If you have children, you probably know the thought and research that goes into choosing a home based on the school you want your children to attend. 

Whether you plan to drop your kids off at a private school or have a specific public school in mind, the location of your home was most likely intentionally selected. 

For parents or those who observe families pre-planning a residence that best supports a child's growth makes sense. Unfortunately, many nonprofits skip this step when providing for their organization’s growth through a capital campaign. 

This step is called a pre-campaign feasibility study. After a nonprofit has checked off the four readiness markers for a capital campaign it’s time to find out if the capital campaign they prepared for is feasible. 

Throughout the rest of this article we’re going to take a deep dive into the purpose of a feasibility study, how one is conducted, several outcomes you can receive from the study, and what to do with your new-found information.

What is a Nonprofit Feasibility Study?

Starting points can seem small and inconsequential, but they affect an outcome tremendously. For example, if the Gateway Arch in St Louis Missouri had been one millimeter off at either starting point, the arch would never have connected!

Starting points are significant. 

Pre-campaign feasibility studies make sure your starting point is right so that you don’t miss your goal. Through thoughtful interviews and data collection a precampagin feasibility study analyzes the campaign capacity of your organization.

Specifically, a feasibility study provides information in three areas:  

1. Identifies donor prospects
2. Gauges readiness of members to participate
3. Clarifies a realistic fundraising goal

Launching a capital campaign is no small feat, understandably you want it to be successful. A feasibility study is one of an organization's best ways to prepare for a successful capital campaign. 

An organization may discover through a feasibility study that their goals are right on target, or that their goal was too high or too low, or even that they need another year or two of preparation. Either way feasibility studies are a crucial step to launching a capital campaign with confidence!

What is the Purpose of a Feasibility Study?

Proverbs 15:22 says, “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” And a similar thought is shared in Proverbs 11:14, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” 

Making well-informed decisions is an important part of our work as leaders of faith-based organizations. Valuable intel is accessible to you if you take time to inquire and listen to the people already supporting your important work. 

A pre-campaign feasibility study makes sure you gather specific and useful information from many advisors — namely the individuals who are currently invested in your work — and organize that information to guide decision-making. This is accomplished through two objectives:

1. Helping the organization make informed decisions during campaign planning.

This goal furthers the identification of donor prospects, gauges the readiness of members to participate in a campaign, clarifies a realistic fundraising goal, informs the development of a gift table, identifies potential campaign volunteers, and facilitates the construction of the campaign timeline.

2. Cultivating relationships with prospective donors and key stakeholders. 

Donors and leaders connect with the organization at a new level when we ask them for their opinion and take their feedback seriously. Engaging them in early conversations about the direction of the organization creates interest and builds both excitement and ownership. Feasibility study interviews are designed to learn more about our major donor prospects so that we can craft more effective gift invitations during the Campaign.

Through conducting a feasibility study you’re not only making sure you have the right starting point and collecting information to make a well-informed decision, you’re building a deeper relationship with donors and their connection to your important work.

How is a Feasibility Study Conducted?

I have a friend who is very capable of teaching her children how to play the piano and yet she always hires a piano teacher. 

After a few agonizing lessons with her as the teacher my friend discovered that her children worked harder for a teacher other than herself and fewer tantrums occured. In other words, a “third party” provided a better, more effective, and less stressful learning experience. 

It’s the same for a pre-campaign feasibility study. Can someone in your organization conduct one? Probably. But chances are your plates are already filled to overflowing and attempting to complete another project in a timely manner is unrealistic. 

Throughout my many years in nonprofit work I have witnessed feasibility studies executed by consultants to be more effective, timely, and less stressful. Additionally, the information gathered by consultants is usually more dependable and less biased because supporters tend to give more complete answers during their interview. 

Another benefit of hiring a consultant is timeline. A thorough feasibility study usually takes three to six months to complete. That’s a long time for an employee to reassign a significant portion of their weekly working hours. Which leads us to an important question: Why do feasibility studies take so long? 

There are three phases of a feasibility study: prepare, interview, advise.

Feasibility Study Phase 1: Prepare

In order to gather applicable and measurable information you need a set of consistent questions to ask, an inspiring goal to test, and a list of supporters to interview. Gathering and organizing this information can take anywhere from two to six weeks.

The preparation phase of a feasibility study includes: 

• Developing a preliminary campaign case statement and supporting materials
• Identifying, researching, quantifying and prioritizing your most able and willing prospects for a feasibility study
• Ascertaining a realistically achievable goal and gift table to be tested during your feasibility study
• Establishing appropriate feasibility study interview locations and dates
• Finalizing an interview invitation list of at least 100 prospective donors 
• Drafting all appointment cover letters, emails, interview outlines and survey tools

A typical feasibility study will consist of 40 interviews. While 100 or more invitations may seem steep, typically, only one out of every two or three interview requests are accepted. 

Feasibility Study Phase 2: Interview

After phase one of a feasibility study you are clear as an organization on what you want to achieve and how that will expand your important work. Phase two of a feasibility study is to understand how your donors view your organization, potential for growth, and their personal investment in your work. This usually lasts four to eight weeks.

The great part about phase two in a feasibility study is that once you finish helping your consultant schedule the interviews, you can get back to your normal routines! 

Phase 2 in a pre-campaign feasibility study includes:

• Accompanying staff in the final preparation of feasibility materials and scheduling of appointments
• Conducting approximately 40 face-to-face or phone interviews
• Conducting an online survey with those who don’t choose to participate in an interview

Scheduling interviews can be tricky. It is recommended that over a two to four week period four to eight days are selected for scheduled interviews. Interviews can be scheduled outside of these days, but having specific days and times set aside prompt your supporters to get an interview on their calendar. 

