Message – Capital Campaign Kits

What is a Case for Support & Why Do You Need One?

Howard Levy — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 05:19:55 +0000

There are likely many great reasons to support your nonprofit. But how do you convey your essence in a concise and compelling way that will motivate donors to support your organization? Your Case for Support is a document that tells your story. Whether raising money for your organization or for a capital campaign,
your Case for Support, also called a Case Statement, is an essential fundraising tool.

Purpose of Case for Support

When you are looking to raise money, you want to have talking points and tools to explain to donors why your organization is important to the communities and constituents it serves, and why the money you are asking for will help those people, or places, or causes.

Your Case for Support can:

Reinvigorate the support of your current donors by reinforcing their reasons for supporting your organization or providing new reasons and opportunities to do so.
Open doors to new relationships that can be nurtured into long-term supporters.
Raise awareness of your cause and its importance in your sector.
Give your staff, board members, committees, and supporters a cohesive message to carry it forth, and the confidence to be enthusiastic ambassadors for your cause.

Part of Your Fundraising Strategy

This written document will not solve all your fundraising problem, but it is a fundamental part of your overall fundraising strategy, which needs to include a plan, staff, and donor database.

If your Case for Support is being used for your capital campaign, it won’t replace the need for the appropriate work, such as conducting a feasibility study, developing a campaign plan, identifying donors, and building your campaign infrastructure.

Components of a Case for Support

So what’s in your Case for Support? It needs to connect with donors in a personal way, draw them into your story, and make them eager to become part of your future. It should cover the following areas:

PROBLEM: What is the problem or issue that your organization exists to solve?

Present the evidence showing how deep or widespread this problem is. Describe the implications of this problem on the people in your area or nationally, on systems, the environment, or on beliefs or values. Use data, statistics, infographics, maps, charts, and images to graphically convey the
problem, as well as first-person stories.

PROGRAMS: How is your organization addressing the need?

Describe your agency’s mission and vision for what society will look like with this problem solved. It’s important to convey what is unique about your approach to
the problem, whether it is a specific theory of change, evidence-based practice, or understanding of a particular population.

IMPACT: How successful is your organization in addressing the need?

Convey your organization’s achievements and inroads have you made. Substantiate the value of your organization’s work by stating how many people you have helped and tell the story of individuals whose lives your organization has improved. Include progress on your issue, advocacy wins, innovations, new treatments or approaches developed, and leadership in the sector. Discuss lessons learned and how they can be applied in the future.

INVESTMENT: What you will use the money for?

Describe what would be possible with the donors’ support. Convey your plans for addressing problems with new research, shoring up existing programs or launching new ones, replicating your model, building new offices or making capital improvements, establishing new partnerships, investing in your organizational capacity, or growing an endowment. You need to instill confidence that you can address the problems and make effective use of donors’ contributions. How will it improve people’s lives, the community, the environment, etc. How can donors’ support be leveraged for even greater impact?

DONATE: What are the opportunities to get involved?

Lay out the different giving levels for supporting your organization and sponsoring programs, along with the appropriate donor recognition including naming opportunities. Describe the various ways of donating and appropriate contact information.

Telling Your Story

The purpose of your Case for Support is to motivate donors to support your organization — not tell about everything you do, so you need to be selective. It helps to have a clear focus. Develop your Case for Support around a single theme so that you don’t lose or confuse your donors. This will help you choose the things that will reinforce your story in the most impactful way.

Chose a theme that frames your story in a way that resonates with donors. It’s not what you think is important — it’s what motivates your donors. And be concise — choose the evidence and anecdotes that best support your case.

Regardless of the form it takes — whether a brochure, presentation, website, or video — you want to pique interest, not convey everything.

Design to Engage

Your Case for Support is more than words. Design it to bring your story to life, make it interactive, and motivate your donors. Here are some ways that Red Rooster Group has engaged donors through creative design:

Using a gatefold to reveal a before and after situation.
Using short-cut flaps to engage donors to reveal a hidden image and message.
Designing the brochure to open to a very wide format for a dramatic reveal.
Bringing architectural renderings to life with translucent overlays showing photos of people using the space.
Posing a series of questions on a website that allow the donor to click to reveal the answer with a photo.

