Capital Campaign Agency
Your Capital Campaign Needs a Marketing Plan Too!
Arm your capital campaign with the right message to achieve your goals.
Raising funds can be painful. A capital campaign marketing plan eases the pain. If you’re a church, library, theater, museum, or any nonprofit organization considering a capital campaign, don’t forget that you will need a capital campaign marketing plan. You might have considered hiring a capital fundraising consultant to approach donors, but you’d be surprised how few of these consultants consider the long-term ramifications of operating without a marketing plan.
For-hire partners tend to be great salespeople, and the first group they sell to is your board of directors. It might also be the last group they sell. Instead, you should be asking them, “What is your capital campaign marketing plan?” Then spend time vetting the plan along with materials they’ve used in the past to help other organizations with their capital fundraising.
Here’s a better way to approach this: start with the marketing plan and ditch the fundraising consultant altogether. Innis Maggiore has helped organizations of all types approach their fundraising efforts armed with the right messaging, to the right audiences, at the right time, with the right mindset. A capital campaign marketing plan, when executed correctly, takes a sharpshooter’s approach to raising funds and doing so quickly. If your organization is seeking a capital campaign marketing plan, contact Innis Maggiore today.
The Right Messaging
Position yourself first.
Organizational Messaging: Your fundraising team, board of directors, staff, and others will be approaching foundations, companies, and individuals who may not know what makes you different. There are a lot of worthwhile causes in the world, and most of those who are approached for funds have been inundated with similar requests. Your first step is to make sure your organization has set itself apart.
This is where Innis Maggiore rises above all others. As America’s #1 positioning ad agency, you can be sure that your capital campaign marketing plan will start and end with dramatizing your organization’s most relevant and differentiated idea. Without that, your fundraising efforts may struggle much more than necessary.
Campaign Messaging: The second messaging platform that is necessary to properly position is the capital campaign itself. While many of your organizational cheerleaders and donors may be all about your mission, if you don't clearly communicate why you’re raising funds for capital improvements, you might find that donors begin to question if the eye has been taken off the ball (your mission). Creating a compelling message that ties the campaign's purpose to your position is of primary importance. Innis Maggiore can help you connect the dots for your donors.
The Right Audiences
Identify your diverse funders.
Not all donors/funders look the same. Yet so many capital campaigns treat every donor identically, regardless of the type of organization or individual and their potential funding level. Identifying your various audiences is important because your messaging needs to be tailored accordingly. While your position and the campaign messaging have a core, it’s important to present the funding opportunity, like needs-based selling. Corporate donors want one thing. Foundations another. And there are various levels of individual donors. Finally, don’t forget about your internal constituents. How does your audience segmentation look? Consider some common audiences:
- Foundations
- Corporate donors
- Small- and medium-sized business (SME) donors
- Wealthy donors
- Middle-class donors
- Board of Directors/Executives
- Volunteers
- Staff
- NGOs
- Federal, state, and local governments
The Right Time
Timing is everything!
Like any good for-profit marketing plan, a capital campaign marketing plan needs to be timed. The above audiences provide a good outline for who to approach when, but also consider the timing each audience considers important. For example, many foundations want to know that the board of directors, executive(s), and staff have already donated. Some even want to see a list of large individual donations before they decide to fund a capital campaign. The most basic timing to a capital campaign might look like this:
- Board Fundraising (Board of Directors): Before the ink dries on the vote by the board to approve a capital campaign, the entire board of directors should have their funding commitments signed and the first installments in your organization’s bank. If you don’t have 100% buy-in from your board and dollars behind their names, you might as well end the capital campaign now.
- Executives, Staff, and Other Internal Audiences: While this won’t be a large chunk of change, it’s critical to give your internal audiences the ability to commit to the capital campaign before most external agencies. This creates buy-in and corporate momentum that will help subsequent fundraising efforts.
- Corporate Donors/Founding Members: Another technique in capital campaign marketing plans is to approach those within the board, executive, and staff networks (friends and family) who respond to “being first.” Having the moniker “Founding Member” or “Foundational Contributor” provides verve to certain individuals who respond best to being on the ground floor of an opportunity. You can almost think of them as “angel investors” who get excited about finding a unicorn. For each founding member target you approach, have a dollar figure in mind and an exact application of how those dollars will be used for capital improvement. Many founding members prefer to fund a room, a display, or some other sub-element of your overall capital improvement.
- Foundations: Once the above audiences are approached, most foundations will have open ears. This is where the presentation should be most polished. Have your best “salesperson” present. Like the founding members, have a dollar figure in mind for each foundation you approach and an exact application of how those dollars will be used for capital improvement. Expect only a portion of the total dollar figure. Also, make sure to know the foundation extremely well. Submitting a proposal or showing up ill-prepared for a presentation can cost you a good portion of your potential capital. And you might not gain an audience again down the road. Finally, know that you may have to present to a foundation multiple times. The saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed…” Most foundations do not award funding to first-time applicants.
