FEASIBILITY PLANNING IN THE SMALL PRIVATE SCHOOL

The preparation prior to initiating a capital campaign is a vital piece of the eventual success of the effort. Inquiring, testing, qualifying, ensuring, openly hearing responses to tough questions, and assessing the views of pivotal volunteer leaders and cornerstone donors, are all parts of verifying the strategic potential of a small school campaign. This is normally referred to as the feasibility study, or the pre-campaign planning/ capability assessment. This preparation process is an examination of the school’s readiness to ask and the constituent’s alignment = connectedness, readiness and willingness, to give.

Central things to assess or consider are: Does the school have the infrastructure to conduct the feasibility study? Does it make sense in the infrastructure for the development director to interview key constituents?  Or, is it wiser to hire an outside professional consultant to do the feasibility assessment?

While doing it in house saves some expense, it could be challenging for an inexperienced director of development to complete this sensitive work with constituents. Inexperience would make asking the right questions and evaluating responses difficult. Objectivity is a large part of a feasibility study, and the familiarity of the development director and prospect could color the communication and thereby, challenge the objectivity of the study.  For this reason, excepting in highly experienced scenarios,(unusual in a small school) it is best to work with an outside group on assessing your institutional readiness for a campaign.

The director of development and other key fundraising people – trustees, head of school etc. – work together to identify the names of constituents to participate in the study;  usually, donors who would provide the insights necessary to assessing the campaign’s feasibility. The list could include as few or as many as you deem necessary and it should incorporate administrators, faculty, trustees, major donors, prospects, and potential campaign leaders. At a minimum, the school should identify and include the top eight to fifteen potential donors.

Once you have figured out who you want to include, the interviewing process can unfold. *Whatever data is collected in an interview is considered confidential; if information needs to be shared for any reason, it is with the clearly communicated assurance that its source will not be identified.  Without this guarantee of confidentiality, sensitive information critical to the forward momentum of the campaign cannot be cultivated. This can be hard in small school communities and is therefore, vital.

Often, the hardest part of the interviewing is posing and listening to the answers to tough questions. These so called ‘hard questions’ are aimed at some essential data for understanding the feasibility of a campaign:

• Have we successfully made the case and does our case reflect the institution’s mission, goals, and objectives?
• Can the school’s constituencies understand it?
• Does it inspire potential donors to make a larger contribution?
• Have we created a sense of urgency for our donors?
• Is our fiscal goal sensible to our constituents? If not, why not?
• What are the problems?
• How many gifts do we need to make goal?
• How many giving levels do we need to make goal?
• Are there donors out there to make these gifts?
• How many gifts do we need from individuals, foundations, corporations - and in what ranges?
• Do we have a potential prospect able to give one gift worth 10 percent or more of the goal?
• What solicitation strategies will be required to get us to our goal?

If the campaign is to build momentum, the school needs leaders who will not only give but who will help cultivate/solicit large gifts from others. Do we have these leaders on our board and in our school?  How will we identify and enlist the right person to take on the role of campaign chairperson?

Finally, we need to be open to learning whether or not this is the best time for a campaign. A large part of understanding this includes assessing the amount of time we anticipate we will need to ensure success: two, three, five, or more years?  *Most schools embrace a three to five year span and at the outside, no more than seven years in order to maintain momentum.

Once these pieces are understood, then the school can consider next how best to promote the campaign; how to build positive support in the school community; the soundness of the development office infrastructure in supporting the campaign; and, of course how best to budget for the expenses of the campaign - from outside consultants to expanded staff, technological/data and reporting expenses etc..