Blogs

For development staff, capital campaigns can be the most exciting—and intimidating—part of their work. It’s a chance to show off your fundraising skills, develop impactful relationships, and instill more trust in your nonprofit. But it’s also a major, multi-year undertaking that can quickly start to feel overwhelming, especially once the campaign launches publicly.

If you’re working on the public phase of a capital campaign, brushing up on your marketing skills will help you fundraise with more confidence. And since 39% of people say they’re extremely or very likely to respond to cross-channel advertisements, multichannel marketing is a great place to start.

Let’s talk about a few strategies you can use to market capital campaigns successfully across channels.

1. Solidify Your Nonprofit’s Website First

When you hear the word “multichannel,” your first instinct might be to think broadly. Which channels should you use? How will they interact? Should you try to focus on every channel at once? In reality, these questions will only add to your team’s overwhelm.

Instead, start by zeroing in on the channel every other marketing communication will eventually lead to: your nonprofit’s website.

Most, if not all, of your calls to action (CTAs) will direct supporters to a page on your website, so optimize it as soon as possible. Take the following steps before you expand your marketing to other channels:

• Build out your capital campaign landing page or microsite with all the key dates, events, fundraising goals, and storytelling strategies in your capital campaign plan.

• Embed a text message opt-in form or checkbox on key pages like your homepage, donation page, and capital campaign landing page.

• Create blog posts you can share across channels, detailing the purpose of your capital campaign and how your community is coming together to support it.

• Optimize URLs for easier sharing. For instance, you might change [yoursite].org/blog/11-9-26-blog-post/ to [yoursite].org/blog/community-center-renovation/

• Double-check the user experience on mobile devices and various screen sizes to ensure a responsive design and easy navigation.

Once your website is solid, you can start strategizing your approach to email, text messaging, social media, direct mail, and search ads. Prioritize the channels with the highest historical engagement. Then, build from there based on your target audiences for the campaign.

2. Create Multichannel Marketing Sequences

Next, plan how marketing channels like email and SMS will work together. The easiest way to integrate your channels naturally is to create specific message sequences with strategic timing.

For example, you might use the following sequence to promote your capital campaign kick-off event across channels:

1. A month before the event, send physical event invitations with QR codes that link to your registration page via direct mail.

2. The same day, email your donor base a "Letter from the CEO" and a video tour of the project.

3. Share behind-the-scenes content and event teasers across social media in the following weeks.

4. Two weeks before the event, send personalized text messages to anyone who hasn't RSVP'd yet.

5. The week of the event, send a final logistics email with parking and dress code information.

6. Send day-of SMS reminders with a link to the event location and post on socials throughout the day.

Use the automation tools within your CRM or email and text marketing platforms to manage these sequences and lighten your team’s workload. With the right tools, you can also set up trigger-based marketing journeys that start whenever a supporter takes a specific action. For instance, you might create a cross-channel sequence that begins when a donor downloads your capital campaign case for support.

3. Balance Capital Campaign Promotion with Annual Fundraising

It’s easy to forget about your annual donors when all your attention is on the capital campaign, but that can leave you with essential funds missing at the end of the year. Strategize now about how to promote both your capital campaign and annual fund marketing.

Segment your existing minor and mid-level donors based on which campaign they’re more likely to give to, and highlight those opportunities in individual appeals. At the same time, don’t limit new donors’ options by only promoting one or the other on public channels throughout the year. Try these strategies to balance both funding needs in your marketing:

• Automate personalized text reminders for consistent annual donors. Set up automatic text nudges for annual donors around the time they usually give.

• Share annual fund updates in your newsletters. Your regular newsletters are a great place to highlight the annual fund and how you’ve used it so far to deliver impact.

• Promote recurring giving during your capital campaign. Give new donors contributing to your capital campaign an easy way to keep supporting your cause.

• Include distinct QR codes in direct mail appeals. Create different QR codes that supporters can scan to donate to your capital campaign and annual fund.

• Shift your focus to annual giving at year-end. GivingTuesday and the month of December are prime opportunities to secure annual gifts, so consider pausing your capital campaign promotions until January.

Schedule a meeting now to review both your capital campaign and annual fundraising calendars and keep them in conversation. Note any key dates or timeframes when one should take priority, and alert your entire team so everyone’s on the same page.

Even as the technology nonprofits use to run multichannel marketing campaigns evolves, you can leverage these strategies to simplify your planning. Come back to these tips the next time you’re fundraising for a capital campaign, and adjust them based on your nonprofit’s specific priorities.