You can schedule interviews in one of three different ways or provide all three options in your invitations: 

1. A scheduling link. Calendly is our favorite scheduling tool at Brenda Moore and Associates. 
2. An invitation to call and schedule their own interview. Don’t forget to list the best phone number for them to call!
3. A phone call from organizational staff. If you offer this option, be sure to include a specific time frame, usually one week, when staff will call to schedule an interview. 

If an individual truly supports your organization chances are they will be excited about the opportunity to hear your vision for the future and share their thoughts regarding it. 

This is also, as previously mentioned, a powerful opportunity to create buy-in with your supporters. Inviting donors into your vision-casting process often ignites in them a sense of ownership. 

Feasibility Study Phase 3: Advise

Welcome to the truth-telling phase of a feasibility study! 

Now that you have information from 40ish different interviews it’s time to synthesize it into useful data. If you’ve hired a consultant you don’t have to do a thing until they present you with the information!

Phase three of a pre-campaign feasibility study includes: 

• Collecting, recording, and synthesizing all interview and survey data and feedback
• Developing recommendations
• Writing a feasibility report
• Reviewing the report and recommendations with the Executive Director in preparation for final presentation to the Board

This phase can take four to six weeks. Be sure to ask your consultant as many questions as you have when they go over the final report and recommendations with you. 

What Happens After a Feasibility Study?

You made it through the three phases of a feasibility study. Congrats!

You identified your goals and key stakeholders. Then you conducted interviews and gathered information. Finally, you analyzed the information and came to a conclusion of the best next steps to present to your board. 

But what happens next?

A feasibility study usually reveals three possibilities for your organization:

1. Your campaign goal is right on target and your constituency is ready to move forward.
2. Your campaign goal is too low and you need to expand your vision.
3. Your campaign goal is not currently accessible and you need to recalibrate.

If your organization is not ready for your campaign goal there’s no reason to throw in the towel. There are two powerful ways you can utilize the information you learned through conducting a feasibility study. 

Two Ways to Reposition Your Campaign If You’re Not Ready to Launch

First, if your constituency is supportive, but the capacity isn’t there, you may choose to scale back your plans to a more realistic fundraising goal. This is a very appropriate and common choice often resulting in increased confidence and successful campaigns.

The second option, is to postpone your campaign for a future time and strategically invest your energy into establishing the four readiness markers for a capital campaign.  

1. Leadership
2. Strategic choices
3. Finance
4. Fundraising

While your organization may not currently be ready for a capital campaign it has the capacity to become ready quickly. How do I know? Economic data. We are currently in what is called The Great Wealth Transfer, which means, historically there has never been a better time for fundraising. 

Over the next 20-25 years 45 million households will cumulatively pass on $73 trillion from one generation to the next! Cerulli Associates estimates that $10-$12 trillion of that will go to charity. Just to help you get your head around this mammoth number, these estate gifts alone will provide an average of $476 billion to nonprofits each year — a number equivalent to the total of all charitable giving in 2021. 

In Matthew 6:33 Jesus encourages us to “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” As a faith-based organization the work you do points others toward life-giving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Investing time and resources to prepare your organization for a successful capital campaign is crucial to expanding your important work so more people can encounter Christ. 

Instead of giving up if your organization is not ready for the capital campaign you had hoped for, shift gears to getting your organization ready! Watch our Capital Campaign Readiness Webinar HERE.

Is a Feasibility Study Always Necessary?

At this point in the article you’re probably thinking about what a huge undertaking a campaign feasibility study is. We’re with you! While we believe feasibility studies are an important part of preparing for a successful campaign, we know first hand how much work they entail. 

So the question is: Is a feasibility study always necessary?

In one word, No.

In fact, there’s a growing trend away from them, but ONLY for organizations who already have thorough data, donor relationships that run deep and wide, and the experience to bypass this step.

Examples of situations that may not require a feasibility study include:

• Continuous campaign mode. Frequently, these are organizations like colleges and universities. If campaigns have become frequently recurring events, and you have donor data that can accurately predict your success, you may not need a full scale pre-campaign study.
• Generous membership loyalty. Small to mid-size congregations can fall into this category. Thoughtful private conversations with the church’s top donors may confirm all you need to know about where the top 80-90% of your campaign support might come from making a feasibility study overkill. 
• Modest campaign goals. In the case of a campaign goal so modest in scope — perhaps 1.5 to 2 times your annual gift revenues — simple fundraising rules of thumb will substantially support the likelihood of your success.

But if you don’t see your organization in one of these examples, here’s your next step…

How Brenda Moore and Associate Can Help You Start A Pre-Campaign Feasibility Study Today

Executing a pre-campaign feasibility study can feel incredibly daunting. Convincing decision-makers to invest in a pre-campaign feasibility study can be challenging. But it is well worth the investment. 

Capital campaigns can take multiple years to complete and significantly impact the reach of your ministry. Having to redirect or pause a capital campaign after launching can have devastating repercussions for your organization. 

On the other hand, starting a capital campaign from a well-informed place can launch your important work into new buildings, programs, and staff that will welcome even more people into God’s grace that surpasses all understanding. 

If you’re ready to start a pre-campaign feasibility study for your organization, schedule a call here. My team and I would be honored to support you in making well-informed decisions as you steward your important work.  

Co-authored by Brenda Moore, CFRE and Sisi Roose.