When you consider how to stand out from the crowd and appeal to your donors, your Case for Support can end up being the tool that excites your team to champion your cause.

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CASE FOR SUPPORT

CAPITAL CAMPAIGN KIT

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To Get Donor Attention, Craft a Compelling Name for Your Campaign

Howard Levy — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 02:17:45 +0000

When you launch a capital campaign, it isn’t business as usual. You’re asking existing donors to dig deeper and potential donors to change their giving plans to support your organization. Your outreach materials must make it clear that this is an opportunity to do something special and worthwhile.

A unique theme and name is the first step in getting donor attention. You need to distinguish your campaign from your annual appeal as well as other competing campaigns, and inspire donors to support your organization.

The theme is the overarching messaging idea drives all of your capital campaign outreach materials, from brochures to presentations. And it informs the name of your capital campaign.

That’s a lot to ask of a few brief words, but it can be done.

Key Aspects of a Well-Crafted Theme

Most capital campaigns have multiple benefits for an organization — new programs, the ability to serve more people in existing programs, better location, or other advantages of having a new building. Your theme must convey the overarching idea that conveys the overall impact your campaign will have. You want to pique interest so people dig deeper to find out more.

In developing a theme, you want to take into consideration:

The mission and vision of your organization.
The aspects of the campaign that are most likely to inspire donors to take action.
The ways to differentiate this “ask” from others that donors receive.
The appropriate tone for this particular campaign.

Looking Beyond the Obvious

In identifying your campaign theme, it can help to step back and take a look at your organization with a new perspective. What originally inspired your board and donors to get involved with your organization? What’s changed with this campaign? What’s key idea connects your organization and your campaign?

An outside agency like Red Rooster Group can bring the advantage of viewing your organization with fresh eyes and seeing the distinctive characteristics that are so much a part of the fabric of your organization that you don’t notice them.

Finding the Core of the Corps

A good example is the U.S. Navy Seabees — the construction corps that builds the infrastructure for the Navy and Marines. A major capital campaign was launched to build exhibits in the Seabee Museum, in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of the corps’ founding.

The obvious themes were patriotism, honoring those who served, and preserving history. But those themes are evident in most military fundraising campaigns. We needed to distinguish this campaign from others. So, we focused on what the Seabees did (and still do) for the Navy and Marines — solve tough problems in creative ways.

After researching their accomplishments, we noted that Seabees were remarkably ingenious — and the idea of ingenuity became the driving theme of the campaign. Once we had identified this theme, we explored ways to convey that theme in a name:

Creative Construction: The Seabee story continues.

Creative thinkers support Seabees.

Building magic: Can Do! Done!

75 Years of Building Under Pressure

Building Wonders for 75 Years

In the end, we tied that problem-solving distinction to the anniversary with the campaign name of 75 Years of Ingenuity at Work. The campaign website invites donors to discover the Seabee’s ingenuity, and the importance of telling these stories to others through the museum.

Focusing on Results

When the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue was raising money for a new building, we looked at what made this congregation special. An amalgam of people from all walks of life coming together as friends to share life’s joyous moments of birth, marriage, and holidays suggested that this congregation was all about community.

Building on the theme of community, we emphasized how the expanded space would allow more opportunities for members to engage with each other, and that would lead to deeper relationships. From this concept, we developed the campaign name: Growing Together: Getting Closer with More Space.

Playing on Words

Georgetown Heritage wanted to raise money to restore the deteriorating locks of the historic C&O Canal, ignite interest in the canal’s history through educational programs, and develop the recreational and economic opportunities of this central waterway. This latent canal represented a lot of potential — the key theme for this campaign.

To create an invitation to support the canal’s revitalization, the campaign name, Unlock the Potential: Creating the Georgetown Canal Experience plays on the work “lock” (the canal has 74 locks, in fact, over 184 miles), and is reinforced by the gatefold design of the brochure mimicking the locks themselves.

Getting a Running Start

For all of these campaigns, the theme reflects the purpose of the campaign succinctly and distinctively. A meaningful benefit is communicated. And the tone and personality of the organization is appropriate.

All capital campaigns — even ones that seem very similar — will have differences that can be highlighted to your advantage. Find those distinctions, and exploit them to their full potential so that your donors can understand your message and be motivated to support your campaign.

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