October 24, 2025 • 34 mins
Capital campaigns don’t have to be mysterious, exhausting marathons. With Jason Lewis of Seed Fundraisers, we pull back the curtain on a simpler, smarter path: a four‑wave model that mirrors how donors actually give and how organizations can build capacity while they raise transformational dollars. Instead of forcing everything into “quiet” and “public,” we map the journey from experienced, asset‑based leadership gifts through staff‑driven cultivation, to broader, income‑based pledges—so momentum doesn’t stall and volunteers aren’t asked to do the wrong jobs at the wrong time.
We also tackle the hidden “undercurrent” that sinks campaigns when gift volume spikes: pledge management, receipting, data hygiene, leadership stability, and board continuity. Jason shares where to invest staff time, when to shift from one‑to‑one to one‑to‑many outreach, and how to structure a case for support that reaches three distinct major‑donor motivations: bricks and mortar, entrepreneurial program growth, and rapid‑response needs. If you’ve ever watched a lead donor step up only to be let down by the follow‑through, this framework shows how to bring the next wave with you—on purpose.
Along the way, we offer straight‑talk for newer fundraisers who feel out of their depth: get in front of donors more often, listen longer, and translate annual‑fund instincts to capital scale. Treat your campaign as a teaching instrument, not a one‑off production, and you’ll build internal muscle that lasts well beyond the ribbon‑cutting. Ready to rethink your next campaign—and keep what you learn? Follow the show, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a quick review to tell us what wave you’re planning for next.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
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SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast.
I'm your host, Megan Speer,joined today by Jason Lewis,
who's uh one of the partners atSeed Fundraisers.
You may remember we had Isaac onnot too long ago.
So it's good to have anothervoice from Seed.
Jason, welcome in.
SPEAKER_02 (00:33):
Hey, I'm glad to be here, Megan.
Uh, you and I have yet to havethe uh privilege of being in the
same room together, but uh I amlooking forward to getting that
out of the way.
But uh, I've enjoyed getting toknow you at a distance and
looking forward to today'sconversation.
SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Yeah, I'm excited to dig in.
So for the audience who mightnot yet be familiar with you and
your work, give us a little bitof background about your history
with the nonprofit space andwith fundraising in particular.
SPEAKER_02 (00:57):
No, I've got a little bit of a complicated
relationship with the nonprofitsector right now.
SPEAKER_01 (01:03):
I feel like that's a fair assessment.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (01:05):
Yeah.
I think um so uh I have said tosome folks very recently that
um, and in most cases I'mreferring to the writing that
I'm doing on Substack, that I'min that mid-career sort of uh
deconstruction phase where I'msort of deconstructing my faith
in everything that we do or whatwe don't do.
(01:25):
Um I spend uh to answer yourquestion very explicitly, you
know, specifically, I spendabout half my time, Megan, uh
teaching uh at the localcollege.
Uh I teach a non at your collegeof Pennsylvania, I teach a
nonprofit management courseevery semester, a social
entrepreneurship course, and acouple of other marketing and
(01:45):
management courses.
Um then I spend a great deal ofmy time um writing.
Uh I have a fledgling Substackthat's pretty popular, growing
in popularity amongst thefundraising and philanthropic
community.
And then I do have a handful ofclients.
So I like to keep myself out inthe field, uh you know, boots on
(02:06):
the ground, as you might say,getting my hands dirty with some
of the challenges that clientshave.
So that's kind of it's kind ofthe three prongs of how I spend
my time.
SPEAKER_01 (02:16):
Nice.
Well, so we're gonna use alittle of that background today
to talk about actually somethingthat I don't think we've talked
about yet on the podcast since Itook over as the host a year and
a half ago.
And that is a capital campaign.
I feel like we have dissectedevery other tiny piece of
fundraising across the board.
(02:36):
So I'm excited to dig into a newpiece of it and talk capital.
It's I think maybe one of thescarier parts for a lot of
people because it can be such alarge undertaking.
So let's let's set the stage fortoday's discussion because you
have a different way of kind ofviewing that campaign.
And I think it goes back toactually how you opened, which
(02:58):
is I have a little bit of adifferent view of how we do
fundraising.
So this this particular I mean,there's always kind of been the
old school, we're doing this intwo phases in a way we go kind
of approach.
Talk to me a little bit aboutyour framework and how you think
of it differently to getstarted.
SPEAKER_02 (03:17):
Yeah, so um we're on a podcast, so those of us who
are don't have the advantage ofnecessarily the visual, but do
we broadcast this on um YouTube?
SPEAKER_01 (03:26):
We will put so we'll put the graphic for this in the
show notes for sure.
SPEAKER_02 (03:29):
In the show notes, okay, good.
So um, for those of those folkswho are listening, we're talking
about this visual that'sactually quite well designed by
a graphic designer, not myself,in a single square box.
So all of this can uh, if you'vegot that visual in front of you,
it'll make a lot more sense.
But to jump off of yourreference to the traditional
two-phase, I have orchestratedand been actively involved in a
(03:53):
number of campaigns throughoutmy career, uh, most of which
small with smaller and lessexperienced organizations,
Megan.
And I have found that thattwo-phase traditional sort of
public and or quiet and publicphase has some flaws in it.
The model that I have introducedand we've utilized with clients
(04:13):
over the years doesn'tcompletely dismiss those two
what we might call phases in inour four-phase model.
That very quiet phase wouldessentially just simply be the
first wave in our four waves.
And then that very public phasegenerally plays out in waves two
and uh three and four.
(04:34):
And so we've divided it.
And what we're really trying todo first and foremost is deliver
to the client a more intuitiveand a capacity-building sort of
resource that helps themvisualize what a cap the way a
capital campaign traditionallyplays out in an organization.
It's usually, it's probably bestunderstood as an outgrowth or a
(04:58):
uh an extension of a thriving,existing fundraising program.
So you kind of know that yourprogram has kind of reached a
particular point when you'reable to embark on a capital
campaign.
And with that said, that's oneof the reasons why I don't think
it should be nearly asintimidating as perhaps we
sometimes make it to be.
(05:19):
Um, I like to think that capitalcampaigns, just like this tool,
like a lot of the tools thatI've developed over the years,
can be used as teaching, can weteach these things before we
necessarily have to coach orconsult?
Um, if you can imagine conveninga group of board members and
leaders and fundraisers in aroom for an organization that
(05:42):
wants to embark on a capitalcampaign, can we perhaps teach
them in a couple of hours orjust maybe a couple of days in a
retreat format all of the basicsof the way a campaign works?
And then perhaps they can leavefrom there and perhaps in some
cases carry it out on their own.
SPEAKER_01 (06:00):
Okay.
So let's talk about because itsounds like still in phase one,
we're we're still talking aboutthat quiet phase.
And I've heard a lot of varyingopinions over the years around
how much of the the overall goalshould be raised in that quiet
phase.
How do we decide what that whatthat percentage looks like?
(06:22):
I'm curious your opinion on onkind of the goal of the quiet
phase and how you know when it'stime to move out of it.
