How Did An Independent Florida School Decide to Embark on a $20M Campaign?
Impact:
The school will embark on an initiative to triple its endowment and also secure $5M in current-use funds over a 3-year period while engaging brand new families and first-time donors around 6-figure to 7-figure solicitations.
Summary of work:
Campaign Planning Assessment over 9-months to understand the vision and draft a Case for Support, interview constituents both new and familiar to the organization, and assess the development operation.
Deliverables:
Comprehensive report of recommendations with campaign strategy for a multi-phased approach based on findings, including timeline and feasible goal; top prospect detailed strategy; recommendations around how to build capacity within the development operation.
George Philanthropy Group (GPG) engaged with an independent school in Florida to answer the above questions. Over a 9-month period of time, we gathered information around the school's newly developed strategic plan, listened to the Head of School and Board Chair speak on the school's collective vision, strengths, and opportunities, and went to work on a Case for Support. This organization opted for a longer engagement to thoughtfully plan for an initiative around their school's anniversary -- one that would be highly publicized and garner significant engagement.
Because the strategic vision was vast, and the migration to private education has only increased in recent years, there was a lot of potential to "test" priorities against many different types of constituencies by way of interviews.
Through these interviews, or individual discussions with donors and prospects (including parents, foundation representatives, past parents, grandparents, and alumni), GPG gathered extensive feedback. Focusing not only on the school's plans, goals, and needs, but also on each person's philanthropic potential and interests, the firm could form recommendations for an overall successful campaign strategy, and individual strategies associated with the top potential campaign supporters. We know that people care about sustainability, vision, marketing, and a host of other important topics, and we are certain to cover those areas in campaign planning reports. It's just as important to assess an organization's capacity as it is to plan, so our final report serves as a roadmap to follow.
This particular school will be poised to embark on an initiative with a goal that is less than the total funding needed for a strategic vision, but our firm's recommendations will allow for this initiative to serve as phase one in a multi-phased approach. Engaging first-time donors as new parents and families to the school could mean there will be room to grow affinity for a larger solicitation down the road, lending itself to phase two.