Nonprofit Hub Radio
Whether starting a nonprofit or taking an existing cause to the next level, The Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast is about breaking down how nonprofits can grow. Each episode features an interview with a sector star with insight, stories, or ideas that can take your nonprofit from good to excellence. Join host Meghan Speer every week to make your good go further!
Nonprofit Hub Radio
Capital Campaign Myths
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Most capital campaigns don’t struggle because the mission is weak—they struggle because the board is working from myths. In this episode of Nonprofit Hub Radio, Amy Eisenstein and Sarah Plimpton from Capital Campaign Pro join us to unpack what really drives successful major gift fundraising and what board members need to understand before voting to "just go for it."
From demystifying feasibility studies and navigating the crucial quiet phase to right-sizing trustee roles beyond just asking for money, this conversation offers a practical roadmap to keep your fundraising on track. Whether you are preparing to launch a new campaign or trying to re-energize one that has stalled, tune in to discover how disciplined planning and strategic donor engagement can turn boardroom assumptions into transformative results.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
Will AI Recommend Your Nonprofit
SPEAKER_02If a donor asks an AI assistant about where they can make a difference, would AI name your organization? Get your AI visibility assessment at fundraiseup.com slash agentic giving.
Meet The Capital Campaign Pros
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer, joined today by two guests, which is always so fun for me. It is such a good conversation when we can have multiple voices. So I'm excited to welcome Amy and Sarah in from Capital Campaign Pro. We've got Amy Eisenstein, who's the CEO and co-founder, and Sarah Plimpton, who is their vice president and chief happiness officer, which is a fantastic title. We're really excited to learn more about that. Ladies, welcome in. So glad to have you all here. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Absolutely. So, Amy, let's start with you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of your background that brought us to the conversation today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I've been working in nonprofits, either as a development director on the front lines of fundraising, first for the first decade of my career, and now for almost 20 years as a consultant. And at Capital Campaign Pro, we focus on obviously capital campaigns. And really what's important to us is that we help nonprofit leaders raise more money than they ever thought possible for big visions. And I'm excited to be here and talk to you about helping nonprofit leaders do just that. Yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_00And Sarah, how about you? So, like Amy, I have been in the nonprofit space for pretty much my entire career, dating all the way back to my first internship in high school. I landed in a development office at a nonprofit and have been working with development and on fundraising projects ever since. Started out actually consulting on campaigns right after college and did that for a number of years, traveling around as embedded counsel on capital campaigns, and then went in-house and lived the director of development life for a number of years, led a capital campaign as a director of development, and have worked with Capital Campaign Pro and with clients all over the country through our model of consulting for the past five years.
SPEAKER_02That's great. Excited to be here. Very good. Well, I'm excited to have you both. So let's let's
A New Guide For Board Members
SPEAKER_02dive in. So I hear you can both now also add author to your list of accomplishments. Very exciting. So we're I do want to talk a little bit about this book. Sarah, let's start with you. Tell us about obviously give us the title, but tell us a little bit about the book and maybe who it's for.
SPEAKER_00Sure. And can I make one correction, which is that this is Amy's third book, actually. It's my first book, but it's Amy's first book.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right, well, we'll dig it further into that in a minute. Yeah, Amy has a couple titles out there already. So Amy and I just co-authored a book together called A Board Member's Guide to Capital Campaign Fundraising: How to Raise Game Changing Money for Your Nonprofit. I have it right here. Fantastic. Um, it just came out last week. And as the name implies, this is a book primarily for members of nonprofit boards who are embarking on capital campaigns. And in that way, it's also really for directors of development, executive directors, as so much of their work is supporting boards through capital campaigns. And really, it's, you know, we wrote it because we wanted to bust a lot of myths that seem to be sort of pervasive when it comes to capital campaigns. You know, in the boardroom, there are a lot of ideas about what a capital campaign is and isn't and how a board should intersect with it that we kind of keep bumping into and and hearing about in our work, and we wanted to, you know, sort of create a resource that put an end to those myths.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's great. So, Amy,
The Most Common Campaign Myths
SPEAKER_02I'm assuming obviously at this point, you guys have worked with hundreds, if not more, hundreds of capital campaigns and thus hundreds of boards in the process. What do you think is maybe the biggest misconception that board members have about campaign fundraising like that? What's is there like a top common thread for myths that you guys needed to bust?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think there are so many. So I'm curious to know what Sarah's is gonna be. But mine, I think, would be this idea that a feasibility study, which is a process that most organizations go through to determine how to do their campaign. So, board members, the misconception is that they don't really want to be told whether or not their campaign is feasible. And so, and if we just have to do it anyways, if we need a new building or if we need to expand or if we need something, we should just go. And really, I wish feasibility studies had been named something else, like campaign readiness or planning studies. Yeah. And every board member would say, Oh, yes, we need to do planning. Um, and they, you know, this helps an organization make smart strategic data-driven decisions before heading into a campaign. And I so I think a big misconception is what is a feasibility study? Why should we do one? And do we really need to? Okay.