SPEAKER_02 (06:30):
Yeah.
So the best the first place, ifyou're looking at the visual,
the first thing to pay attentionto after you've sort of seen the
fact that you've got these fourwaves is to differentiate
between what we call asset-basedgiving or givers and
income-based givers.
And that's really justrecognizing that um a large
number of the contributions thatwe receive in a capital
(06:51):
campaign, in many cases upwardsof two-thirds of those
contributions, are going to comefrom what we would traditionally
refer to as an asset-basedgiver, which means they're
giving from um accumulatedassets, they're giving
securities.
They're also on what we what aneconomist might call the asset
side of life.
So they're 55 plus years old,they've paid off their mortgage,
(07:13):
the children are no longer, youknow, they've graduated from
college.
All of the financial things thatwe do in, you know, after, you
know, during that very consumingside of life where we're
spending more than we have, allof that changes when we get to
uh generally, you know, for alot of us when we're in our 50s
and and perhaps our 60s, whichfrees up a lot of resources.
(07:38):
That framing isn't to limit oror prohibit the possibility that
some of those early gifts in thecapital campaign might come from
younger individuals.
It's just that even amongstthose younger individuals, they
still will generally be uh theywill come from assets.
So what are we doing with this?
We're we're recognizing thattraditional first half or that
(08:01):
very quiet phase generally comesfrom asset-based givers.
So they're giving in verysignificant ways.
And what we're doing with ourwith our four-phased approach is
we're dividing that group intotwo parts, and we're just simply
saying that there's a group ofpeople who are more experienced
with these types ofcontributions.
They've given six andseven-figure contributions,
(08:24):
they've been on the committees,they've participated in the
feasibility studies.
In many cases, they're quiteweary of all of the hoopla and
the pomp and circumstance thatgoes into these things.
And then there's the other folksthat are perhaps slightly
younger, but similarly at a timeof life where they're capable of
very similar contributions thatare not so experienced with
(08:47):
this.
And when you just draw the linethere, so we're talking about,
you know, let's think, you know,uh hypothetically, you're
talking about two individuals.
One of them is in their late50s, early 60s, and they're
thinking about making perhapstheir first six-figure or even a
seven-figure commitment to acampaign.
And then you have someone who's10 years older than that who's
(09:09):
probably done this, may havedone this a dozen times, you
know.
They've been so fortunate intheir life that they're able to
do those are two differentconversations, two different
experiences for the donor.
Um, and that lesser experienceddonor in many cases, and anyone
who's been in these and in thesescenarios will relate to this,
(09:32):
that's a lot more work.
So even if that can even ifthat, say, you know, quarter,
half a million dollar donor isis a is a percentage, you know,
is half or or or a fraction ofwhat that that lead donor uh who
is very much very experiencedwith these types of
contributions, they're on amuch, much more difficult
(09:54):
journey, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01 (09:56):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (09:57):
Yeah.
So that's kind of what we'redoing.
That's what we're doing therewith each of the waves is we're
dividing it between the folkswho've exp who have a degree of
experience and maybe not somuch, and then where those
resources come from.
Do they come from assets or dothey come from regular income?
SPEAKER_01 (10:16):
Okay.
Now, uh what I think isinteresting about what you just
said is it makes me think ofwho's on the flip side, right?
So when we're talking aboutpeople who are regularly being
approached for that size of agift, who are used to
functioning in that realm ofphilanthropy.
In most organizations that Ihave seen go through capital,
(10:38):
they are not dealing with anexperienced fundraiser.
SPEAKER_02 (10:41):
Yes, yes, right.
SPEAKER_01 (10:42):
So I'd love to take just a second and talk to the
person who has found themselves,you know, they're used to doing
an annual an annual fund drive,they're used to doing some
online or some event, and nowall of a sudden they've been
thrust into capital and aretrying to deal with managing the
expectations of donors who areused to that level of giving
(11:04):
when we're not used to thatlevel of asking.
Right?
So I'd love to hear your yourtake for the fundraisers
themselves on that side of it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:13):
So there's the fundraiser, so that you're kind
of describing two fundraisers.
Um you're do you're describingthe less experienced fundraiser.
So the fundraiser who hasn'tbeen around the block a few
times, even in that annual fund.
They're new to fundraising.
Yeah.
And then you're or you're expyou're describing somebody who's
been running an annual fund forfor perhaps years or decades,
(11:35):
and they just simply haven'tdone a campaign of the scale in
terms of size of gifts.
One of the things that thesefour waves is trying to is also
trying to help us see is thatPareto principle, that 80-20
rule that plays out in reallyany campaign.
So whether we're talking aboutan annual fund, think about the
(11:59):
way that an annual fund playsout in an organization or a
capital campaign, they almostplay out in very identical types
of waves.
So you have the most significantand most experienced givers,
oftentimes giving the largestcontributions.
They oftentimes give up front.
And that's a cut, that's acontributor who's giving in the
(12:20):
annual campaign very much thesame way that they would in the
capital campaign.
And I think that's anextraordinary, you know,
extraordinarily importantquestion as it relates to why
we're trying to push this sortof a model out there is because
I'm trying to give credit tothat annual fund director who
sees the underlying logic oftheir of their annual fund that
(12:44):
really plays out in the samebasic sort of movement.
It's just the size of thecontributions just aren't as
large.
And if you can see that thescale is really the only
difference, you can start tointuit, okay, this is what
happens at this point, this iswhat happens at that point.
You know, that that wave onedonor, I'm sure you've had
(13:07):
experiences with this particulardonor.
So that wave one donor, whetherthey're giving at the beginning
of a capital campaign or anannual fund, is oftentimes the
donor who is more than willingto take the lead.
But in some cases, they've beenasked to take the lead more than
one time.
And they've oftentimes beenpromised that these what we call
(13:29):
wave two donors are going tofollow their lead.
And so the disappointment thatoftentimes is accompanied these
wave one commitments is the isnot is the lack of
follow-through thatorganizations oftentimes make in
not bringing that additionalwave of asset-based donors.
(13:53):
Oftentimes you see donors whoare giving, you know,
extraordinary six and seven andsometimes eight-figure gifts,
and then the campaign all of asudden jumps to that opposite
end, the other extreme, andthey're like, why didn't you
bring anybody else in to kind oftag along with me?
That's that's some of what we'retrying to differentiate.
(14:14):
We're thinking about the donor'sexperience, both in terms of
what that Wave One donor isexperiencing.
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SPEAKER_01 (15:12):
So if we're if we are a fundraiser who's maybe
used to that approach, weunderstand how that goes, now
we're looking at we're, youknow, these gifts are
exponentially larger than whatwe're used to in an annual fund.
Help us see then where we makethe jump from wave two to wave
(15:32):
three.
SPEAKER_02 (15:34):
So, yes, that's that's fine.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
Because that's I feel like that's gonna be a the
deciding factor there is a lotdifferent than somebody that's
used to reading that wave in anannual fund.
SPEAKER_02 (15:43):
So So that line, that line is the same line that
we traditionally draw betweenyour more public and you're, you
know, you're you're quiet andyou're that's the same line.