- General Campaign (Open Season): Only once the above audiences are approached will you typically announce the capital campaign to the general “public.” Holding off on publicizing this to a wider audience allows energy to grow and a large portion of the capital campaign to be funded before many small donors contribute. Remember to be creative as well, because small donors like “something in return” too, whether it be their name on a theater seat plaque or a name etched in a mural.
- Concurrent Efforts: Once the general campaign begins, don’t stop all the other efforts noted previously. Approach and having one large donor fund the campaign is a lot easier than having 100 donors who make up the same size donation. You should appreciate each one the same, no matter how large or small the gift, but this is a common sense understanding that it’s easier to deal with one entity versus a hundred.
The Right Mindset
Act like a for-profit business.
Before you storm the streets looking for donors, remember this: no one owes you anything. Entitlement is the wrong mindset to have when you start your capital campaign. You should ACT like a for-profit business that needs to create a customer. Your customer is a funding “unit” made up of your various audiences. Each unit must be persuaded by your position and the purpose of the capital campaign. Arm your entire team with this mentality. People can sense entitlement and they do not like it! If they feel you have thought through your position and your campaign messaging and can see effort into putting together a capital campaign marketing plan, they will honor you the same way you have spent time to honor their time … and donation!
An investment in a capital campaign marketing plan can pay huge dividends in both the time it takes you to complete your campaign and the ease with which you’re able to raise funds. It starts with the right position and the right campaign messaging and ends with having the right mindset. Everything in between is simply getting your ducks in a row.
Stark Library
It’s smart to support this store of knowledge
Stark Library (formerly Stark County District Library) is a system consisting of a Main Library, nine branches, and six mobile libraries, serving more than 240,000 county residents with more than 3.8 million items borrowed per year.
Like any library, it faces modern challenges and funding anxieties. The misperceptions are well known, since libraries are often perceived to be old and stuffy, a kind of sweet anachronism from a slower-paced time, or, only for certain people (those without means or ability — the poor, the out-of-work, the elderly), a noble institution whose best days are behind.
Stark Library came to Innis Maggiore to change those perceptions, and we started with our proprietary Appreciative Discovery® process. Our initial thinking was that changing people's minds can be a difficult, if not impossible, task and that ordinary marketing couldn’t shift perceptions the way needed. In fact, libraries have been advertising that they’re “more than just books” for decades.
We believed Stark Library would gain the most by a more radical idea — transcending the traditional definition of library and repositioning itself. Simply improving our “library-ness” would not be sufficient. Only by expanding our competitive view could we re-imagine the Library as a business and thereby open ourselves to new opportunities.
The strategy was to redefine the Library, not as a better Library but as a lifestyle destination, competing with Amazon for books and audio/video products, for visits against other retailers like Barnes & Noble, as well as against leisure venues such as Starbucks.
With a repositioned business, a “store of knowledge” that people visit to get smarter, we set out to re-imagine Stark Library to better meet its new competitive landscape, and look and sound more like a retail destination.
The customer comes to get smarter. That is the Library’s product and core benefit. The differentiating feature of this retail alternative is that customers can get what they want for free. Thus, a new brand was born: The Smart Store, where everything is free.®
More than a mere rebranding, The Smart Store represented an invention unlike anything the library industry has witnessed before.
We believe every library is a “smart store” and that every library can benefit from superior branding to compete in today’s hyper-competitive world. The results we’ve experienced are affirming and show that, with determination and vision, any library can reposition itself for the next millennium.
All branches were reconfigured and dressed with retail-like Smart Store branding. Our inspiration for the colorful and joyful visual style was to treat it as if it were a fashion brand. And did it ever get used? Everything from Library signage, street banners, annual report, and website to Library cards, bookmarks, and vehicle graphics (a smart car, natch) to merch like t-shirts, tote bags, mugs, pencils, and stickers.
Since launching The Smart Store, there have been increases in use. Active cardholders have increased by more than 7%; circulation increased by 14%; and visits have increased, with online visits alone jumping a whopping 87.5%.
The next step was the Library’s first ever capital campaign, called “Re|imagine the Library,” to take a good Library system and re-imagine it to be even better for the future. The intention was to transform spaces for a new service model of service excellence. Tangible examples included interactive, early literacy safe play areas in every branch; express checkouts for faster service; a new, highly-efficient delivery system to move materials between libraries; the new store-like branch to prove the concept of the new service model; digitization equipment for the computer lab; upgraded mobile vehicles; expanding the Bike Smart program, which lets residents check out bikes with a library card; and more partnership programs with public and private entities.
Innis Maggiore closely collaborated with the client, providing strategic planning and a speech script for the executive director to sell the capital campaign to the public; creating a video to set the tone for each public event and corporate meeting, an interactive digital presentation fact sheet, a pledge card, and a thank you card; supplying tactical public relations services, such as pitching the Library Journal and other professional publications, organizing and publicizing speeches, and reaching out to diverse audiences like library customers, local/regional media, and the Library Excellence Summit; along with ongoing consultation.
