Don’t withhold information. People must readily understand why they are being asked to participate in the survey. Confusion will breed more confusion and even ill will.

Don’t compromise the process. Interviewees who doubt the anonymity of their responses are less likely to respond candidly. An interviewee will not trust a promise of anonymity if the interviewer is an employee or volunteer leader of the organization. Anonymity cannot be assured too early or too emphatically.

Don’t mask your intentions. A campaign feasibility interview is not the place to make a solicitation. In fact, the interviewee should be assured that you will not be asking him or her to take on a role in the campaign or to make a gift. The interview invitation letter even makes that promise. An interviewee who believes that he or she is being “softened up” for the campaign is less likely to be candid – and could be offended. However, if the interviewee initiates a willingness to take part should there be a campaign, then the organization must respond later with an invitation.

Don’t forget who helped you. After the feasibility study has been completed, an organization should provide at least a summary of the final report to all persons who were interviewed. If they cared enough to take part, they care about the results.

A further word on having the Interviewer-Consultant ask for a gift: NEVER!

• Why would you want someone who does not have in-depth knowledge of your organization, and who is not a peer volunteer, to ask a potential donor for a gift? First of all, the consultant is there to conduct interviews — to gather opinions and impressions. He or she is not there to solicit contributions.
• You do not ask for money for a campaign when you are trying to determine the feasibility of the campaign in the first place.
• A contribution made through the suggestion of an outside consultant during a pre- campaign interview is likely to be far lower than that achieved by a peer asking for the right amount at the right time.
• Any commitment made so early in a pre-campaign study would likely be useless later. What was discussed months before, would be dulled or forgotten by the passage of time — as are most verbal promises or intimations.
• An organization might well have but one “golden opportunity” to obtain its one significant gift from its best and most promising prospect. Why risk losing the gift, or greatly diminishing it, by having the completely wrong person asking for it?

 

If you can’t ask interviewees to give or lead, how do you get them involved in the campaign?

Let’s face it, some of your feasibility-study interviewees are likely to be people you will want to solicit for large gifts and ask to take on leadership roles in the campaign. It may seem like that leaves you in a quandary. I’ve said you absolutely must not ask interviewees for money or to step forward and lead – but that’s only during the interview. It’s a matter of timing. Remember, each person interviewed for the feasibility study is asked to list his or her OWN recommendations for:

1. The best candidates for campaign leadership.
2. Top donor prospects.

You ask each interviewee for the names of the persons THEY believe have the potential to give money to the proposed campaign in say, seven, six, or five figures — relative to the gift table presented to them during the interview at the appropriate time in the review of the questionnaire. You also ask for the names of the persons THEY believe possess the required qualities to be the best leader for the campaign.

The aggregate responses will, at best, identify the same individual or individuals who were recommended the most number of times by the interviewees as potential donors in the top giving categories according to the gift table. And the same would hold with a hoped-for consensus recommendation for the potential leader of the campaign.

If a number of interviewees cite other interviewees in these lists, of course you add those people to your list. After the study has been completed, and should you go forward with the campaign, you go back to those recommended interviewees, and ask them for their support as you would anyone else. Just let them know that the feasibility study process identified them as prime candidates. They’ll understand. After all, they went through the process themselves.

What if the feasibility study tells you what you don’t want to hear?

Once a campaign feasibility study has been completed and you’ve received a report of its findings, conclusions, and recommendations, you’re ready to start the toughest part of the process. Now, you have to listen and pay attention. It’s the rare feasibility study that tells you only what you want to hear. The study could tell you that:

1. The proposed project is not something for which the community perceives a need or is willing to support.
2. The community doesn’t believe the organization should take on the project even though it’s worthwhile.
3. Campaigns being conducted by other organizations are perceived as having a higher priority than yours and the community cannot support both.
4. You will not be able to attract the quality of campaign leadership and volunteers you need.
5. You will not be able to raise the money you need in the timeframe of the campaign.
6. The organization needs to do specific things to get its house in order before undertaking the campaign.

Make sure that you take the time to go over every aspect of the campaign feasibility study. Don’t skip over negative things that on first reading seem minor. Be even tougher than the person who wrote the study’s report when it comes to deciding whether or not to go ahead with the campaign.

It is folly to take the time to conduct a study, spend the money on it, and then risk alienating people important to the organization by ignoring the study’s recommendations. An organization that ignores some or all of a study’s findings is making a mistake that can fatally damage the campaign, the project, and even the organization.

The study might recommend against proceeding with the campaign until the organization first repairs or installs new elements of its basic infrastructure – an updated strategic plan, a better defined mission, a strengthened board, or a myriad other things. Such recommendations should be diligently carried out.

If a feasibility study tells you what you don’t want to hear, don’t blame the people who conducted the study and don’t try to hide the results. I am still awaiting the final payment for a feasibility study from an organization that didn’t like what the 25 people they chose and I interviewed had to say. In another instance, I had to fight tooth and nail to get an organization’s executive director and president to share the results of a study with the board. The more negative a study’s results the more important that you heed them.

It is far better not to start a campaign, even if it means postponing or giving up on a project, than to begin a campaign that fails. The decision whether or not to go ahead with a project and a campaign is one that the organization makes in relative privacy. A failed campaign is a public event that reflects negatively on:

1. Campaign leadership.
2. Campaign volunteers.
3. The organization’s board.
4. The organization’s staff.
5. The organization’s image.

A failed campaign makes it harder for future campaigns to succeed. People give to organizations they perceive to be competent. The best volunteer leadership for both fund-raising endeavors and governance is drawn to organizations that are perceived to be winners.

What Does a Feasibility Study Cost?

The fee will be based on the amount of time the consultant expends to prepare materials for the interviews, write the Statement of Intention and all other communication pieces, conduct personal interviews with 25 to 30 subjects, compile the results, cite the findings, make recommendations, and write the final report.

From my experience, the typical study will take place over a period of six to eight weeks. Total billable time spent on the project is usually around 200 hours (25 eight hour days). At the prevailing industry rate of about $1,000 per day, the consultant’s fee would be in the neighborhood of $25,000 plus expenses.

Make sure that you keep the feasibility study process separate from whether or not you use fund-raising counsel for the campaign. These are two different functions and should be conducted separately even if you use the same consultant for both. In fact, you should never even imply that the firm doing the feasibility study will also be employed to assist in the fund-raising. Make that a separate decision to be arrived at after the study results have been assessed. You do not want the outcome of the feasibility study to be influenced by the prospect of a contract to consult on the fund raising campaign.

What’s the final word?

Once the study has been received, any corrective preparatory action has been taken, and the campaign is given the green light, it should be started with as little delay as possible. If a period of some months elapses between the completion of the study and the start of the campaign, you run the risk of the study’s findings becoming out of date. This can be particularly true for the findings about external factors and for recommendations of volunteer leadership.

So, the final word is time. Take the time to assess the feasibility of any campaign before you enter into it. Some organizations will be able to do this without engaging outside counsel. For others, a knowledgeable, effective consultant is absolutely what is needed. Take the time to figure out which way your organization should go. Once a feasibility study is completed, take the time to pay attention to what it tells you.

And finally, don’t let time slip by between the completion of the study and the beginning of the campaign. In the end, a feasibility study is about whether the time is right to enter into a campaign.

Tony Poderis is a development consultant, speaker and author of It’s a Great Day to Fund-Raise. You can reach him through his web site at www.raise-funds.com.