It's the point at which thefundraising activity moves away
from more one-on-one to a moreone-to-many type communication.
(16:04):
So um it's also the point atwhich, so it's the point at
which your donors tend to beyounger.
They tend to be giving thosemore income-based contributions,
oftentimes.
So in a private independentschool setting, oftentimes my
wave three donor is a parentwho's uh had a professional, you
(16:27):
know, a successful career.
They're not nearing retirement.
They're they want to make forthe first time an extraordinary
multi-year pledge.
So he or she might be thinkingof$25,000 or$50,000 a year that
committed over five yearsamounts to something
extraordinary, something they'venever done before.
But you see how the the way inwhich they're gonna construct
(16:51):
that, the way they're gonna putthat commitment together is very
different than the way thatthose asset-based donors did.
Um, but you also notice thatthey're very similarly at a time
and place where they may haveeither had done that or they've
never done that at all.
What you also see in both twoand three is a much more
(17:12):
staff-driven uh activity.
I can generally in anorganization get the volunteers
on those two book ins, those twotraditional and more familiar
waves.
I can generally get both ofthose organized and I can get
those gifts secured with thetraditional committee structure,
(17:35):
and and we give three or fournames to so-and-so, and they go
out and and solicit that gift.
You can usually get that donewith those two bookend
categories, but those two middlecategories tend to require more
staff.
The other thing, and this iswhere the visualization helps.
Uh, and and I I I try, you know,you're probably looking at the
(17:56):
visual as I am.
In wave three, it's where whatwe call the undercurrent.
So this visualization is allwe're using waves, so like
water.
And you know, an undercurrent,the way an undercurrent works is
it's always there, whetheryou're in the deep water or the
shallow water.
It's just that an undercurrentis very dangerous the more
(18:17):
shallow the water you happen tobe in.
And oftentimes, to yourquestion, it's in the third wave
where you start to realize thatsome of the undercurrent or the
problems that you opted not toaddress in those deeper waters
just simply because it wasn'tnecessary start to become an
issue.
Like, for example, you don'thave a you don't have a
(18:40):
five-year contract in place foryour president.
You have turnover on the boardthat disrupts the process.
You have a disgruntledfundraiser who's not happy.
You have infrastructure, youdon't have a good software
program that's properlyaccounting for gifts.
In wave three, think about this,Megan.
In wave three, your volume ofgifts now dramatically
(19:02):
increases, even though the sizeof the gifts goes to about half,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (19:07):
Sure.
SPEAKER_02 (19:08):
Now you need receiping to actually work.
And you need to have thoughtthrough, okay, how are we going
to receipt this?
And and now you're collectingmulti-year pledges, which means
I've got to actually think aboutcollecting on those pledges,
which means I've got to not onlycollect the, you know, the those
big checks that our first waveand second wave donors were
(19:29):
giving, but I also actually haveto make sure that our donors are
fulfilling the the second andthird and the fourth and the
fifth, say they're makingfive-year pledges.
That's where that undercurrentthat was very easy to ignore
when Mr.
and Mrs.
Smith was giving you, you know,a seven-figure gift, that's
where that starts to really showits um yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:54):
So I'm curious to know because as we're talking
about this, there are we thecapital is a long game.
Right?
This is not an immediate, and Ido feel like that fatigue can
set in or when people don'tnecessarily see progress.
So what are some ways that youfind to kind of as as we even
(20:18):
move from wave to wave, whereyou have been able to like
either encourage the folksyou're working with or you have
done yourself to stay committedand excited about the project so
that we don't hit that fatiguein the middle and start to lose
out on gifts.
SPEAKER_02 (20:34):
Yeah.
So here again is where I thinkthe consulting world has made a
mistake in terms of how we teachand institutionalize
organizations, how we bring themup to speed on how these capital
campaigns are going to play out.
If you think about the questionyou're asking and you look at
the visual that we're trying tocreate here, you start to make
(20:55):
sense that a lot of your donorsessentially participate in these
waves over time.
So the donor who was a wave one,uh, you know, in that in wave
four, that later wave,eventually moves into those, you
know, the other waves.
If you begin to understand that,you can actually start to
(21:16):
develop a much more holistic anda much more long view of the way
that capital campaigns play outin an organization because you
know that the donor who gave toyou, the income-based donor who
gave to you in wave three, isgoing to want to be a leadership
giver in your next campaign.
(21:37):
They're gonna, but they're gonnabe older, maybe a little more
resource, you know, they'regonna have more more additional
resources because they've paidoff the house and you know the
company's done really well, andand the their two daughters are
out of college and finished gradschool, et cetera, et cetera.
You can see these stories sortof play out.
Yeah.
But the more you can see that,the more, the more that the
(22:00):
organization has this sort ofthis collective consciousness of
how these things play out, themore you start to make sense of
why in higher education we seeinstitutions that never, they
never really stop being incampaign mode.
There's always a campaign goingon.
It's just these are the mostextraordinary, you know, most
(22:22):
transformative, most perhapsimpactful initiatives that the
institution's doing, and they'realways moving a category of
donors that aligns with theirtime of life and their their
giving, you know, theirabilities to give closer and
closer to those most significantuh levels of support.
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
So it it really, at least if I can summarize the way
that I understand what you'resaying, is that we we as a whole
need to stop looking at capitalas a as a one-time thing that
we're gonna do, we're gonnabuild the building and we're
gonna move on with life, but itreally is setting up the
organization for a much morestable future long term if we
(23:09):
can embrace what we learn in theprocess.
SPEAKER_02 (23:12):
Yes.
If you if you think about if youstudied, if you sort of studied
the history of the both thefundraising profession and
you've you've looked ascritically as I have about the
way that we consult as thesethird parties, you start to make
sense that the capital campaignand the the feasibility study
(23:32):
mantra and all of that tends tobe a very expert or third party
oriented approach.
And so the expert comes in, heor she comes in and delivers on
their expertise and facilitatesperhaps a rather successful
capital campaign.
That's great.
And then the campaign initiativeis turned off and and everybody
(23:55):
gets back to normal andeverybody forgets what we just
learned during this process.
And then five years later, whenthe when it's time to do that
again, the same consultants gethired and the same fees and get
going through that same process.
I started thinking about this ina much more general sense,
Megan, early in my consultingcareer when my my uh at the time
(24:18):
business partner and our oursenior partner said to me that a
consultant should never, aclient should never have to hire
a consultant for the same thingtwice.
And I took that to heart.
And I think that's where we seethe the capital campaign and the
feasibility study really beingsomething that we need to look
at critically, that your clientperhaps shouldn't have to hire
(24:41):
you for the same service twice,because if you are, if they are,
they're they're creating adegree of dependency and and
that that internal knowledge andthe institutional awareness of
how this works is never beingnever being built.
And so consequently, the it'sgreat for the consultancies, uh,
it's not so great for the uh forthe clients.
(25:04):
And I find I think a lot offundraisers who are on the
payroll may you know doing thiswork day in and day out are
getting wise to that.
