Episode 47: Campaigns - New Ways to Look at Campaign Counsel

I welcome you to this edition of Around with Randall. Today is the fourth of four in our series about campaigns. We talked about feasibility studies in the first. We talked about case development in the second, talked about the advantages of maybe looking at mini-campaigns instead of a comprehensive campaign strategy in the third. Today we're going to talk about campaign counsel and some of the things that we see in the industry and maybe some things that we can do a little bit better and really something maybe I’ve been playing with in my head for a number of years, and a new way of looking at it. What is campaign counsel? Let's start from the top. This is where after the feasibility study you have someone —normally an outside consultant — guiding you through the campaign. That might last a year or two years or three years depending on the depth of the campaign and other aspects. One of the first questions that I’m asked is, “Does it have to be the same consultant who did the feasibility study?” Not necessarily. It depends on the quality of the firm and the people that are assigned and the relationship and the experience.

But, there are advantages of utilizing the same person. They obviously know the team. They know the cases. They know the, particularly, the institution and the leadership, which might be advantageous. But the skill sets are different and this brings to head the challenge that our industry has had in campaigns. In particular with campaign counsel there are various models. One model is what they call a residential model meaning someone is assigned and they are there four or five days a week. And then there's maybe what's called the ad hoc — and there may be different variations — but basically you pay for them to be on site for the day or per hour depending on the organization's needs.

What I have found is is that campaign counsel can be, in the end, high on cost, low on experience at times, and short on delivery. And that's really what I want to spend the most part of this podcast talking about. Unfortunately there have been too many instances, and I’ve had this experience myself as well as had had many colleagues go through this, where a consulting group will come present and lay out their plan. Everybody thinks it's great. Most importantly, they like the people. A contract is signed and all of a sudden here comes someone that nobody really knew who maybe 27 years old, who really hasn't been through this process maybe as deeply as everybody had hoped, and is not one of the people that presented in the sales process and they end up being the assigned consultant for that particular engagement. And I find this process troubling. It's detrimental to the relationship that nonprofits have with consulting overall, it's disingenuous to some degree, and it's something that concerns me because i think honor and honesty are foremost. On top of that, if it's a residential assignment meaning they're there four or five days a week week and week out, they turn out to be well, the engagement may cost as much as $50,000 a month.

So what is it that i suggest in all of this, well, let's start with what campaign counsel at the highest possible level can be. Number one is is that campaign counsel should bring a plan to the table that creates focus and accountability also has experience or skill in guiding the organization, the nonprofit, through that series of steps. In some ways his plan is a series of to do’s. I like to think of it in what we've done here with how philanthropy is 100 plus steps in building out campaign counsel from right after feasibility.  How do you build out leadership? What do those job descriptions look like? What does communication look like? How often you're meeting? How do you set up a gift table? How do you assign the prospects and then most importantly how do you build relationships to go make asks, and what's the rigor in that? 

So the plan, the second part, is having someone who can help you build strategy. So the first part was having the plan the second is having the knowledge, and that comes from an experienced fundraiser, someone who's been through trial and tribulation, failure and success, that they know how to build effective strategy. If it's a particular area or multiple areas out of the strategy about realizing where a prospect is at or a donor who's maybe a part of a campaign strategy in terms of cash versus estate giving to maximize gifts. Really, this is about the knowledge that they bring to the table in their experience and wisdom. The third is having the actual physical experience in asking people for gifts — six seven eight nine figure gifts — that experience can be important because there are some organizations the internal staff whose pressing on a campaign may not have all of the requisite experience wisdom knowledge over ready to overcome fear to be able to ensure that they can go make those asks.

So the first part is the plan, the second part is experience and having built relationships, and the third is making the ask. That's a heavy lift and that's where I kind of begin to look at this differently. I think campaign counsel is and should be an important part of an organization's conversation. I think it can bring great value in providing a defined direction for a foundation slash development office or advancement office. It can support the CDO in some powerful ways in best practice and can help identify challenges and create, come up with, develop creative solutions.

I don't think you need someone residential, per se, four or five days every week that's incredibly expensive and for the most part it's hard to find someone with 20 - 25 years of experience to camp out on your campus for most non-profits four or five days every week, four weeks a month for 12 to 24 months. It gets too expensive and so you're left with… “Do I take the experience and a lot less time and the without the rigor, or do I take the inexperience and get a lot of attention and their on-site?” And, I think there's a middle ground. What I would like to see and what we do a little bit differently is number one, the consultants that we put into campaign counsel are experienced. They have asked for six, seven ,eight, nine figure gifts. They have managed campaigns and they know what the plan looks like because they've implemented it. They've built strategy with, about, with donors or regarding asks, they're kind of what you want, and they're willing to go out and make those asks on behalf of an organization. If that's a struggle for the nonprofit I just don't think they need to be on site 16 days a month.

What I advocate is kind of a modified schedule where between the client and the consultant that you look at how often do we need someone can we have them there two sessions each one, two, to three days, so week one of a month they're there Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. They're not there week two. They're there weeks or in week three Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and they're not present there in week four. So they're on site four -to -six days and you end up paying a lot less for that, but how do you then create the rigor? Well, there's the plan, the hundred-plus steps but the rigor comes from creating meetings on the weeks you're not, or the consultant's not there on Monday and Friday using Zoom, GoTo Meeting, whatever your teams, whatever your favorite virtual meeting device is ,software is, and you can create the same rigor because the rigor is all about, “Well, are we seeing the people that we're supposed to be seeing, particularly those at the top? Can we talk about building a strategy?” And these meetings are maybe two to three hours each Monday and each Friday in the weeks the consultant's not there, and when the consultant is there, they're highly-focused on very specific tasks —making donor meetings, meeting with campaign leadership, meeting with organizational leadership, and really developing strategy and even going out and asking donors, prospects for gifts on behalf of the organization. 

If that's so desired they were very focused not going to sit around and waste time ,attention to detail, process, that they're going to follow, they're in they do their job and they're out and they can provide that rigor either on site or with virtual meetings. The other thing that I think is advantageous that technology provides us is building out a, which we have done at Hallett Philanthropy for both feasibility studies and studies involving campaign counsel, is an online project management software system with all the steps and that's where you're building out all of the details about what's to be done next who's responsible for it and you can track accountability this way and not have to be on-site looking at someone with a note card or a piece of paper. Everyone can dial into that particular site to see that accountability the responsibilities the to-do's the duties all of this provides some i think really strong benefits number one is it lessens cost by as much as 40.

Number two, you get someone as a client, a non-profit, who's been through the challenges who, makes asks, build strategies knows the plan, maybe has a little gray hair, can guide, lead, mentor, who can resonate with leadership, who is served in different capacities throughout campaigns, you get experience.

And lastly, when you overlay virtual meetings in a prospect management software system you get accountability, a plan what is it that the nonprofit should do.