The Campaign Issue

Whether it’s a short six month campaign to raise funds for a specific project or a multi-year, multi-million dollar campaign to finance a list of priorities, campaign fundraising is unrivalled in its ability to gather the attention of donors and other stakeholders, mobilize volunteers and raise significant amounts of money.

To better understand the landscape of campaign fundraising in Canada today, we conducted an informal survey with organizations that are currently in or have recently completed a campaign. We discovered that many of the building blocks, long-held assumptions and fundamental campaign principles continue to be valid: volunteers are still involved, public launches are still popular; major gifts and individual giving continue to reign supreme.

But we also discovered some surprises. According to respondents, the largest gift generally makes up less than 20% of the total campaign goal – traditional wisdom suggests a range closer to 30-40%. The most common pledge period continues to be 3-5 years, whereas current thinking was that it was longer (seven to 10 years) or none. And contrary to popular wisdom, capital still appears to be a popular investment opportunity among donors with 79% of respondents raising money for capital.

This survey, as well as our experience working with hundreds of clients has helped us identify the latest trends in campaign fundraising.