New Guide: Creating a Capacity Capital Campaign

There is a new kind of money that every nonprofit leader should understand and many should go out and raise. Capacity capital is the money that nonprofits so desperately need to build strong, effective, sustainable organizations that can create more social change. It is a one-time investment of money to add new technology, an evaluation system, a new revenue function – ultimately money to grow or strengthen the organization.

Today I’m excited to release our newest step-by-step guide Launch a Capacity Capital Campaign which shows how to take the ideas in the Power of Capacity Capital book to create your own capacity capital campaign. This new guide shows you step-by-step how to plan for and launch a campaign to raise organization-building dollars. (You can see the other step-by-step guides, e-books, and other tools on the tools page of the website here).

A nonprofit could use capacity capital in many ways, for example to:

• Plan and execute a program evaluation
• Plan and launch an earned income stream
• Create a strategic financing plan
• Hire a seasoned Development Director, or other revenue-generating staff
• Purchase a new donor database
• Improve program service delivery
• Upgrade website, email marketing, and/or social media efforts
• Launch a major gifts campaign

If those organization-building elements were in place, a nonprofit could start:

• Doing a better job of delivering their program
• Raising more revenue annually through a more effective fundraising function
• Securing more external support because they can prove program results

But raising capacity capital is not like traditional fundraising. It involves determining how much capacity capital you need, creating a compelling pitch, deciding which prospective funders to approach, and educating those prospects about the power of capacity capital.

The Launch a Capacity Capital Step-by-Step Guide will show you how.

This guide is organized into sections. Each section will require you to do some thinking, writing and planning. As you work your way through this guide you will be creating your capacity capital campaign.

Sections:

1. Create a Capacity Building Plan
2. Determine a Capacity Capital Dollar Goal
3. Break the Goal into Investment Levels
4. Develop a Capacity Capital Ask
5. Create a Prospect List
6. Demonstrate the Return On Investment

You can download the guide here.