What is a capital campaign feasibility study, and who should conduct one?

What is a capital campaign feasibility study?

What actually happens during a study

A study is a structured interview process, not a survey. Catapult typically conducts 25 to 30 confidential interviews for a single site organization, with more for a national or multi campus client, working from a prospect list the organization and the consultant build together. Interviews are conducted in person where possible, because a donor will say more across a table than on a call.

Each conversation covers the same ground. Does the case for support make sense. Is the project the right priority for this organization right now. Who else should be at the table. Do you have confidence in the leadership and the board. And, near the end, would you consider a gift in a specific range if the campaign moves forward.

Why it has to be an outside consultant

This is the part organizations most often try to save money on, and the part where doing it internally quietly destroys the value. A longtime donor will not tell the executive director that they have doubts about the board, or that they think the building is the wrong project, or that their real capacity is triple what they have been giving. They will tell a neutral third party who is not going to ask them for the gift.

The same holds inside the building. Board members and staff are far more candid about internal readiness, staffing gaps and past campaign fatigue when the interviewer does not report to anyone in the room.

What you get at the end

A confirmed goal, or a corrected one, with the reasoning and the prospect capacity behind it.
A gift chart showing how many gifts at each level the goal requires.
A tested case statement, revised against what donors said rather than what leadership hoped.
Project prioritization, which matters when the study says you can fund phase one but not phase two yet.
A recommended Campaign Chair and Steering Committee list drawn from the interviews.
A candid readiness assessment covering staffing, data quality and board engagement.

Feasibility study, planning study, or readiness assessment

The terms overlap and firms use them differently. A feasibility study asks whether the goal is achievable. A planning study assumes the campaign is happening and focuses on how to structure it. A readiness assessment looks inward at staffing, data and board capacity rather than outward at donors.

In practice a good study does all three at once, because a goal is only feasible if the organization can actually execute against it. What matters is not the label on the proposal but whether it includes real interviews with your top prospects and a written report you can hand to your board.

When a study says no

A study that never returns a hard answer is not worth what you paid for it. Sometimes the finding is that the goal is too high, that the case needs rebuilding, or that the organization needs a year of donor engagement work before it can ask for leadership gifts. That is a useful outcome, not a failure, and it is far cheaper than a public campaign that stalls at 40 percent.

More often the finding is somewhere in the middle. The goal works if it is phased, or if two specific prospects can be cultivated further before they are asked, or if the board commits to its own giving first.