Capital Appeal Fundraising

Capital Appeal Fundraising

Capital Appeal Fundraising

It will take investments of time and money to be successful. Additional resource will be required within the team to raise the money; specialist support will be required to execute the appeal within the constraints of your situation; fundraising costs money. A “normal” sum to consider for this investment is to expect to spend 10% of the target to be raised.

There are donors for whom a capital programme is the perfect project to fund, offering them security, longevity, recognition.

A capital fundraising appeal can also be a great spring board to launch a long-term major donor fundraising programme.

Fundraising is a speculative activity and raising this money is far from guaranteed. Adequate due diligence will provide a probability of success, backed up by research. This can enable an informed decision to be made. To launch without such preparation risks failure and reputation risk.

What does successful Capital Appeal fundraising take?

A capital programme is a huge investment for any organisation. Once underway, it will be disruptive across the entire organisation; prior to getting underway, it is vital that sufficient due diligence has been undertaken.

It can take years to raise this money – often two and sometimes more than this – and it will need careful planning and preparation.

Often, building work will need to be star ted prior to all the money being raised which poses the riskiest of questions – can we be sure we can raise sufficient money?

Attributes of Capital Appeal fundraising:

• increases an organisation’s assets: buildings, substantial programme, endowment

• not “business as usual”• defined star t & end date• clear target• often required in addition to income

needed to run an organisation• risky & disruptive• lifts an organisation to the next level.

Timing

Planning Private Public

Now

6 Months

From planning permission to building work

Ideally at least 2 years +

Once groundis broken

6 to 9 months

Capital Appeal Fundraising

How can we help?

Provide Support for you, your team, SMT, CEO, trustees and appeal board when you need expertise throughout your capital appeal – assessing, planning, delivering and embedding

Assess the Probability that your appeal will be successful – basing our assessment on thorough research

Write an appeal Plan based on research and interviews

Deliver fundraising and project management throughout the appeal

Embed this new fundraising success into successful ongoing revenue at the end of the appeal

How Money Tree Fundraising can support your capital appeal

Probability(of success)

Plan(your appeal)

Deliver(fundraising + project

management) Embed(for long term

revenue success)

Support(throughout)

Capital Appeal Fundraising

1. Provide Support throughout your appeal

We can be available to support you throughout the appeal. This can include:

• recruiting your Campaign Manager and other specialist staff• training the board, senior staff, volunteers in cultivation and asking• coaching for specific meetings and preparing for ask meetings• working alongside the team on planning days• providing critique on draft documents such as plans, recognition policies etc.• being at the end of the phone for a range of internal stakeholders from the

Chair of the board, CEO, Director of Fundraising to the Capital Appeal Manager.

“Using Money Tree Fundraising to work with our Senior Management and Trustees really engaged them in our major donor programme, which is accelerating quicker than it would have without their buy-in.

The Money Tree Fundraising workshop was enlightening and useful, particularly in that it gave the senior team at Forum for the Future the chance to question each step and really understand the value of the process. Beth gave us plenty of practical takeaways so that we are able to manage the programme’s development well.”

Deborah Ball, Forum for the Future

Capital Appeal Fundraising

2. Assess the Probability that your appeal will be successful

Technique alone cannot guarantee a satisfactory fundraising result; certain conditions are essential for success. Due diligence to ascertain the probability of fundraising success will consider:

• a positive image• a logical plan to meet the need• a strong and compelling proposition

for supporting the appeal• a sense of urgency• enthusiastic trustees and a strong

trustee board• influential appeal leadership• sufficient sources of financial support.

Sufficient Sources of Financial Support

There must be adequate financial resources within the potential audiences that would support you to meet the need. Experience shows that success is based on securing the following minimum levels:

Top investment 15% of goalTop ten investments 50% of goalNext 50 –100 investments 40% of goal

The only way to ascertain if you could achieve these gifts is by thorough research. We will look to find a prospective donor pool four times the size of your goal.

How a typical £1 million appeal breaks down

150k x1

75k x2

50k x3

25k x4

18k x6

15k x6

12k x8

5k x12

the rest = 10%

leadgift =15%

top 10 gifts = 55%

fewer than 50 gifts = 90%

Capital Appeal Fundraising

3. Write an appeal Plan based on research and interviews

Once it has been ascertained that the target is achievable it is important to plan how to reach it in the time given. This plan needs to cover:

• who to approach for donations• ways to approach potential donors – communications, events etc.• what resources will be required to deliver this fundraising• systems and processes that may need to be set up• a guide to how long it will take • key performance indicators and milestones to measure success along the way.

One of our clients approached us having launched a capital appeal to build new facilities on their grounds. No feasibility had been undertaken prior to starting the appeal. Fundraising focused on applications to trusts & foundations. One grant (for a significant sum) had been awarded. Following this award, the public appeal had been launched.

Fundraising had stalled with more than 50% of the target left to raise.

Our brief was to assess the campaign and recommend a course of action to raise the necessary shortfall.

We undertook a thorough assessment of work to-date, researched a fresh pool of potential donors and made contact with a selection to test the strength of the appeal. There were two core documents missing: a needs assessment for the new facilities and a business plan for the facility’s future sustainability. We delivered our recommendation, which included opportunities we had uncovered within their revenue fundraising streams. As building work had not commenced the project was put on hold whilst these matters were resolved.

