Over the last 6 years I have done capital campaign media work with well over a hundred different churches and non-profits of every size, shape, style and denomination you can imagine. I've seen some churches do incredible things with their projects and others not so much. Most of all I've seen a ton of them go right down the middle, succeeding, but always with room for improvement. The mistakes are common and very easy to avoid. Likewise the successes are almost always very simple and easy to duplicate. So let's take a minute and learn from others.
1. Get Some Help - over 90% of churches who try to do capital campaigns themselves turn to a professional the next time around. Why? Because even the most talented people need coaches. Tiger Woods has a coach. Michael Jordan had a coach. We hire professionals to plan our weddings and fix our cars, to do our taxes and build our houses. How much more important is the future of your church? A successful campaign is a foundation on which the future is built. Likewise an unsuccessful project can kill your momentum and morale and make it twice as hard to do it again in the future. Whatever it costs to get the right help, it is worth it. You will raise exponentially more with a coach than you will save without one.
2. This Is A Big Deal - campaigns are incredibly important times in the life of your organization because they expose all that is good...and not so good...about the health of your leadership and your people. You're not just raising money, you are raising and casting vision. You are challenging your people to a deeper faith than many of them have ever experienced. That said this is not something you do at the last minute or as an afterthought. At the smallest level it requires months of planning and the bigger your organization the more lead time you need to make sure it is done just right. There is too much at stake to rush. But if time is of the essence and it has to happen quick, then hire the best coach/consultant you can possibly find and commit everything you have to making it work.
3. All Hands On Deck - I'm always shocked at the number of pastors and church leaders who will begin a huge campaign, a critical time in the life of their organization, and then go on vacation! What?! I know it's hard to believe, but it happens all the time. One of the first and most successful campaigns I ever worked on was at the last church where I was on full time staff. A good 9 months before the campaign happened, we had a huge staff meeting and were informed that starting about 3 months out through the end of the campaign there would be no vacations, no conferences, no nothing. It was all hands on deck! What do you think my takeaway was from that meeting? THIS IS IMPORTANT! I challenge every senior leader to implement and model this policy whenever you do a campaign. This tip alone will dramatically impact the success of your project. Not only should you do it with your staff, but wherever possible, challenge your senior volunteer leaders to do the same. If you have a great volunteer leader who's job takes him out of town all the time, find someone else. Your top guy's abilities and talents are useless if he's rarely in the room with you. Note: make sure you give everyone plenty of lead time on this, otherwise it can be a negative. You've got to be fair.
4. Volunteers - bottom line is to get as many people involved in this thing as you possibly can. Ideally your church should be that way all the time, but if not, a campaign is the perfect opportunity to swell your volunteer ranks. Better to have hundreds of people doing a little bit each than a few people doing everything. Why? Number one reason: ownership. Every time they see the campaign logo, or hear you speak about it, or discuss it in their small group, you want them to know the satisfaction that they are part of this thing. Whether it's stuffing envelopes, sticking on labels, decorating for a meeting or leading a huge team, when they contribute they get excited. Excited people are less likely to criticize and more likely to champion your cause because now it's their cause too. Reason #2 is that using more people means better morale and less burnout. This should be an exciting, energizing time. You want people to be able to enjoy the process, to hear the message and vision, to be in major prayer about how they can participate, etc...
5. Create Experiences - if you want people to catch the fact that this project is important, that it's different from business as usual, then having the same old meeting in the same old room isn't going to get it. Take advantage of the people in your organization who have the gift of hospitality and 'party planning' and let them theme out your key large group meetings. If you're campaign is called something like 'Building For Tomorrow' then put tools, toy trucks, etc... all over the place. If your theme is about generations then put pictures of all different generations around the room and play mixer games that involve people of all ages, etc...you get the picture. Help your people see, feel, hear, touch...EXPERIENCE what your project is all about. Do this with all your large group meetings, think about how you can implement themes in worship and around your facility, etc... Adding these extra elements can be done creatively and inexpensively, it allows you to utilize more volunteers, and raises the expectation level throughout the project. Also keep in mind the culture of your church. In some places the more you theme it out the better. In others it may not fit your culture to do that so consider those factors before you do too much.
6. Generation Next - I'm often surprised at how few churches put any effort into helping their children and students participate in their campaign. THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE! The most teachable, big-hearted people in your church are the kids. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to not only teach your kids about giving, but to SHOW them. The concept is not beyond them at all. Think about the kind of adults they will become after growing up in a dynamic church where they learned about generosity, gave sacrificially, saw buildings come to life that they helped pay for, that ultimately provided space for hundreds or even thousands of people to come and experience life change through Christ! Don't deprive them of that experience. Those are life lessons that they will never forget.
7. Over Communicate - because this is such a critical time in the life of your church, the last thing you want to do is fail to clearly and consistently communicate your message. It is a common mistake to continue business as usual in this department, your basic Sunday morning announcements, a blurb in the bulletin or newsletter, maybe a letter or two. Don't ever assume that your people know what you know. Effective communication has to be intentional, strategic and attention grabbing. And lots of it. The average person has to see or hear something 3-5 times before it really begins to sink in. Most campaign strategists will coach their clients to hire professional help in this area, to brand and theme their project and create an effective strategy for getting that message to your people. When you get the right partner, like Big Picture Media for example, it is money well spent with an exponential return on investment.
8. Celebrate - when you do a campaign right, and people have invested their time, talents and treasures, and you get to the end and it's a huge success, CELEBRATE! It's a huge win for your church and for the Kingdom and should be treated accordingly. Couple of things to consider: a) if you're a multi-service or multi-site church, try to get everyone together at one time for the celebration, much more powerful that way. b) have a couple people share how the process of the campaign changed their life, reminding everyone this is so much bigger than just a dollar amount. c) find a creative way to reveal the number, using video or a drama or something visually dynamic.
9. What's Next - one of the biggest mistakes I see leaders make is that they do this huge campaign/project and then when it's over they have no idea what they are going to do after it's over. When a campaign is done right, by the time it's over your people should be pumped and excited about what God is doing in their church. They are fired up and raring to go! They want to know 'what's next?' If you don't have an answer to that question, be prepared for a significant lull to overtake your organization. I often compare it to postpartum depression. All this work, anticipation and excitement, then the baby comes and that's great, then everyone goes home and life is back to normal and you find yourself thinking 'what just happened?' If you don't have a 'what's next' for your church, all the momentum and excitement you've generated are going to disappear. Keeping it going is much easier than starting from nothing again. The 'what's next' doesn't have to be as big as a campaign, but it must be spiritually significant and demand attention and participation on some level. I can't overemphasize how important this is.
Hear it, learn it, live it.
