Do I really need to do a feasibility study to conduct a capital campaign?

No. If you want to find out what your constituency is saying about you and your plans for the future it’s a good idea to talk to them. You don’t need a feasibility study to do that but sometimes having a professional who knows what questions to ask and can give an independent opinion is well worth the investment. All our capital campaign work hasn’t started with a feasibility study but those that didn’t, required more set up time in the campaign preparation phase to give time to get input from the constituents. It is good practice to hear what your donors say and “donors do underwrite what they write”. In other words, if you donors are giving you input on things that they will fund and it is consistent with a number of people, then that may change the priorities of the campaign. A lot of organizations like to conduct studies because it gives them a vote of confidence that they will be successful. It also lets us know where any issues may arise in conversing with donors. Feasibility studies are a big investment but it is only a snapshot in time. If you don’t act on it right away, circumstances may change to make every interviewees input irrelevant. One study we concluded in New Orleans a few days before Katrina – that changed everything. Bottom line is that you can be successful conducting a campaign without a study and we have done that for some of our clients where we didn’t think it a good investment of their resources.