Assessing the Probability that your appeal will be successful, along with Planning your appeal are both vital in Kick Starting your appeal. Please see our Capital Fundraising Kick Start brochure for more details on how we can help with these core aspects of your planning.

Capital Appeal Fundraising

4. Deliver fundraising and project management throughout the appeal

We would love the opportunity to deliver some or all the fundraising with you – we love capital appeals!

We can’t tell you what this will look like exactly until the planning has been done of course.

The roles that often require additional resource for the duration of the appeal are:

• Campaign Manager• Major Donor Fundraiser• Trust Fundraiser• Project Researcher.

“Beth understood exactly what we needed from my first call with her and provided herself as an excellent interim here at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. She got up to speed quickly, fitted seamlessly into the team, made real inroads into our new business development and readily shared her knowledge and expertise with the whole team. I would not hesitate to ask Beth to re-join us in the Major Giving team, or provide us with a suitable alternative, should another interim position arise.”

Jack Matthews, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home

Capital Appeal Fundraising

5. Embed this new fundraising success into successful ongoing revenue at the end of the appeal

At the end of a successful appeal there is a pool of donors invested in your organisation’s future. They will want to continue to be informed, be involved, be asked to contribute again in the right way at the right time.

We can work with you to develop the plan that embeds the lessons of the appeal into your wider fundraising, ensuring you bring your donors along for long term support rather than the relationships fading as the appeal closes.

“The report Money Tree Fundraising delivered in reviewing our capital fundraising options was thorough, honest and backed up with several spreadsheets and papers of analysis to demonstrate the work that went into it. This is exactly what I needed to present to my trustees, to help us make big decisions about our future options. Beth is personable as well as instantly knowledgeable and was available to answer any questions I or my trustees had through the process. I am looking forward to continuing to work with Beth and her team.”

Gary Wheway, RSPCA Leicester

Capital Appeal Fundraising

Cost and Duration

We are happy to provide you with a tailored solution to your needs but understand that an indication of cost and duration can be helpful to get budget approval for this work.

Costex. VAT

Duration Benefits

Support £111 p/hour fr 3.5 hrs p/month fr 6 months

target the expertise exactly where and when

you need it

Probability £7,255or

£13,319

up to 16 weeks your decision to go ahead with a major

appeal is evidence-based

Plan you know how to reach your goals and how

to measure successful progress along the way

Deliver fr £335 p/day fr 4 days p/monthfr 6 months

you get additional expert fundraising for the time you need it

Embed £4,500 up to 6 weeks you know how to convert your significant

investments of time, energy, money to benefit

your organisation long-term

Capital Appeal Fundraising

Next steps

We are ready to work with you to build your new future whatever stage you are at.

The most important aspect of your capital appeal is the planning. We run a Kick Star t programme that focuses on assessing the probability your appeal will be successful based on thorough research and interviews. We then write a plan based on that research and our experience of capital appeal fundraising.

Book an exploratory call to find out how we can help you. Please email findoutmore@moneytreefundraising.co.uk

“Money Tree Fundraising has provided invaluable support to our fundraising over the last year in a variety of ways – mentoring staff, providing trusts fundraising expertise and by working with us to review our entire fundraising history and making recommendations for our future, from which we are building a clear implementation plan that will double our income over the coming three years.

I was particularly keen to engage our core supporters through this process and one of the reasons we chose to work with the team is that they shared this goal.”

Dawn Goodfellow, Racing Welfare

Capital Appeal Fundraising

Our team has experience raising funds for every type of charity and beneficiary group:

✓ Animals✓ Armed forces✓ Community development✓ Culture✓ Disability✓ Education✓ Environment✓ Health✓ Higher education✓ Hospice✓ Housing✓ International✓ Mental health✓ Poverty✓ Recreation✓ Religion✓ Rights✓ Sport✓ Children & young people✓ Older people✓ Specific groups

Who are we?

The Money Tree Fundraising High Value Experts

Here are two of the Money Tree Fundraising team that specialise in working on capital appeals:

Beth Upton founded Money Tree Fundraising in 2010 following her success at leading the £25m capital appeal to rebuild the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. She has raised multi-millions for the causes for which she has worked since 2002. Beth’s expertise is across all high-value disciplines:

trust applications, corporate partnerships, soliciting major donors, high-value events and prospect research, for revenue and capital appeals.

Mike Bartlett is an experienced fundraising professional, having led teams at large internationalaid agencies and smaller UK-focussed charities. He has a passion for high level giving, especially developing major donor programmes for smaller charities. Most recently, Mike has developed

sustainable major donor programmes from scratch at three health-focused charities.

Money Tree Fundraising works with charities to set up and grow fundraising from trusts, companies and wealthy individuals. In 2015 we were named Best Strategic/Fundraising Consultancy by the Institute of Fundraising for our work with grassroots charities. We understand the challenges smaller charities face with specialist knowledge, capacity, skills.

We are fundraising practitioners as well as consultants. Our expert fundraisers have combined experience of all types of charity and have raised more than £46m over their cumulative 227 years’ experience of capital and revenue appeals.

We are on a mission to embed sustainable high value fundraising within charities of all size through our expert advice and delivery.

Capital Appeal Fundraising

Money Tree Fundraising LtdOffice 7, 35 – 37 Ludgate HillLondonEC4M 7JN

findoutmore@moneytreefundraising.co.ukwww.moneytreefundraising.co.uk

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Registered in England and Wales no 07766374

Printed June 2017

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