Excellence in Big Gifts Fundraising – Capacity Campaign Success

Melbourne’s Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute completed a 4-year capacity campaign, which raised $52 million. Like its more commonly known capital campaign sibling, a capacity campaign is a special, “whole of organisation” effort to raise funds above “business as usual”. As the name implies, these funds will lift the organisation’s capacity to have impact. Capacity campaigns have been used to start a new ongoing program, to expand an established service, or for a fixed-term project with ongoing benefits.

We talked with Antonia Makkar MFIA , Executive General Manager, Community & Corporate Relations, about excellence in their campaign success.

Xponential: you identified “refining the sell” as a fundamentally important step to this campaign. What did this mean?

Antonia: The leadership of the Institute decided on a fundamental look at what was needed to scale up our impact on heart disease and diabetes. In a broad sense, we needed to increase the brainpower available through our research teams, to improve the network of learning among our researchers and more widely, and to provide better technology for the research. This required us to go deep into questions about our fundraising priorities. For example across our whole Institute, how many research fellowships were required, at what level and why? What would be the true cost of building this capacity without under-estimating, which has become a habit for many researchers through government grant applications with arbitrary limits on “overheads”. ?

When we gathered up all these needs, expressed how they would improve prevention and treatment of heart disease and diabetes, and we ended up with a large and exciting aspiration for donors.

Xponential: A culture of philanthropy is often cited as a requirement for excellent fund raising, but this may seem abstract to people who are not closely involved. What was the change that this campaign brought about?

Antonia: It started with explaining the campaign process to our scientific leaders. The process that leads to large philanthropic donations is both an art and science. We exposed our research leaders to the art, for example in relationship development. And we showed them the science, for example in our pipeline methodology and cultivation planning. This gave them confidence in what the fundraising team was doing. As they saw results of new and flexible funding, they told that story to their peers. They became more ready and willing to be part of impact reporting and experiences for donors. This was a virtuous circle, although one which took several years.

That circle also happened for board members. We activated their involvement, selecting the level and intensity of involvement suitable for each board member’s circles of influence. As some board members saw the successful result of others’ involvement, that encouraged them. Several of the largest gifts to the campaign came from finding linkages via board members to people who had little or no prior involvement with Baker Institute.

Xponential: As we’re talking about linkages, this leads us to discuss prospect research.

Antonia: We invested in a prospect research role and greatly increased the depth and number of research profiles which we used for the campaign. This really detailed research was especially important in finding linkage and connections to potential donors. Now, it underpins our continuing major gifts program.

Xponential: What were some gift highlights?

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Antonia: Our largest gift was $5 million, from a prior major donor. We established what was most important to them was ensuring that their grandchildren did not have to endure a particular health problem. We also learned that naming recognition was important to them.

Equally exciting was a $1 million gift from a “cold” potial donor who attended our first private prospect dinner “Big Hearts and Brilliant Minds”. This was a “live” test of our case for support, and from our prospect research we learned of this person’s interest area of “big data”, which aligned well with one of the capacity needs our researchers.

Xponential: What’s next?

Antonia: Current challenges include maximising the continued giving of capacity campaign donors who were not already long-term supporters. Many of the campaign donors have made their final donation of a multi-year pledge, or will do so this year.

Xponential provided Baker Institute with counsel on campaign strategy, campaign management, key donor enlistment and solicitation, and training for Advocates over three years. More recently, Xponential assisted with grant writing for large trust and foundations. To inquire about how Xponential could help you with a feasibility study for a capital or capacity campaign, please see www.xponential.com.au

Xponential is a Principal Awards Sponsor for the Fundraising Institute Australia National Awards for Excellence in Fundraising 2024.