Results of the “Re|Imagine the Library” Capital Campaign further validated the strength of The Smart Store brand vision. The Library successfully raised more than $2.7 million. And, in the most exciting development of all, the metaphorical store has now become a literal one. Stark Library opened a new location in a hot retail space, serving as an incubator to test several new technologies, features, and services — from a 24/7 lobby and self-serving lending machines to a laptop bar and reserved-items lockers. It does not look like a traditional library. It looks, feels, functions, and shops like a store — and turned out to be one of the busiest branches in the Stark Library system.
Massillon Museum
Being repositioned beats being repossessed any day
Massillon Museum is a small but nice, two-story attraction in the small but nice town best known for high school football. Their operating budget is smaller and less nice, while their marketing budget is more so in both aspects. The museum had been given an opportunity to run free TV spots with the area’s cable company and asked Innis Maggiore to produce a new commercial. As part of the agency’s commitment to supporting the community and the arts, Innis Maggiore donated its time toward this effort and enlisted the help of a local video production firm to do the same.
The marketing team at the museum explained that people were intimidated, thinking that the museum was for the elite and not for the average person. Given the problem, Innis Maggiore decided that a TV spot alone would not be enough and recommended a total rebranding effort. We created a more friendly (brand) moniker, a less formal nickname that was a contraction of the full name, from Massillon Museum … to MassMu, and designed a new visual identity system, also more friendly, inviting, contemporary, and colorful than that associated with the museum.
The TV, built upon the new brand identity, conveyed the sentiment that the museum was part of the community and for anyone. This was largely done through the fun, friendly, and fresh style, but also was symbolized by showing actual museum objects (artifacts, sculptures, paintings) outside of the museum setting in places “real” people go often and feel comfortable. The limited copy (“It’s art. It’s history. It’s Massillon. It’s you.”) also contributes to the message connecting the viewer, the town, and the museum.
Innis Maggiore and the production company also went beyond what could have been a low-budget approach, creating two spots instead of one, shooting in high definition, and using state-of-the-art visual effects and compositing editors. Objects were shot in the museum and then seamlessly combined with location images and additional effects, plus some pretty engaging, upbeat tunes.
Since the repositioning and rebranding, the agency has created campaigns for major exhibitions devoted to Andy Warhol; a trio of nature photographers for an installation titled “Fragile Waters” that featured Ansel Adams, Ernest H. Brooks II, and Dorothy Kerper Monnelly; and a fashion/costume exhibition in conjunction with the HBO series, “The Gilded Age.” Innis Maggiore also designed and developed a new MassMu website, along with two award-winning permanent sections of the space, the Paul Brown Museum and an Innovators of Massillon display.
Before all of this, the agency first worked with Massillon Museum not on logos, TV spots, or billboards, but rather a capital campaign. At the time, the organization was experiencing tight finances and needed the public’s help. Given similar circumstances experienced throughout Massillon (a situation that has happily and dramatically reversed course), we recommended their appeal not be about the museum’s value in the artistic or historic vein, but rather as a business. This capital campaign was about not letting another Main Street business get shuttered. A healthy Massillon Museum contributes to a healthy Massillon.
For an arts organization, MassMu’s capital campaign was straightforward and hard-hitting. Our unconventional approach, refreshingly candid in a category often fraught with overblown claims and chest-beating, made an impact on corporate and public audiences. They felt the need and saw the logic.
About a decade later, MassMu asked us to help them with another major capital campaign. As unlikely as it might have seemed after the financial challenges described above, this campaign was for an expansion — to over twice the space of the original museum! Innis Maggiore dubbed the effort “MassMu x 2” (pronounced MassMu times two) so that the theme communicated the goal.
The goals of the campaign were to complement a standard fundraising program to maximize the potential to support a capital acquisition effort; expand the reach of the endeavor by optimizing opportunities to connect with a variety of audiences over a range of giving alternatives; and transcend the traditional facility-expansion fundraising process by broadening its appeal beyond the museum’s main affinity audience.
We characterized the expansion as one of unusual significance, representing a sizeable economic investment in Massillon’s future for a sizeable potential benefit to the area — an expansive expansion, so to speak. Ordinarily, expansion like this adds a wing or another section to a facility. This was different — an unprecedented opportunity to build upon the success of an award-winning business by taking it from one thriving building to become the focus of an entire city block. The secondary part of the message was that everyone can invest in growing a proven successful contributor to our city and its economy.
The strategy employed was to play to interests by appealing to the respective interests of different affinity groups, individuals, and organizations to allow for a matrix of giving, divided by financial levels and by area of caring. Along with this strategic and communications plan, Innis Maggiore recommended and assisted with sponsorships, events, merchandising, and other nontraditional fundraising methods. The endeavor’s contributions were combined with other sources, such as grants, levy, and state funding, to successfully finance the $6.2 million expansion.
Let Innis Maggiore help you succeed with your capital campaign.
We hope you’ll consider Innis Maggiore for your capital campaign marketing plan. While we won’t go raise funds for you, we certainly will make that entire process much easier, and perhaps, even pleasant. Contact Innis Maggiore today!