SPEAKER_02Sarah, would you agree that that's the top one, or do you have a different pick?
SPEAKER_00There are so many myths that uh I agree that that is a big one. One that I hear often is that you know, an organization organization will say, in 2029, we're celebrating our 50th anniversary, and we need to have a campaign in conjunction with that 50th anniversary. There's this sort of idea that, you know, the number of your milestone anniversaries are reason enough to do campaigns. And we, you know, are commonly saying to organizations, well, what are the big ideas your organization has? What's the vision? What's the aspiration that you know would go behind that campaign? Because just being around for 50 years or 100 years or 75 years, that's not a reason for a campaign. Like that's not that's meaningful to you, but it's not meaningful to your donors, and it's not likely to inspire the kind of you know, philanthropic support that a campaign should inspire.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. As someone with a a lengthy background in fundraising and marketing, this is a conversation I have regularly had with organizations like I yes, I know you think everyone should care about your birthday, but it does not cost.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Megan, can I throw out another really quick one? Yeah, absolutely. That is that the public phase will raise a huge amount of money. And if they just do press releases and post on social media, that they will attract big donors or celebrities or something like that. So, you know, lots of board members who don't yet understand how campaigns work think if we just go public, make a big splashy announcement, then someone will come in and save the day. And that is not how campaigns work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay.
The Seven Phases Of Campaigns
SPEAKER_02So, Amy, I wanna I wanna unpack that because you said earlier you were talking about the feasibility study and that being a piece of it. And now we've used the phrase, the public phase of this campaign, right? And I so for somebody who's maybe not familiar with the capital campaign life cycle, yes, can you just so that we're all kind of level set and working from the same place in this conversation, especially for some of those board members who are maybe new to the idea. Yes. Can you just give us a brief overview and run us through what those phases of a capital campaign should look like?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Okay. So at Capital Campaign Pro, we break a campaign down into seven phases because we want each one to be really manageable, achievable, clear. And so we start with some early campaign planning to help you get ready for a feasibility study. So phase one is early campaign planning. Phase two is feasibility study. That's when you go have conversations with your lead, your biggest and best potential donors. We do it that we guide you, help you figure out what to talk to your donors about, analyze the data, ask good questions, prepare for those conversations. Phase three is finalizing your campaign plans based on what you learned by talking to your donors in the feasibility study. Phase four is called the quiet phase, which also perhaps was misnamed. Misnamed for sure. But it really refers to who you are asking and how. So, really, you're asking your biggest potential donors and your board members and people closest to your organization in one-on-one asks in one-on-one conversations. Then phase five is the kickoff. And so that's when you've raised in the quiet phase 75, 85, or maybe even 90% of the dollars you need for your campaign, all in the quiet phase. And then you kick off and you can make a big public announcement, post on social media, and phase six is the public phase. Finally, you're ready to do more marketing style fundraising. You social media and emails and letters to the whole community. So you're asking everybody in the community to come in for the last 10, 15, or 25% of your campaign to help bring it home. And then finally, phase seven is stewardship, follow-up, uh, celebration, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I think that's helpful. Just make sure that everybody's kind of working from the same definitions and distinctions. So I'm curious then, and maybe it's just like a re-ask of the first question, because some of those I do agree are misnamed, right? So many of our board members are coming from corporate backgrounds. And I and this same process, there is no there is no similar applicable process in a for-profit corporate side. So it is a new, totally new, something that they may not have had any experience
Where Boards Derail The Process
SPEAKER_02with. Where in that cycle do you feel like is where things start to go awry? Is there one phase that tends to be the problem child phase for boards? Sarah, what would you say?