I don't think you and I, youknow, I'm certainly not the only
one who's starting to figurethis stuff out.
SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (25:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:18):
So I'm curious um if there is a difference in your
mind or or how we would approachit.
So a lot of times we see capitalcampaigns tend to be for
obviously for building, right?
We're making we're making somesort of big investment change,
etc.
And that happens a lot in faithcommunities.
SPEAKER_02 (25:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:40):
Where you know the church is expanding or growing
or they're building a new siteor location, or you know, those
kind of those pieces.
Is it at all does it does theapproach here vary at all
depending on the type oforganization, right?
Because a church who's doingthis one probably you know, uh
very few churches are doing acapital every five years,
(26:02):
whereas a college or a school iscontinually evolving and growing
and has maybe a different trackrecord for being in that
consistent campaign model.
Plus, I think sometimes a lot ofchurches don't necessarily look
at themselves, even if they'rerunning a campaign like that,
they don't look at themselves asfundraisers.
So is there a differentmentality there that they need
(26:23):
to embrace?
SPEAKER_02 (26:24):
Yeah, we we could start a whole nother we could
start a whole notherconversation, but this is so you
know, we've been talking aboutthe capital campaign itself.
And my my general critique overthe whole thing, you know,
starts with the way that weorchestrate these feasibility
studies.
And I I think the answer to yourquestion, one of the things that
you learn as a consultant who'sdone these feasibility studies
(26:48):
as often as I have is that youyour donors, once they get to
the place where they're givingin these most extraordinary
ways, what we call these, youknow, wave one and two, what you
start to see is they do tend tofall in three categories.
And you can look at feasibilitystudy outcomes, and you can also
look at the history of what wecall comprehensive campaigns.
(27:09):
Again, we're pointing to thesebig campaigns that happen in
higher education.
And you start to make sense thatessentially you make sense of
the idea that the donors atthese most extraordinary levels
are oftentimes inclined to givein three different areas.
That first one is that donor whogives to the, gives brick and
mortar, who gives to, you know,put a building up.
(27:30):
But you're lucky if half thedonors in a feasibility study
want to necessarily give tothat.
Everybody who's got the means tobuild buildings, you know, in
terms of their capabilities,doesn't necessarily, they're not
motivated, they're notcompelled.
That's not where their heart'sat.
And so you very easily candismiss a large chunk of your
(27:51):
donors just because you're, youknow, you're talking about
faith-based organizations oreven churches, you know, you're
you're immediately sort of, youknow, setting a handful of
donors off to the side simply orundermining the opportunity
simply because you're you'renarrowing the scope of what they
are being invited to give to.
(28:13):
Those other two categories,which I consistently find to be
about 50-50.
So I tend to find that you can,you know, donors are inclined,
maybe 40% of the donors, maybeat best 50% of the donors in a
feasibility study are verymotivated by the the bricks and
mortar opportunity, right?
(28:33):
But the other two tend to kindof be divided into two
categories.
And the the second group is whatI sometimes call the kind of the
entrepreneurial donor or theperson who kind of wants to
expand on the program.
They understand the organizationin a way that they they
understand that that uh ifyou're thinking about a school,
they understand that yourscience labs need to be taken to
(28:55):
another level.
Or if you're talking about a,you know, uh a housing
organization, they understandthat the you know that you have
a men's program, but you couldbenefit from a women and
children's program.
Or so they know that yourexisting program has some gaps
and they want to expand that.
I think some of the giving thatMcKenzie Scott is doing uh kind
(29:16):
of aligns with thisentrepreneurial sort of program
expansion, sort of.
I think I sense in some of thestories that I've read about her
giving and what she tends togive to, that she's not as
motivated by bricks and mortar.
She doesn't want to give, putthe constraints that this has to
go here.
And so that entrepreneurialspirit comes in there.
(29:36):
But then the last one is that Ithink you also have a category
of donors, which this, and thisis where these extraordinary
donors get overlooked fororganizations that are just
trying to keep the lights onafter the capital campaign's
over with.
And this is the donor who wantsto meet emergency immediate
needs.
(29:57):
They're capable of giving youhuge gifts.
Of the sort that you would, youknow, that would move mountains
in terms of moving a capitalcampaign.
But they're much more responsiveto things like we're in a crisis
and I need somebody to coverthis.
And I think we forget that thoseare donors that are oftentimes
(30:17):
identified during a capitalcampaign.
We sometimes don't we don'tcraft the case for support in a
way that allows them to havethat opportunity because this is
a very, you know, linear,well-orchestrated process.
It doesn't look like it's sortof this screaming need that says
we have to get this taken careof tomorrow or the you know the
(30:39):
everything's gonna fall apart.
I think there's people in ourconstituencies that are very
responsive to that, and we needto know who they are.
And I'm sure every organizationyou've worked for, just like the
ones I have, you know, therewere times when you needed a
donor that you could call on whowould be willing to give$50,000,
(31:00):
you know, at a moment's notice.
Um but too often we narrowlysort of pigeonhole these donors
into these other categories andwe make it seem like the only
place we can plug their money inis to build another building.
SPEAKER_01 (31:16):
No, that's a really good call out.
That's great.
Jason, this has all beenextremely helpful.
And I think, especially forthose folks who are maybe newer
to Capital or who are in themidst of their first one, I
think is going to be reallyuseful information.
So thank you for sharing all ofthis.
Definitely make sure you gocheck out the show notes so that
you're taking a look at thatgraphic that we have been
(31:38):
referencing, because I thinkit'll help put a lot of this
into perspective.
Uh, but as we wrap up, Jason,the question that I have been
asking everyone in this seasonis if you could give one piece
of advice or wisdom orencouragement to nonprofit
professionals, what would thatbe?
Yeah, so your parting wisdom.
SPEAKER_02 (31:58):
Yeah, my parting wisdom, it's the answer I've
been at.
I mean, it's the answer I'vegiven a lot.
And it's usually the answer thatI give to a young or an
inexperienced fundraiser,probably the fundraiser we've
referenced a couple of times.
Sure.
And very true to the, to eventhe uh the underlying logic
behind this model that we'vetalked about.
But it's it's just getting infront of and closer to your
(32:20):
donors.
I think the uh, you know, if I'masked a question like that,
Megan, at an event, uh, youknow, if I let's say I've done a
speaking engagement, I come downoff the platform or something,
and a young fundraiser walks upto me, I'm gonna say to them,
find a place and an opportunity,get in front of the donor, as
close, you know, as close andand intimate with the donor as
you possibly can.
(32:41):
Not necessarily to close thebiggest gifts, but to really
understand what that dynamic'slike.
Yeah.
Um, and so as it relates to yourquestion and as it relates to
this moment, because I know thismoment is there's probably a lot
of listeners who are, you know,maybe they've lost subsidy from
the federal government, maybethe, you know, the summer slump
(33:03):
has hit them and they didn't thesummer didn't perform as well as
they wanted to, et cetera, etcetera.
I don't think anything betterthan those higher context
conversations can remedy that.
