Managing a Feasibility Study

How do you find out whether people are ready to give?

You hope your organization is strong enough to tackle a capital campaign, but how can you be sure? Are your donors able to help you with uncommon gifts? Will your cause be compelling enough to inspire your backers to give? Do you have a large enough donor pool and are they ready to give? If you are not so sure about the answers to these important questions, it may be time to test your market.

A feasibility study is a confidential way to assess whether your organization is ready to take on a capital campaign. It is an empirical way of discovering the real health and deficiency inherent in your donor base in relation to your organization. With this evidence, you should know whether to proceed with your preparation for a campaign or make other plans.

Not every organization needs to conduct a feasibility study before embarking on a capital campaign. If you are confident that your preparation is sound and your donors are ready, you may be able to avoid the cost and effort of a formal market analysis. It should be noted, however, that the organization that foregoes a feasibility study is the exception now days and not the rule. Most organizations are not in a position to gauge campaign readiness without getting outside counsel.

What is a Feasibility Study?

A Steeple feasibility study assesses your organization’s capacity to conduct a capital campaign in three important ways:

1. Infrastructure. Are there enough trained volunteers? Is the staff ready, i.e., are there people in key positions with enough capacity, experience and authority? Are office systems in place to handle a campaign?
2. Case Study. Is the case for a capital campaign strong enough and appealing enough to cause people to want to give?
3. Donor Pool. Are there enough prospective donors ready and able to give enough contributions to meet the campaign goal? What are the conditions or circumstances that are likely to influence the size of their gifts?

Steeple provides fund raising and organizational development services to faith-based and community-based organizations of the nonprofit sector. Our efforts are dedicated to putting nonprofit managers and trustees in touch with the tools and resources they need to develop their organizations and to conduct successful capital campaigns. Our work with clients is for the long-term—to build internal capacity, to create brand equity, and to attract and retain funding. Since 2007, we’ve helped nonprofit organizations like yours raise more than $14 million.

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