SPEAKER_00That is such a great question. I think there are a couple. And I'll speak to the first one that comes to mind for me. So in phase two, when you're doing a feasibility study or a planning study, and you're going out to your top potential donors with the early ideas of your campaign, okay. And I think that you can sort of see exactly how that translates from the corporate backgrounds of some of our, you know, wonderful board members who are well-intentioned. Uh, what we have found is that in the feasibility phase, and this really carries over even into the quiet phase, that when you go out with materials that have draft stamped all over them, and you invite your potential donors to really wrangle with the ideas of your proposed campaign, uh, you are you are engaging in a partnership with people that is really powerful for your donors. And that can sort of go against the sort of corporate notion that you have to have everything polished and buttoned up and perfect and you know, ready for prime time uh on day one. And we found that, you know, we're not saying to be sloppy or messy, but things don't have to be finished, right? You can you can it's a process, and you're inviting people to be insiders to that process with you and help you co-create the vision. And that is a very powerful way of engaging people. Um, and there can be a lot of myths around, or I guess sort of like reluctance to embrace that.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Amy, would you agree, or do you have a second problem child in mind?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, I completely agree. And and also I will point even earlier than the I'll go before the feasibility to early campaign planning and say that often board members without tons of experience think the development team, existing development team, can do the campaign with no additional staff resources or expertise. And a campaign is often raising five, 10, 20, 50 times what an organization normally raises. And the idea that the board would not approve and encourage organizations to hire help, expertise, additional resources is crazy. Um, so I think that's a first mistake that we see a lot is that the board says to the staff, let's just do this. We're scrappy, let's just do it. And the staff gets burned out and doesn't know what they're doing. And then what happens is the organization gets stuck. Two years later, they're 40% towards their goal and they're like wondering what happened. Well, you didn't plan well, you didn't really know what you were doing, and you made some critical mistakes along the way. So let's get the expertise up front. I I know that it sounds tough coming from a campaign consultant. That's what campaign consultants do. That's all we do. Um you wouldn't do a root canal at home. Um don't do a campaign at home.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I know, again, having been in this space for a long time, I know folks who are career fundraisers, have been directors of development, have been all of these different, the different pieces and have never done a capital campaign in their career, right? This is not a all the time kind of thing. So even your even if you have a top-notch stellar director of development or VP of advancement or whatever title you'd like to put on it, it's possible that they've never walked this process. And it is different. It is a different beast than just your normal annual fund kind of work.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, that's absolutely true. And the truth is that we work with really experienced development directors who have been through two or three campaigns and they still want the guidance and support.
AI Visibility Assessment Break
SPEAKER_02The donor experience is expanding. Supporters are finding ways to give and make an impact using AI. When they search, AI will help them find three or four organizations to support. The question is, will AI recommend your organization? The Fundraise Up AI Visibility Assessment shows whether assistants find you, who they name instead, and what to fix first. It's at fundraiseup.com slash agenticgiving. That's fundraiseup.com slash agenticgiving.
Feasibility Study Roles For Boards
SPEAKER_02And I'm curious, is there best practice or thought around, you know, obviously in a feasibility study where we want to talk to our top donors? Should the that be the board? What's where do you guys see the board's involvement in kind of the the donor side of that? What is their commitment level? What should that look like? And are there some issues that has brought up for you all? Let's uh Sarah, let's, yeah, Sarah, let's start with you.
SPEAKER_00So I think let's start with sort of a a myth on this topic and then maybe bust the myth. So there's a there's a sort of a persistent myth that everyone on the board has to fundraise in exactly the same way, right? Like everyone on the board has to ask for gifts to put a finer point on it. And in our experience, that isn't the case. That isn't a good idea. Yeah. Not only is it not the case, it's not a good idea. And the reason for that is that everyone comes to the work of fundraising with different skill sets or personalities or tolerance for various types of engaging with people. And the the fact of the matter is, not everyone is gonna do a good job asking for gifts, right? Yes, it is a specific skill set for sure. It's a specific skill set. So one of the first things that we try to help boards understand is that the cycle of fundraising and all of the things that go into fundraising are so much more than just sitting down with somebody and saying, Will you give a hundred thousand dollars over five years? Right. That that is one sliver of what fundraising is. So what we hope board members uh learn through the campaigns that we work on with our clients is that there's a huge array of things that board members can and should do in a fundraising sense for their organizations. Asking is one of them, but opening doors is another thing. Um, helping to thank donors, writing notes, bringing people to events or to one-on-one meetings with leaders of the organization, you know, looking at lists, developing, helping the development office like review collateral, uh and think about messaging, or um, I mean, I could go on and on. There's so many things. So I think the the takeaway for board members is there is a home for you in fundraising, and it is the job of your organization to help figure out what are all the ways that board members could help us fundraise, and then what are the ways that you, individual board member, are going to be most comfortable and successful in plugging into these opportunities rather than coming at it from a standpoint of like everyone has to go out and ask for gifts because it's not gonna work, it's not gonna go very well, it's not gonna lead to success.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Amy, what are your thoughts there? I mean, I agree with everything Sarah says that goes without saying. Sure. Um, but you referenced the feasibility study. So only a few board members probably need to be interviewed as part of the feasibility study. Okay. So on any given board, you know, 10 or 20% are gonna be the biggest donors to the organization or of the board. So those are the people that we want to include in the feasibility study process, and perhaps one or two more who are very influential, probably the board president, but mostly in the feasibility study. And, you know, back to Sarah's point, everybody has a different role to play. And a few board members, hopefully, will be big donors, but most won't. And so they will play different roles. And so you don't need to interview everybody every board member for your feasibility study, just like every board member is not gonna ask for big gifts. Yeah.
