How to Increase Church Capital Campaign Contributions

Why do churches resist getting expert help in capital fundraising? Is it really plausible to believe that having ready access to the combined wisdom of decades of experience in capital campaigns, being provided a step-by-step, job description by job description guide to a proven capital fundraising process, and the focused coaching of an experienced fundraising consultant will not help you raise more money in your church capital campaign?  Experience shows that churches that use a campaign consultant raise, on average, about twice as much money (that’s a 100% increase, folks) as those churches who do not. 

If you think that sounds like marketing hooey, you would be wrong, but go ahead - say the claim is grossly inflated (which it isn't) and discount it by 2/3's - make the factor only a 33% increase.  Even sharply discounted, if you are looking to raise, say $1M, the difference between using a consultant and not using a consultant could easily be a couple hundred thousand dollars (and probably more)! Compare that to the cost of the services and you will see that is a huge return on the investment.  

At the end of the day, the church often considers the wrong question in asking "how much the services cost", when it should ask itself "what is the cost to not hire a consultant".  In a straw poll of 17 churches that had completed capital campaigns in the not too distant past, all of the churches remembered how much they raised, but only about half (53%) of them could remember how much they paid for the services.  I think this illustrates what is important to the church in the long term.  Of the churches who were asked if they would use a capital campaign consultant again, knowing what they now know, 86% indicated they would use a consultant again and the remaining 14% said they would consider doing so.  None of the churches indicated they would not consider making the same investment again.

As Jesus said several times, “let he who has ears, hear.”