The One Question Missing From Your Campaign Readiness Assessment

Fundraising campaign readiness assessments often include questions about marketing and communications, such as the state of an institution’s reputation, marketing capacity, and the existing tactics and platforms used to reach donors.

As one example, the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Getting Ready for a Capital Campaign resource includes two measures for evaluating organizational awareness, marketing team capacity, plans and effectiveness:

• A marketing and publicity plan is in place.
• The organization has a high public image.

The AFP scale labels a score of 85 or higher as ready to launch immediately, yet you could score zero on both measures — no marketing and publicity plan, and a weak public image — and still land in that range. Your campaign would be cleared for launch anyway.

A score only measures today

The deeper issue shows up even when those same measures score full marks. A strong plan and a high public image may earn points, but the score only confirms that they’re strong today, at the time of assessment. It assumes today’s capacity will be enough to carry the campaign through every phase and every potential challenge. For transformational campaigns with multi-year lifespans, that assumption is the risk.

A different capability

Most assessments tell you whether a marketing and communications function exists and whether it is active and effective. What they do not tell you is whether that function is strategic – built not just to communicate, but also to generate and protect the institutional trust upon which a campaign’s success depends. That is a different capability.

Instead of asking questions about the institution’s current capacity to manage campaign communications or what its public image is today, you should be asking a forward-looking question:

As the campaign meets challenges, can the institution maintain donor confidence and belief in the vision when it’s tested?

Trust is the insurance

The major gifts that fuel campaigns are an act of trust — belief that the institution will steward it well and deliver what it promised. Trust is the basis of donor confidence; it accumulates slowly and can be easily destroyed.

In a world where rising costs, unsettled politics and a general sense of uncertainty are making donors more cautious, institutional trust is the greatest form of insurance for the success of your campaign. And it’s largely through strategic communications – managing reputational risk, building awareness, establishing credibility and creating momentum – that such trust is built and maintained.

I think about trust within the context of Brené Brown’s marble jar metaphor.

Just like “marble jar friends” are the people who have proven themselves trustworthy enough to handle your deepest vulnerabilities through showing up, acting with integrity and remembering something important, marble jar institutions have proven themselves worthy enough to handle a donor’s largest philanthropic investments. And just like gossip or a betrayal of confidence can result in marbles being taken from the jar of a friend, institutions that fail to mind the details, personalize outreach, communicate with transparency or maintain their public reputation can lose marbles – often far faster than they were earned.

How a campaign tests the jar

A capital campaign is often the largest ask an institution makes of its donors, and it tests the jar in three ways:

1. First, every campaign meets challenges, including the kind that cause real setbacks — losing marbles from the jar — even when they’re minor or temporary. Consider what’s in the jar today … is it full enough to afford losses or will this campaign be the first true test of confidence? If trust is lost, do you have a plan for building it back?
2. Second, there will be stretches of uncertainty when the people closest to the campaign feel unsure about the future, yet still must show up with confidence, in donor conversations and in public. Would everyone on the campaign team answer a donor question the same way? Or would uncertainty lead to improvisation and mixed messages out in the community?
3. Third, even if neither of the first two ever materializes, a campaign is a period of high stakes and high visibility, which calls for a communications discipline different than advancement marketing. Who on the team is responsible for monitoring the broader environment – anticipating the scrutiny a bold goal invites, or the conclusions a donor could draw before they face an appeal?

Keeping marbles in the jar

This is what it looks like to approach campaign communications through the lens of public relations — the discipline our team has worked in for more than 40 years. It isn’t just about telling a great story. It’s about understanding the environment that story has to land in, and whether the institution can maintain confidence and enthusiasm for the campaign when that environment shifts.

As public relations professionals working in campaign communications, we’re thinking about the news article a donor reads before walking into the room, while the marketing team is focused on the solicitation and cultivation materials that drive the conversation. We’re thinking about the message discipline it takes to meet donors’ hardest questions and turn them back toward the vision. We’re focused on keeping marbles in the jar.

This is the type of strategic communications capability most standard assessments miss yet is critical for campaign success.

The question most assessments leave out

So, as your organization prepares for its next campaign, ask the question most assessments leave out: as the campaign meets challenges, can the institution maintain donor confidence and belief in the vision when it’s tested?

Tags:Advice & Counsel|Marketing Communications|Strategic Planning