Rethinking Equality In Board Giving
SPEAKER_02I think that's a great point. I do think it's interesting though, for both of your answers, right? Because it implies sort of a hierarchy that we don't like to talk about on the board. Right? And so is there if we say like, okay, these these two or three are the most influential or the highest givers, does that cause inter or like dynamic issues down the line? I'm curious how that plays out.
SPEAKER_01I think you interviewed the biggest donors and one or two other influential people. So I would say that. This style of campaign fundraising doesn't work if everybody gives the same amount. So that's a good call out. You know, if you have if you say, well, we need every board member to give ten thousand dollars, what that means is that some board members can't do that financially, and they might be great board members in other ways and bring other things to the table, and they go off the board or don't participate because you've set the bar wherever above their financial capacity. But on the inverse, other board members will give $10,000 who might otherwise give a million dollars or $100,000. And so the idea that everybody is treated equally or does the same thing to me is not good fundraising or nonprofit management because everybody plays a different role.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think where there's commonality though is that every board member should give to the campaign in a way that makes them proud. Right. So if I'm a board member who for whom $10,000 is an extraordinary amount, right? That's well beyond my capacity. But I find myself really thinking about my commitment to the organization and thinking about giving not just for my checkbook, but looking at assets or really using the pledge period that's inherent in capital campaigns that you know allows you to give over time and find my way to give maybe like $7,500, and it's the largest gift I've ever given. And I feel like I really wrangled with this, it's really meaningful to me. I'm really proud, like I'm stretching, but in a way that's exciting for me. That's great. And the person who gives a million dollars to your campaign can have the exact same experience and hit on the same feeling, even though there are many more zeros after that million dollar gift than after that $7,500 gift. But the experience of getting there is the same. And that's what we're really after. And I would actually sort of add to Amy's comment about feasibility study, board participation in the feasibility study. I think it really depends on the organization. Some organizations absolutely should interview everyone on the board as part of their feasibility study. Others might not need to take that approach. So I think it I think it really depends on a lot of the sort of inner dynamics. Yeah. That's great.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for correcting the record on that, Sarah. You're right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay, so I'm curious, and I'm I'm gonna I have two final questions that I want
How To Salvage A Stalled Campaign
SPEAKER_02to ask. So Amy, I'm gonna start with you for one of them, and then Sarah will give you the second one. If an organization, because you mentioned this in one of your answers, if an organization has found themselves in that spot of we're two years in, we're only 40%, our staff is burned out, we've lost momentum, is the campaign is it salvageable? Is it what would you be your best advice to somebody who might be listening and is finding themselves in a similar situation to that? Like what is their best next step?
SPEAKER_01I think it's to look at the donors who have given and or honestly, the top donors, right? The top 20 donors and go have. I mean, maybe you consult a group consultant to talk about how to go talk to these donors, but the end of the day, you want to go back and talk to your top donors and share what's happening. So and ask for their advice. Now, maybe you want to go with an A plan, a B plan, and a C plan so that you can say, you know, we're not we're not coming to you with no ideas, but here's what's happening. Here's what we intended to do, here's where we're at. So given what's happening, you know, honestly, uh, if wherever they're at might be plan C. Like if we don't raise another dollar, this is what we're able to do. We're trying to get to at least plan B. And how do you think we might do that without specifically asking for a gift? But some donors will help step up and get you there. But even if they don't, they might have other people you can talk to, they might have good ideas, and I would say occasionally they might even get you to plan A. But I would consult my donors, and that is what a good campaign consultant is going to help you think through how to go back to those top donors to see where are we at? Is there a path to plan B? Is there a path to plan A? Should we stop and celebrate and do what we can with where we are right now? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's great.
