Advancement · Community and Giving

Test the goal before
you announce it.

A feasibility study kit for school and nonprofit leaders: a gift range chart from your goal, a questionnaire and interview guide built from it, and a tally that shows whether the gifts you need are really out there.

Open the builderWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Development and giving kit, $39 for 19 items.

The builder

The worked example is a made-up independent school testing a $4.5 million campaign with twelve interviews. Every part is editable; your work saves in this browser.

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What you get

Advancement · Community & Giving$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
A gift range chart for your goal, a printed questionnaire and interview guide, and a one-page summary of the responses: agreement with the case, willingness to lead, timing, and the gifts people indicated set against the gifts the chart needs.
Who it is for
Heads of school, development directors, advancement staff, board members and campaign committees at schools and nonprofits planning a capital campaign.
Format
Browser tool. Prints the questionnaire, the interview guide and the summary; downloads responses as a spreadsheet (.csv); export and import a file to share the study with a colleague.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Development and giving kit ($39) and the Advancement Suite pass ($99), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Community & Giving space in Caveat Advancement.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Load the worked example to see a finished study, or start blank.
  2. Enter the goal, the pledge period and your planning assumptions on step 1. The gift range chart redraws as you type.
  3. On step 2, keep, reword, reorder or add questions. The giving question takes its answer ranges from the chart.
  4. Print the questionnaire for mailed or handed-out surveys, and the interview guide for one-to-one conversations.
  5. Enter each response by code on step 4, then read and print the summary on step 5.

Open the builder

What a feasibility study tests

The campaign ideas behind the builder, in plain terms.

The study

Before a capital campaign goes public, many organizations ask a small group of their closest supporters what they think of the plan. The conversations test four things: whether the case for support (the written argument for the project) persuades the people who know the organization best; whether there are people willing to lead and ask others; whether the gifts the goal needs are plausible; and whether the timing is right. Studies are usually confidential interviews with a few dozen top prospects and leaders, often run by an outside counsel so people speak freely, and sometimes followed by a mailed questionnaire to a wider group.

Answers are reported as totals and themes, never by name. An indicated gift range is a signal, not a pledge.

The gift range chart

A gift range chart (also called a gift table) lists how many gifts of each size a goal needs. Campaigns depend on a small number of large gifts, so the chart starts with a lead gift, often set somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of the goal, and widens as gifts get smaller. This builder halves the gift size and doubles the number of gifts at each step, rounds to plain amounts, and stops once about 85 percent of the goal is covered; the rest is shown as smaller gifts. The prospects column multiplies each tier by your prospects-per-gift ratio, because not every person asked will give at that level; three or four per gift is a common planning assumption.

The summary compares the gifts people indicated with the chart, tier by tier. A tier with no indicated gifts, especially the lead tier, is the clearest warning a study can give.

Sources

  1. Dove, K. E. (2000). Conducting a Successful Capital Campaign (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. Feasibility studies, the case for support, gift range charts and campaign leadership.
  2. Association of Fundraising Professionals. AFP Fundraising Dictionary. Definitions of capital campaign, case statement, feasibility study and gift range chart.
  3. Weinstein, S., and Barden, P. (2017). The Complete Guide to Fundraising Management (4th ed.). Wiley. Campaign planning, gift tables and prospect ratios.

The worked example is made up: the school, goal and responses are illustrations. The chart method here is one common planning convention; your counsel or board may use different ratios. Nothing on this page is financial or legal advice. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.