And I think we have to learn howto pick up the phone and invite
people to lunch without havingto ask them for checks and all
of those things that you canreally only do by getting in
(33:25):
front of the donor and gettingout in the field.
SPEAKER_01 (33:28):
Yeah.
unknown (33:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:29):
That's great.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Again, my guest today has beenJason Lewis, who's one of the
partners at Seed Fundraisers.
Jason, thank you so much forbeing here.
We really appreciate all thewisdom that you had to share.
SPEAKER_02 (33:40):
Yeah, this has been a lot of fun.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (33:42):
This has been another episode of the Nonprofit
Hub Radio Podcast.
I'm your host, Megan Speer, andwe'll see you next time.
Marketing Support Network is proud to serve the
nonprofit community by offeringfull service contact center,
fulfillment, digital marketing,and fundraising services.
Your vision is our mission, andwe can't wait to partner with
you.
Visit Marketing SupportNetwork.com for more
information.
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast.
I'm your host, Megan Speer,joined today by Jason Lewis,
who's uh one of the partners atSeed Fundraisers.
You may remember we had Isaac onnot too long ago.
So it's good to have anothervoice from Seed.
Jason, welcome in.
SPEAKER_02 (00:33):
Hey, I'm glad to be here, Megan.
Uh, you and I have yet to havethe uh privilege of being in the
same room together, but uh I amlooking forward to getting that
out of the way.
But uh, I've enjoyed getting toknow you at a distance and
looking forward to today'sconversation.
SPEAKER_01 (00:47):
Yeah, I'm excited to dig in.
So for the audience who mightnot yet be familiar with you and
your work, give us a little bitof background about your history
with the nonprofit space andwith fundraising in particular.
SPEAKER_02 (00:57):
No, I've got a little bit of a complicated
relationship with the nonprofitsector right now.
SPEAKER_01 (01:03):
I feel like that's a fair assessment.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (01:05):
Yeah.
I think um so uh I have said tosome folks very recently that
um, and in most cases I'mreferring to the writing that
I'm doing on Substack, that I'min that mid-career sort of uh
deconstruction phase where I'msort of deconstructing my faith
in everything that we do or whatwe don't do.
(01:25):
Um I spend uh to answer yourquestion very explicitly, you
know, specifically, I spendabout half my time, Megan, uh
teaching uh at the localcollege.
Uh I teach a non at your collegeof Pennsylvania, I teach a
nonprofit management courseevery semester, a social
entrepreneurship course, and acouple of other marketing and
(01:45):
management courses.
Um then I spend a great deal ofmy time um writing.
Uh I have a fledgling Substackthat's pretty popular, growing
in popularity amongst thefundraising and philanthropic
community.
And then I do have a handful ofclients.
So I like to keep myself out inthe field, uh you know, boots on
(02:06):
the ground, as you might say,getting my hands dirty with some
of the challenges that clientshave.
So that's kind of it's kind ofthe three prongs of how I spend
my time.
SPEAKER_01 (02:16):
Nice.
Well, so we're gonna use alittle of that background today
to talk about actually somethingthat I don't think we've talked
about yet on the podcast since Itook over as the host a year and
a half ago.
And that is a capital campaign.
I feel like we have dissectedevery other tiny piece of
fundraising across the board.
(02:36):
So I'm excited to dig into a newpiece of it and talk capital.
It's I think maybe one of thescarier parts for a lot of
people because it can be such alarge undertaking.
So let's let's set the stage fortoday's discussion because you
have a different way of kind ofviewing that campaign.
And I think it goes back toactually how you opened, which
(02:58):
is I have a little bit of adifferent view of how we do
fundraising.
So this this particular I mean,there's always kind of been the
old school, we're doing this intwo phases in a way we go kind
of approach.
Talk to me a little bit aboutyour framework and how you think
of it differently to getstarted.
SPEAKER_02 (03:17):
Yeah, so um we're on a podcast, so those of us who
are don't have the advantage ofnecessarily the visual, but do
we broadcast this on um YouTube?
SPEAKER_01 (03:26):
We will put so we'll put the graphic for this in the
show notes for sure.
SPEAKER_02 (03:29):
In the show notes, okay, good.
So um, for those of those folkswho are listening, we're talking
about this visual that'sactually quite well designed by
a graphic designer, not myself,in a single square box.
So all of this can uh, if you'vegot that visual in front of you,
it'll make a lot more sense.
But to jump off of yourreference to the traditional
two-phase, I have orchestratedand been actively involved in a
(03:53):
number of campaigns throughoutmy career, uh, most of which
small with smaller and lessexperienced organizations,
Megan.
And I have found that thattwo-phase traditional sort of
public and or quiet and publicphase has some flaws in it.
The model that I have introducedand we've utilized with clients
(04:13):
over the years doesn'tcompletely dismiss those two
what we might call phases in inour four-phase model.
That very quiet phase wouldessentially just simply be the
first wave in our four waves.
And then that very public phasegenerally plays out in waves two
and uh three and four.
(04:34):
And so we've divided it.
And what we're really trying todo first and foremost is deliver
to the client a more intuitiveand a capacity-building sort of
resource that helps themvisualize what a cap the way a
capital campaign traditionallyplays out in an organization.
It's usually, it's probably bestunderstood as an outgrowth or a
(04:58):
uh an extension of a thriving,existing fundraising program.
So you kind of know that yourprogram has kind of reached a
particular point when you'reable to embark on a capital
campaign.
And with that said, that's oneof the reasons why I don't think
it should be nearly asintimidating as perhaps we
sometimes make it to be.
(05:19):
Um, I like to think that capitalcampaigns, just like this tool,
like a lot of the tools thatI've developed over the years,
can be used as teaching, can weteach these things before we
necessarily have to coach orconsult?
Um, if you can imagine conveninga group of board members and
leaders and fundraisers in aroom for an organization that
(05:42):
wants to embark on a capitalcampaign, can we perhaps teach
them in a couple of hours orjust maybe a couple of days in a
retreat format all of the basicsof the way a campaign works?
And then perhaps they can leavefrom there and perhaps in some
cases carry it out on their own.
SPEAKER_01 (06:00):
Okay.
So let's talk about because itsounds like still in phase one,
we're we're still talking aboutthat quiet phase.
And I've heard a lot of varyingopinions over the years around
how much of the the overall goalshould be raised in that quiet
phase.
How do we decide what that whatthat percentage looks like?
(06:22):
I'm curious your opinion on onkind of the goal of the quiet
phase and how you know when it'stime to move out of it.
SPEAKER_02 (06:30):
Yeah.
So the best the first place, ifyou're looking at the visual,
the first thing to pay attentionto after you've sort of seen the
fact that you've got these fourwaves is to differentiate
between what we call asset-basedgiving or givers and
income-based givers.
And that's really justrecognizing that um a large
number of the contributions thatwe receive in a capital
(06:51):
campaign, in many cases upwardsof two-thirds of those
contributions, are going to comefrom what we would traditionally
refer to as an asset-basedgiver, which means they're
giving from um accumulatedassets, they're giving
securities.
They're also on what we what aneconomist might call the asset
side of life.