Readiness Work Before You Launch
SPEAKER_02Okay, and then the flip side, Sarah, if an organization is not yet in a campaign, but maybe they're you know in a strategic planning process right now where it's very clear that that that a campaign is a capital campaign is going to be coming because they're in that that phase of exciting growth. If they're considering one in the next couple of years, what's your top recommendation to make sure that they're ready for that? What do they need to keep in mind?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. So I think there sometimes can be almost like a a race from the end of strategic planning to feasibility study. And and organizations can sometimes move very, very quickly from one to the other, and in doing so miss an opportunity to really look at internal systems, data, staffing considerations. Like there's a whole body of readiness work that organizations should be really thinking about strategically and thoroughly before they find themselves in feasibility mode where they're, you know, it's sort of go, go, go. So I would say make sure that that you really pay attention to the back of the house and the inner workings of your development function um before you dive headfirst into feasibility.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Okay.
Book Links And Free Help
SPEAKER_02So as we wrap up, I'm gonna again, we'll give each of you one of these questions. Sarah, I'd like to start with you. If somebody would love to know more about where to find the book and how to check out that side, tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the book is a board member's guide to capital campaign fundraising, how to raise game-changing money for your nonprofit. You can find it on Amazon. If you are interested in buying more than 10 copies of the book, maybe you want to give it to everyone on your board, go to our website where you will find a link to order bulk and get a discount on that bulk order. And our website is capitalcampaignpro.com slash board dashbook.
SPEAKER_02And Amy, if somebody is again maybe in the strategic planning process and thinking that this is coming down the line, or maybe they're stuck and need to get somebody in to help move a campaign along, tell us a little bit about the work that you guys do at Capital Campaign Pro and how we can connect with you guys to learn more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So we talk to anybody for free, no obligation that's thinking about a campaign. Uh, we'd love to hear what's on your horizon. So you can visit us at capitalcampaignpro.com and sign up to talk to one of our team members about what's happening and where you might go. We also have a ton of free resources on our website, podcasts, blog posts. Uh oh, we do a, I was gonna say webinars. We do do a podcast as well. So I think learning, I think that's the point is resources, learning, um, helping your board members understand what their roles and responsibilities are, what's expected, what's coming down the pike. And that will not happen in one training session. That's like a six-month to a year process and exercise at every board meeting. You should be talking about the campaign, what's expected, having a different discussion. And honestly, we part of the reason we wrote the board members' guide to capital campaign fundraising is to give boards a way to talk about different topics. So you can look at one chapter each board meeting for the year before uh campaign as a way of bringing everybody along.
Book Picks And Final Takeaways
SPEAKER_01That's great.
SPEAKER_02Uh so speaking of books here on the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast, we have dubbed 2026 as the year of learning. So I'm curious for each of you, and Sarah, I'll start with you. What is a book that you would recommend everyone put on their to-read list?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, such a good question, Megan. I am going to suggest that everyone put on their list this book called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McCowan. I'm not sure how you pronounce his last name. And I am halfway through it right now, so I haven't finished yet, but I am loving it so far. Okay. Very thought-provoking.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic. Amy, how about you? So I I have to admit, I read like 12 books at once. Um, so I'm gonna say two that I'm current that I'm currently reading. One is I'm rereading Simon Senec's Start With Why. It's the 15th classic. Yeah, 15th anniversary edition. It is a classic. So that's what I'm re-rereading right now. I also pulled off my shelf something called A Path Appears by Nicholas Christoph and Cheryl Wu-Dun. And it is about well, the subtitle is Transforming Lives and Creating Opportunity. It's totally brilliant. So I hope I recommend it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Great. Well, definitely check out all of those suggestions. Ladies, thank you so much for joining me. I really I'm excited for the book itself because I know, man, there are so many boards that are that need all of this information. So I really I appreciate that framework and the wisdom that y'all have put into it. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having us. Absolutely. Again, my guests have been Amy Eisenstein and Sarah Plimpton from Capital Campaign Pro. This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer, and we'll see you next time.