Are You Ready for a Capital Campaign? Assessing Your Nonprofit's Ability to Run a Major Fundraising Campaign

Are You Ready for a Capital Campaign? Assessing Your Organization’s Ability to Run a Major Fundraising Campaign is a practical workbook that does what many organizations pay thousands of dollars to have a consultant do for them.

If you are considering a capital campaign, it is wise to engage fundraising counsel to formally assess your organization’s readiness and the community’s readiness for your campaign.

But this book takes you through the first steps of the assessment, and often you can correct many of your shortcomings before engaging a consultant to help you get ready for a campaign, saving you time and money.

This workbook will help you assess:

• Whether you have a donor prospect pool for major campaign gifts.

• Whether you have planned adequately for the campaign.

• Whether your board is willing to step up to support the campaign.

• Whether your staff has sufficient time to devote to the campaign.

• Whether you have the right policies and procedures in place.

• Whether your community is ready for the campaign.

• How well your software system can manage a campaign.

Perhaps your board and executive staff think you’re ready to launch a campaign, but you suspect otherwise. This book provides exercises you can do as a group to help you get ready for what will, most likely, be the biggest fundraising effort your organization has done up to this point.

Are You Ready for a Capital Campaign? can help you raise the sights of your entire organization to raise more money than you ever dreamed possible. You will learn what the key ingredients of a successful campaign are and how to make sure your organization has these ingredients in its toolbox before you launch a campaign that could fail because you didn't plan adequately. Once you’ve determined that you are ready or can get ready without a major overhaul of your development program, buy the companion book, Capital Campaigns: Everything You NEED to Know, also by Linda Lysakowski, to help you plan for a successful campaign.

This workbook is part of the popular CharityChannel In the Trenches series. You'll know In the Trenches books, workbooks and manuals not just by their covers, but by their authors' fun, upbeat writing style. But don't be fooled by their down-to-earth approach and ample use of sidebars. In the Trenches books are authoritative and cover what a beginner should know to get started and progress rapidly, and what a more experienced nonprofit-sector practitioner needs to move forward in the subject.

Linda Lysakowski, ACFRE, is one of approximately one hundred professionals worldwide to hold the Advanced Certified Fund Raising Executive designation. In her twenty years as a philanthropic consultant, Linda has managed capital campaigns ranging from $250,000 to more than $30 million, helped hundreds of nonprofit organizations achieve their development goals, and trained more than 25,000 professionals in Canada, Mexico, Egypt, Bermuda, and most of the fifty United States in all aspects of philanthropic development.

Linda has received the Outstanding Fundraising Executive award from both the Eastern Pennsylvania and the Las Vegas chapters of AFP (Association of Fundraising Professionals). In 2006, Linda was recognized internationally with the Barbara Marion Award for Outstanding Service to AFP.

Linda is a graduate of Alvernia University with degrees in banking and finance and theology/philosophy and a minor in communications. As a graduate of AFP’s Faculty Training Academy, she is certified as a Master Teacher. She is a member of the board of directors of the AFP Foundation and past president of the AFP Sierra Chapter in Reno, Nevada. She is a frequent presenter at regional and international conferences and has received two AFP research grants.

Linda is the author of Recruiting and Training Fundraising Volunteers; The Development Plan; Fundraising as a Career: What, Are You Crazy?; Capital Campaigns: Everything You NEED to Know; Raise More Money from Your Business Community; Fundraising for the GENIUS; Are You Ready for a Capital Campaign? (workbook); a contributing author to The Fundraising Feasibility Study—It’s Not About the Money; coeditor of YOU and Your Nonprofit and The Nonprofit Consulting Playbook; and coauthor of The Essential Nonprofit Fundraising Handbook. Contact Linda at www.lindalysakowski.com.