So they're 55 plus years old,they've paid off their mortgage,
(07:13):
the children are no longer, youknow, they've graduated from
college.
All of the financial things thatwe do in, you know, after, you
know, during that very consumingside of life where we're
spending more than we have, allof that changes when we get to
uh generally, you know, for alot of us when we're in our 50s
and and perhaps our 60s, whichfrees up a lot of resources.
(07:38):
That framing isn't to limit oror prohibit the possibility that
some of those early gifts in thecapital campaign might come from
younger individuals.
It's just that even amongstthose younger individuals, they
still will generally be uh theywill come from assets.
So what are we doing with this?
We're we're recognizing thattraditional first half or that
(08:01):
very quiet phase generally comesfrom asset-based givers.
So they're giving in verysignificant ways.
And what we're doing with ourwith our four-phased approach is
we're dividing that group intotwo parts, and we're just simply
saying that there's a group ofpeople who are more experienced
with these types ofcontributions.
They've given six andseven-figure contributions,
(08:24):
they've been on the committees,they've participated in the
feasibility studies.
In many cases, they're quiteweary of all of the hoopla and
the pomp and circumstance thatgoes into these things.
And then there's the other folksthat are perhaps slightly
younger, but similarly at a timeof life where they're capable of
very similar contributions thatare not so experienced with
(08:47):
this.
And when you just draw the linethere, so we're talking about,
you know, let's think, you know,uh hypothetically, you're
talking about two individuals.
One of them is in their late50s, early 60s, and they're
thinking about making perhapstheir first six-figure or even a
seven-figure commitment to acampaign.
And then you have someone who's10 years older than that who's
(09:09):
probably done this, may havedone this a dozen times, you
know.
They've been so fortunate intheir life that they're able to
do those are two differentconversations, two different
experiences for the donor.
Um, and that lesser experienceddonor in many cases, and anyone
who's been in these and in thesescenarios will relate to this,
(09:32):
that's a lot more work.
So even if that can even ifthat, say, you know, quarter,
half a million dollar donor isis a is a percentage, you know,
is half or or or a fraction ofwhat that that lead donor uh who
is very much very experiencedwith these types of
contributions, they're on amuch, much more difficult
(09:54):
journey, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01 (09:56):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (09:57):
Yeah.
So that's kind of what we'redoing.
That's what we're doing therewith each of the waves is we're
dividing it between the folkswho've exp who have a degree of
experience and maybe not somuch, and then where those
resources come from.
Do they come from assets or dothey come from regular income?
SPEAKER_01 (10:16):
Okay.
Now, uh what I think isinteresting about what you just
said is it makes me think ofwho's on the flip side, right?
So when we're talking aboutpeople who are regularly being
approached for that size of agift, who are used to
functioning in that realm ofphilanthropy.
In most organizations that Ihave seen go through capital,
(10:38):
they are not dealing with anexperienced fundraiser.
SPEAKER_02 (10:41):
Yes, yes, right.
SPEAKER_01 (10:42):
So I'd love to take just a second and talk to the
person who has found themselves,you know, they're used to doing
an annual an annual fund drive,they're used to doing some
online or some event, and nowall of a sudden they've been
thrust into capital and aretrying to deal with managing the
expectations of donors who areused to that level of giving
(11:04):
when we're not used to thatlevel of asking.
Right?
So I'd love to hear your yourtake for the fundraisers
themselves on that side of it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:13):
So there's the fundraiser, so that you're kind
of describing two fundraisers.
Um you're do you're describingthe less experienced fundraiser.
So the fundraiser who hasn'tbeen around the block a few
times, even in that annual fund.
They're new to fundraising.
Yeah.
And then you're or you're expyou're describing somebody who's
been running an annual fund forfor perhaps years or decades,
(11:35):
and they just simply haven'tdone a campaign of the scale in
terms of size of gifts.
One of the things that thesefour waves is trying to is also
trying to help us see is thatPareto principle, that 80-20
rule that plays out in reallyany campaign.
So whether we're talking aboutan annual fund, think about the
(11:59):
way that an annual fund playsout in an organization or a
capital campaign, they almostplay out in very identical types
of waves.
So you have the most significantand most experienced givers,
oftentimes giving the largestcontributions.
They oftentimes give up front.
And that's a cut, that's acontributor who's giving in the
(12:20):
annual campaign very much thesame way that they would in the
capital campaign.
And I think that's anextraordinary, you know,
extraordinarily importantquestion as it relates to why
we're trying to push this sortof a model out there is because
I'm trying to give credit tothat annual fund director who
sees the underlying logic oftheir of their annual fund that
(12:44):
really plays out in the samebasic sort of movement.
It's just the size of thecontributions just aren't as
large.
And if you can see that thescale is really the only
difference, you can start tointuit, okay, this is what
happens at this point, this iswhat happens at that point.
You know, that that wave onedonor, I'm sure you've had
(13:07):
experiences with this particulardonor.
So that wave one donor, whetherthey're giving at the beginning
of a capital campaign or anannual fund, is oftentimes the
donor who is more than willingto take the lead.
But in some cases, they've beenasked to take the lead more than
one time.
And they've oftentimes beenpromised that these what we call
(13:29):
wave two donors are going tofollow their lead.
And so the disappointment thatoftentimes is accompanied these
wave one commitments is the isnot is the lack of
follow-through thatorganizations oftentimes make in
not bringing that additionalwave of asset-based donors.
(13:53):
Oftentimes you see donors whoare giving, you know,
extraordinary six and seven andsometimes eight-figure gifts,
and then the campaign all of asudden jumps to that opposite
end, the other extreme, andthey're like, why didn't you
bring anybody else in to kind oftag along with me?
That's that's some of what we'retrying to differentiate.
(14:14):
We're thinking about the donor'sexperience, both in terms of
what that Wave One donor isexperiencing.
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SPEAKER_01 (15:12):
So if we're if we are a fundraiser who's maybe
used to that approach, weunderstand how that goes, now
we're looking at we're, youknow, these gifts are
exponentially larger than whatwe're used to in an annual fund.
Help us see then where we makethe jump from wave two to wave
(15:32):
three.
SPEAKER_02 (15:34):
So, yes, that's that's fine.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
Because that's I feel like that's gonna be a the
deciding factor there is a lotdifferent than somebody that's
used to reading that wave in anannual fund.
SPEAKER_02 (15:43):
So So that line, that line is the same line that
we traditionally draw betweenyour more public and you're, you
know, you're you're quiet andyou're that's the same line.
It's the point at which thefundraising activity moves away
from more one-on-one to a moreone-to-many type communication.
(16:04):
So um it's also the point atwhich, so it's the point at
which your donors tend to beyounger.
They tend to be giving thosemore income-based contributions,
oftentimes.
So in a private independentschool setting, oftentimes my
wave three donor is a parentwho's uh had a professional, you
(16:27):
know, a successful career.
They're not nearing retirement.
They're they want to make forthe first time an extraordinary
multi-year pledge.
So he or she might be thinkingof$25,000 or$50,000 a year that
committed over five yearsamounts to something
extraordinary, something they'venever done before.
