As many church leaders know, a church capital campaign is a focused fundraising effort aimed at securing significant financial support for a major project, such as building a new sanctuary, renovating facilities, launching a new initiative, or building a new church plant. Unlike regular offerings, capital campaigns are often time-bound and goal-oriented, and usually seek large contributions from donors or givers in a limited window of time.
Learning how to run a church capital campaign involves strategic planning and strong giver engagement in your congregation! By effectively managing your church fundraising efforts and giving strategy and by understanding your data, you can inspire generosity and help bring your church’s long-term vision to life.
1. Establish a Clear Vision & Goals
Before launching any church capital campaign, it’s crucial to define the purpose and lay out what the funds will be used for specifically. Clearly communicating the why behind the campaign will help inspire your congregation to contribute, so it’s best to establish that first. Setting measurable goals, such as fundraising targets and timelines, is essential to keep everyone on the same page and maintain momentum throughout the process before it is made public.
2. Build a Church Capital Campaign Team
A successful church capital campaign requires a strong leadership team, of course! This team should consist of church leaders, staff, volunteers, and trusted members of your congregation who are passionate about the church’s mission. You can create a ‘task force’ that will specifically be focusing on this capital campaign, and assign specific roles to each person. This ensures every part of the campaign is well-organized, and that there are key people dedicated to keeping it on track.
3. Consider Hiring A Consultant
Sometimes a third-party perspective can really help your church leadership team launch a successful campaign. Hiring a capital campaign consultant can provide professional guidance on how to structure and run your campaign, helping you avoid common pitfalls and maximize your church fundraising efforts. A team of experts (like MortarStone) can help with giver engagement, campaign messaging, concrete giving data, and goal-setting, ensuring that your church is equipped to succeed.
4. Analyze Your Giving Data & Assess Feasibility
It may be helpful to initially assess your congregation’s interest, as well as conduct a feasibility study to gauge willingness and ability to support the campaign. This can involve direct conversations with key donors or staff, surveys, looking at key data or patterns, or external insight from a consultant. Understanding giver sentiment and giving data will help you set realistic fundraising goals and ensure that you’re not launching a campaign that’s financially out of reach, or how your leadership can pray and internally discuss beforehand.
It is also the best time to assess and leverage the data you have from giving software like MortarStone. The data can really give a full picture of feasibility and interest, based on previous giving patterns or past capital campaigns. This can also help you know who to approach in a ‘Quiet Phase’, where you systematically roll out the information to your staff and high-capacity givers. The data can equip your team with a plan and knowledge on how to move forward.
5. Craft A Church Communications Plan
An effective communications plan is vital for engaging your congregation. Everything from designing a logo for the capital campaign, creating materials or mockups of what the funds will be used for, filming an impactful video, designing a weekly newsletter, and more – this is important to convey why your congregation should feel led to give out of their usual tithing. Your team may want to implement a mix of newsletters, emails, videos presented before or after a Sunday sermon, social media posts, and personal meetings to keep people informed. Your messaging should consistently highlight the purpose and progress of the campaign, and ensure that everyone knows how they can contribute and how their giving will make a lasting impact.
6. Launch The Quiet Phase
Before going public with your church fundraising efforts, it is important to personally get in touch with your church’s high-capacity givers, as well as key influencers or staff at your church, during a ‘Quiet Phase’. Their early support can also serve as a strong endorsement, encouraging others in the congregation to give.
Not only do high-capacity donors have the financial ability to make significant contributions, but they are often deeply invested in the church’s mission, making them more likely to support large-scale projects. They may appreciate a personal discussion with church leaders, and some may even prefer to give anonymously or more privately. These high-capacity givers may even feel led to ‘match’ what your church has fundraised or help get you to your goal at a certain point in the campaign.
7. Present The Capital Campaign To Your Church
When you’re ready to officially launch the campaign, host a kickoff event or include it in a special Sunday service to announce it to the entire congregation. Your team can share the vision, the goals, and the progress made so far (if any private donations have already occurred, especially with high-capacity donors). Personal testimonies and visuals of the intended project can be powerful motivators, helping to connect people emotionally to the campaign, so this is important to show!
8. Communicate Campaign Progress
Sharing the progress of your church capital campaign will be especially meaningful to those who have already given, but it can help those who are praying about it see what goals still need to be met. Whether this be a quick visual or update before Sunday announcements in service, or online communications via social media or email – your church can maintain excitement and encourage continued participation.
9. Celebrate & Thank Church Givers
It is always wonderful to celebrate what God has done, and how God’s people have personally given to further His kingdom! When your church capital campaign reaches a significant milestone (or when it concludes successfully), thank all those who contributed, even if it is just a general thank you during a Sunday church service.
10. Individually Follow-Up With Givers
Many givers will prefer to stay anonymous in their giving, so a personalized letter, conversation, or email is so meaningful. After the campaign ends, it’s important to follow up with donors to keep them engaged long-term as well. This could include regular updates on how the funds are being used, stories about the project’s progress, and continued expressions of gratitude. This will help keep your congregation invested in future church fundraising efforts and build a culture of ongoing generosity.
11. Showcase How Campaign Contributions Were Used
Your church congregation will be excited to see how their giving will be used, so make sure to keep everyone updated! Whether it be inviting everyone to a ‘breaking ground’ ceremony for a new building, sharing about a new ministry made possible by their funds, or sharing photos of what is being done so far, this highlights the impact their giving had on the church and community.
12. Understand Your Church Capital Campaign Data
Once your church capital campaign concludes, it’s crucial to analyze the campaign data. Using tools like MortarStone, you can review key metrics such as giving patterns, donor engagement, and overall fundraising success. This data helps identify what worked well and where improvements can be made for future campaigns. Assessing how effective your donor outreach was, which communication methods had the most impact, and which segments of your congregation gave the most will provide valuable insights for long-term fundraising strategies and church growth.
13. Continually Disciple In Generosity & Stewardship
Even after the capital campaign has concluded, church leaders can always emphasize the importance of generosity as part of spiritual growth. Regular discipleship on stewardship and giving will help keep the culture of generosity alive in your church, and keep it going.
At MortarStone, we work with many capital campaign-focused organizations, and we have ample experience in conducting these as pastors as well. We believe that building a generous and connected church community starts with leadership – and we can equip and empower leaders with both empirical data and expert insight to make informed decisions on your next capital campaign! Our MortarStone platform offers comprehensive data analytics designed for churches that are committed to discipling their members in stewardship and generosity. It provides detailed insights into corporate giving while offering clarity on individual contributors, removing the guesswork from decision-making.
Our team is ready to partner with you, ensuring your resources are effectively used to grow God’s Kingdom. Start with a 30-minute consultation to explore how we can help you cultivate a thriving culture of generosity and stewardship within your church community!