into a campaign, you're going to kind of know that playbook and might not need as much help. But having gone through it with help is really going to serve you well because there are common pitfalls. You know, similar to this is the staffing. If you're an ed and you got one director or development, maybe one of the fundraising person, you're going to need some help because there's so many other things that need to get done. So don't be afraid. And you can work that into the goal size. You don't necessarily have to work it into the case for support, but it can kind of be implied in the goal size that part of this is going to be staffing up to appropriately hit this goal. So don't be afraid to make that investment. There's a lot of good people out there who can help. Again, you may not need it the second time around.
- [29:30]
A
And I think that it's such good experience, especially for a small nonprofit or even for, you know, if you are a fundraiser and you're really looking to stay in the sector and level up. I mean, it's just a wonderful experience to go through on.
- [29:45]
B
Absolutely. It may not feel like it in the middle. It's kind of hard, but I totally agree. And those small shop campaigns, we looked at the data and they actually outperformed bigger organizations in a number of different categories, which is not something you hear very often. Right. More donor relationship building, implementing fundraising systems and staffing up or leveling up the staff. Those small shops doing their first campaign, you're right on. They reported higher levels of those things. So it's a great thing for that, the health and history of the organization to go through that because you're really going to come out a strong organization. Having done it.
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A
Looking into the future, what trends do you see shaping the future of capital campaigns? Do you see more or less volunteer involvement? How are donor preferences changing with different generations? What are some of the trends?
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B
Yeah, two things come to mind. One is the technology. You, of course, know and a lot of listeners know, I came from Bloomerang, and man, if you've got a CRM like Bloomerang, where you've got embedded, well, screening and engagement tools, it is so helpful in identifying who those people are that are going to be in the donor pyramid, what their capacity is. I mean, it's unbelievable. Even 20, certainly 30 years on, the insights that we have through technology, the wealth screening is so, so powerful. And then I think the other thing that we've noticed is how people are doing feasibility studies is changing. So we asked people, yes, no, are you doing them? And then the people who said, yes, we asked, well, who's talking to the donors or who's talking to the interview subjects? And it was a pretty even split between just a consultant kind of anonymously interviewing donors, which has been sort of the norm, and the sort of traditional way. But over the years, we've seen more and more people saying, well, we're actually conducting the interviews ourselves, maybe with a consultant's help and guidance. And our co founders have said this even five, 10 years ago. That would be nowhere near as stratified as it is now. So I think people are recognizing some of the things you talked about, relationship building and maintaining those conversations and the value of that. So I think that's one thing that's, you know, I mentioned the playbook, but that's kind of one thing within the playbook that seems to be changing there. But again, it all comes down to building relationships, not letting you know the robots take over, necessarily, but not being afraid to equip yourself with those insights that come from technology, because they are. It's going to be such an advantage to you versus maybe someone who goes in, you know, not knowing who they're talking to, not knowing much about them, certainly not knowing what their capacity is. It's really useful.
- [32:35]
A
No, it's such a good point to leverage the technology for the strengths and to just be mindful that it's always vital to keep donor relationships at the forefront, whether it's a large gift, a small gift, whether it's Giving Tuesday, whether it's a capital campaign, just keeping those relationships at the forefront is just absolutely so, so, so important. No matter what time of year or no matter how you're fundraising. Well, this has been really interesting. I actually learned a lot about capital campaigns going into 2025. Is there any last piece of advice you have for the development director sitting there wondering, either maybe they're losing momentum, losing steam, burning out in their capital campaign, or they are just excited to get started.
- [33:25]
B
If you're excited to get started, you can do it. You know, be encouraged. You know, most people who really embark on this end up being happy at the end of the campaign. If maybe you're. You're stuck or burnt out. Embrace a peer community. There's thousands of nonprofits in on any given day that are going through a capital campaign. You know, seek them out, talk to them, even if they're a completely different organization than yours or maybe a smaller, bigger goal. We found that to be very, very helpful for sure. But download the research also. We put this report out. It's on our website. If you just go to Capital Campaign Pro research, you'll get it. It's free. A salesperson won't hound you if you download it, but there may be some nuggets in there to say, oh, maybe that was a step we skipped, or maybe that's a piece that a lot of people are doing that we're missing. That's really why we put it out there is we want it to be a little bit of a guidebook to people, but ask for help. I think there are people that would even join a campaign midway to help you shake some of those things loose. But don't go it alone, I guess, is my short answer to your good question there.
- [34:27]
A
Okay, and where can people learn more about you? You said where you can get the report, connect with you and learn more about the services of Capital Campaign Pro.
- [34:36]
B
Well, I'm a chronically online, online person. Some people know you can find me pretty easily on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect. I connect liberally with people and we would love to talk to you. Maybe you read the report and have a question or just kind of want to talk about campaigns in General. I think LinkedIn is the best way. Just search for Stephen Capital campaigns. You'll probably find me pretty easily.
- [34:57]
A
Yes. Okay. Capital CampaignPro.com research to get the report and Stephen Shattuck on LinkedIn. Thanks again for being here. This has been fantastic.
- [35:08]
B
Anytime. This is really fun. Thanks for the invite. Foreign.
- [35:18]
A
I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on Instagram @JuliaCampbell77. Keep changing the world you non profit unicorn.