But you see how the the way inwhich they're gonna construct
(16:51):
that, the way they're gonna putthat commitment together is very
different than the way thatthose asset-based donors did.
Um, but you also notice thatthey're very similarly at a time
and place where they may haveeither had done that or they've
never done that at all.
What you also see in both twoand three is a much more
(17:12):
staff-driven uh activity.
I can generally in anorganization get the volunteers
on those two book ins, those twotraditional and more familiar
waves.
I can generally get both ofthose organized and I can get
those gifts secured with thetraditional committee structure,
(17:35):
and and we give three or fournames to so-and-so, and they go
out and and solicit that gift.
You can usually get that donewith those two bookend
categories, but those two middlecategories tend to require more
staff.
The other thing, and this iswhere the visualization helps.
Uh, and and I I I try, you know,you're probably looking at the
(17:56):
visual as I am.
In wave three, it's where whatwe call the undercurrent.
So this visualization is allwe're using waves, so like
water.
And you know, an undercurrent,the way an undercurrent works is
it's always there, whetheryou're in the deep water or the
shallow water.
It's just that an undercurrentis very dangerous the more
(18:17):
shallow the water you happen tobe in.
And oftentimes, to yourquestion, it's in the third wave
where you start to realize thatsome of the undercurrent or the
problems that you opted not toaddress in those deeper waters
just simply because it wasn'tnecessary start to become an
issue.
Like, for example, you don'thave a you don't have a
(18:40):
five-year contract in place foryour president.
You have turnover on the boardthat disrupts the process.
You have a disgruntledfundraiser who's not happy.
You have infrastructure, youdon't have a good software
program that's properlyaccounting for gifts.
In wave three, think about this,Megan.
In wave three, your volume ofgifts now dramatically
(19:02):
increases, even though the sizeof the gifts goes to about half,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (19:07):
Sure.
SPEAKER_02 (19:08):
Now you need receiping to actually work.
And you need to have thoughtthrough, okay, how are we going
to receipt this?
And and now you're collectingmulti-year pledges, which means
I've got to actually think aboutcollecting on those pledges,
which means I've got to not onlycollect the, you know, the those
big checks that our first waveand second wave donors were
(19:29):
giving, but I also actually haveto make sure that our donors are
fulfilling the the second andthird and the fourth and the
fifth, say they're makingfive-year pledges.
That's where that undercurrentthat was very easy to ignore
when Mr.
and Mrs.
Smith was giving you, you know,a seven-figure gift, that's
where that starts to really showits um yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:54):
So I'm curious to know because as we're talking
about this, there are we thecapital is a long game.
Right?
This is not an immediate, and Ido feel like that fatigue can
set in or when people don'tnecessarily see progress.
So what are some ways that youfind to kind of as as we even
(20:18):
move from wave to wave, whereyou have been able to like
either encourage the folksyou're working with or you have
done yourself to stay committedand excited about the project so
that we don't hit that fatiguein the middle and start to lose
out on gifts.
SPEAKER_02 (20:34):
Yeah.
So here again is where I thinkthe consulting world has made a
mistake in terms of how we teachand institutionalize
organizations, how we bring themup to speed on how these capital
campaigns are going to play out.
If you think about the questionyou're asking and you look at
the visual that we're trying tocreate here, you start to make
(20:55):
sense that a lot of your donorsessentially participate in these
waves over time.
So the donor who was a wave one,uh, you know, in that in wave
four, that later wave,eventually moves into those, you
know, the other waves.
If you begin to understand that,you can actually start to
(21:16):
develop a much more holistic anda much more long view of the way
that capital campaigns play outin an organization because you
know that the donor who gave toyou, the income-based donor who
gave to you in wave three, isgoing to want to be a leadership
giver in your next campaign.
(21:37):
They're gonna, but they're gonnabe older, maybe a little more
resource, you know, they'regonna have more more additional
resources because they've paidoff the house and you know the
company's done really well, andand the their two daughters are
out of college and finished gradschool, et cetera, et cetera.
You can see these stories sortof play out.
Yeah.
But the more you can see that,the more, the more that the
(22:00):
organization has this sort ofthis collective consciousness of
how these things play out, themore you start to make sense of
why in higher education we seeinstitutions that never, they
never really stop being incampaign mode.
There's always a campaign goingon.
It's just these are the mostextraordinary, you know, most
(22:22):
transformative, most perhapsimpactful initiatives that the
institution's doing, and they'realways moving a category of
donors that aligns with theirtime of life and their their
giving, you know, theirabilities to give closer and
closer to those most significantuh levels of support.
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
So it it really, at least if I can summarize the way
that I understand what you'resaying, is that we we as a whole
need to stop looking at capitalas a as a one-time thing that
we're gonna do, we're gonnabuild the building and we're
gonna move on with life, but itreally is setting up the
organization for a much morestable future long term if we
(23:09):
can embrace what we learn in theprocess.
SPEAKER_02 (23:12):
Yes.
If you if you think about if youstudied, if you sort of studied
the history of the both thefundraising profession and
you've you've looked ascritically as I have about the
way that we consult as thesethird parties, you start to make
sense that the capital campaignand the the feasibility study
(23:32):
mantra and all of that tends tobe a very expert or third party
oriented approach.
And so the expert comes in, heor she comes in and delivers on
their expertise and facilitatesperhaps a rather successful
capital campaign.
That's great.
And then the campaign initiativeis turned off and and everybody
(23:55):
gets back to normal andeverybody forgets what we just
learned during this process.
And then five years later, whenthe when it's time to do that
again, the same consultants gethired and the same fees and get
going through that same process.
I started thinking about this ina much more general sense,
Megan, early in my consultingcareer when my my uh at the time
(24:18):
business partner and our oursenior partner said to me that a
consultant should never, aclient should never have to hire
a consultant for the same thingtwice.
And I took that to heart.
And I think that's where we seethe the capital campaign and the
feasibility study really beingsomething that we need to look
at critically, that your clientperhaps shouldn't have to hire
(24:41):
you for the same service twice,because if you are, if they are,
they're they're creating adegree of dependency and and
that that internal knowledge andthe institutional awareness of
how this works is never beingnever being built.
And so consequently, the it'sgreat for the consultancies, uh,
it's not so great for the uh forthe clients.
(25:04):
And I find I think a lot offundraisers who are on the
payroll may you know doing thiswork day in and day out are
getting wise to that.
I don't think you and I, youknow, I'm certainly not the only
one who's starting to figurethis stuff out.
SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (25:17):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:18):
So I'm curious um if there is a difference in your
mind or or how we would approachit.
So a lot of times we see capitalcampaigns tend to be for
obviously for building, right?
We're making we're making somesort of big investment change,
etc.
And that happens a lot in faithcommunities.
SPEAKER_02 (25:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:40):
Where you know the church is expanding or growing
or they're building a new siteor location, or you know, those
kind of those pieces.
Is it at all does it does theapproach here vary at all
depending on the type oforganization, right?
Because a church who's doingthis one probably you know, uh
very few churches are doing acapital every five years,
(26:02):
whereas a college or a school iscontinually evolving and growing
and has maybe a different trackrecord for being in that
consistent campaign model.
Plus, I think sometimes a lot ofchurches don't necessarily look
at themselves, even if they'rerunning a campaign like that,
they don't look at themselves asfundraisers.
So is there a differentmentality there that they need
(26:23):
to embrace?
SPEAKER_02 (26:24):
Yeah, we we could start a whole nother we could
start a whole notherconversation, but this is so you
know, we've been talking aboutthe capital campaign itself.
And my my general critique overthe whole thing, you know,
starts with the way that weorchestrate these feasibility
studies.
And I I think the answer to yourquestion, one of the things that
you learn as a consultant who'sdone these feasibility studies
(26:48):
as often as I have is that youyour donors, once they get to
the place where they're givingin these most extraordinary
ways, what we call these, youknow, wave one and two, what you
start to see is they do tend tofall in three categories.
And you can look at feasibilitystudy outcomes, and you can also
look at the history of what wecall comprehensive campaigns.
(27:09):
Again, we're pointing to thesebig campaigns that happen in
higher education.
And you start to make sense thatessentially you make sense of
the idea that the donors atthese most extraordinary levels
are oftentimes inclined to givein three different areas.
That first one is that donor whogives to the, gives brick and
mortar, who gives to, you know,put a building up.
(27:30):
But you're lucky if half thedonors in a feasibility study
want to necessarily give tothat.
Everybody who's got the means tobuild buildings, you know, in
terms of their capabilities,doesn't necessarily, they're not
motivated, they're notcompelled.
That's not where their heart'sat.
And so you very easily candismiss a large chunk of your
(27:51):
donors just because you're, youknow, you're talking about
faith-based organizations oreven churches, you know, you're
you're immediately sort of, youknow, setting a handful of
donors off to the side simply orundermining the opportunity
simply because you're you'renarrowing the scope of what they
are being invited to give to.
(28:13):
Those other two categories,which I consistently find to be
about 50-50.
So I tend to find that you can,you know, donors are inclined,
maybe 40% of the donors, maybeat best 50% of the donors in a
feasibility study are verymotivated by the the bricks and
mortar opportunity, right?
(28:33):
But the other two tend to kindof be divided into two
categories.
And the the second group is whatI sometimes call the kind of the
entrepreneurial donor or theperson who kind of wants to
expand on the program.
They understand the organizationin a way that they they
understand that that uh ifyou're thinking about a school,
they understand that yourscience labs need to be taken to
(28:55):
another level.
Or if you're talking about a,you know, uh a housing
organization, they understandthat the you know that you have
a men's program, but you couldbenefit from a women and
children's program.
Or so they know that yourexisting program has some gaps
and they want to expand that.
I think some of the giving thatMcKenzie Scott is doing uh kind
(29:16):
of aligns with thisentrepreneurial sort of program
expansion, sort of.
I think I sense in some of thestories that I've read about her
giving and what she tends togive to, that she's not as
motivated by bricks and mortar.
She doesn't want to give, putthe constraints that this has to
go here.
And so that entrepreneurialspirit comes in there.
(29:36):
But then the last one is that Ithink you also have a category
of donors, which this, and thisis where these extraordinary
donors get overlooked fororganizations that are just
trying to keep the lights onafter the capital campaign's
over with.
And this is the donor who wantsto meet emergency immediate
needs.
(29:57):
They're capable of giving youhuge gifts.
Of the sort that you would, youknow, that would move mountains
in terms of moving a capitalcampaign.
But they're much more responsiveto things like we're in a crisis
and I need somebody to coverthis.
And I think we forget that thoseare donors that are oftentimes
(30:17):
identified during a capitalcampaign.
We sometimes don't we don'tcraft the case for support in a
way that allows them to havethat opportunity because this is
a very, you know, linear,well-orchestrated process.
It doesn't look like it's sortof this screaming need that says
we have to get this taken careof tomorrow or the you know the
(30:39):
everything's gonna fall apart.
I think there's people in ourconstituencies that are very
responsive to that, and we needto know who they are.
And I'm sure every organizationyou've worked for, just like the
ones I have, you know, therewere times when you needed a
donor that you could call on whowould be willing to give$50,000,
(31:00):
you know, at a moment's notice.
Um but too often we narrowlysort of pigeonhole these donors
into these other categories andwe make it seem like the only
place we can plug their money inis to build another building.
SPEAKER_01 (31:16):
No, that's a really good call out.
That's great.
Jason, this has all beenextremely helpful.
And I think, especially forthose folks who are maybe newer
to Capital or who are in themidst of their first one, I
think is going to be reallyuseful information.
So thank you for sharing all ofthis.
Definitely make sure you gocheck out the show notes so that
you're taking a look at thatgraphic that we have been
(31:38):
referencing, because I thinkit'll help put a lot of this
into perspective.
Uh, but as we wrap up, Jason,the question that I have been
asking everyone in this seasonis if you could give one piece
of advice or wisdom orencouragement to nonprofit
professionals, what would thatbe?
Yeah, so your parting wisdom.
SPEAKER_02 (31:58):
Yeah, my parting wisdom, it's the answer I've
been at.
I mean, it's the answer I'vegiven a lot.
And it's usually the answer thatI give to a young or an
inexperienced fundraiser,probably the fundraiser we've
referenced a couple of times.
Sure.
And very true to the, to eventhe uh the underlying logic
behind this model that we'vetalked about.
But it's it's just getting infront of and closer to your
(32:20):
donors.
I think the uh, you know, if I'masked a question like that,
Megan, at an event, uh, youknow, if I let's say I've done a
speaking engagement, I come downoff the platform or something,
and a young fundraiser walks upto me, I'm gonna say to them,
find a place and an opportunity,get in front of the donor, as
close, you know, as close andand intimate with the donor as
you possibly can.
(32:41):
Not necessarily to close thebiggest gifts, but to really
understand what that dynamic'slike.
Yeah.
Um, and so as it relates to yourquestion and as it relates to
this moment, because I know thismoment is there's probably a lot
of listeners who are, you know,maybe they've lost subsidy from
the federal government, maybethe, you know, the summer slump
(33:03):
has hit them and they didn't thesummer didn't perform as well as
they wanted to, et cetera, etcetera.
I don't think anything betterthan those higher context
conversations can remedy that.
And I think we have to learn howto pick up the phone and invite
people to lunch without havingto ask them for checks and all
of those things that you canreally only do by getting in
(33:25):
front of the donor and gettingout in the field.
SPEAKER_01 (33:28):
Yeah.
unknown (33:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:29):
That's great.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Again, my guest today has beenJason Lewis, who's one of the
partners at Seed Fundraisers.
Jason, thank you so much forbeing here.
We really appreciate all thewisdom that you had to share.
SPEAKER_02 (33:40):
Yeah, this has been a lot of fun.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (33:42):
This has been another episode of the Nonprofit
Hub Radio Podcast.
I'm your host, Megan Speer, andwe'll see you next time.
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