Capital Campaigns — Full Speed Ahead or Time to Pull Back?

Everyone agreed that the capital campaign at WBGO was necessary. But was the timing right?

The Newark public-radio station, known internationally for its jazz programming, is renting a building it formerly owned as it prepares to move into new offices. The charity’s $7 million campaign, still in a quiet phase, will pay for the new space on the campus of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

In late spring — with tariffs tanking the stock market and federal dollars for public media on the chopping block — an experienced fundraiser on WBGO’s board suggested the charity pause its campaign due to the uncertainty. And things haven’t settled down since then. This week Congress is expected to approve a rescission bill that will cut $1.1 billion from public broadcasting nationwide — and $400,000, about 9 percent of the budget, at WBGO.

But Steven Williams, the station’s CEO, isn’t convinced the current tumult is a time for caution. When the rescission bill passes, he argues, the station’s donors may be more likely than ever to offer generous support. In his view, that makes this an opportune time to publicly launch the campaign.

“People will be mad, and eager to support public media,” Williams says. “It could very well be rocket fuel for fundraising.”

In the first six months of the second Trump administration, uncertainty has been the norm for charities throughout the country. That makes it all the more challenging to figure out whether to proceed with capital campaigns — high-profile, multiyear efforts to raise money for a building, project, or endowment.

When stocks plunged shortly after Trump announced his “liberation day” tariffs in April, some online-fundraising platforms witnessed sharp declines in giving. Zeffy had among the biggest drops, and its CEO, François de Kerret, suggested charities shelter from the turmoil by punting on any planned campaigns. “I would wait a few months,” he said at the time.

Peter Heller, a fundraising consultant, understands the fear — but disagrees with the response. Heller got into fundraising during a recession in 1990. Then came the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, and finally, the dark early days of the pandemic.

“They all had their own feeling and flavor — each was a unique and scary thing,” says Heller, who is helping WBGO with its campaign. “But in each of those times, money was still being raised.”

In 2008, when it seemed for a time as if the global financial system might collapse, charities raised $308 billion, just 2 percent less than in 2007, according to Giving USA. Charities that retrenched amid the crisis missed out.

“The nonprofits all around the country that stayed in the game — those were the ones that got that $300 billion,” Heller says.

For charities that decide to proceed, the next question becomes how to structure their campaign.

Charities aren’t all the same, says Sarah Jackson, a fundraising consultant, and the organization’s mission and strategy — as well as its donor base — will affect the language and tone of a campaign.

“There is no one set path or template for every nonprofit, whether it’s for a campaign or everyday fundraising,” Jackson says.

Here’s advice from experts, and examples of how charities are carrying out campaigns, during this current moment of uncertainty.

Lean into the challenges you face…

Penn-Mar Human Services was deep into the planning phase of a campaign in March 2020 when Covid shut down the country for months. While many charities pulled back on campaigns, Penn-Mar’s board decided to press ahead. “People thought it was crazy,” recalls Greg Miller, the charity’s president.

The campaign paid for the renovation of a building and created an endowment fund that helps employees earn additional credentials and move into higher-paying positions.

While the pandemic made fundraising more challenging for some charities, Miller discovered the opposite — prospective donors were suddenly more receptive to his appeals. Penn-Mar serves individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, people who were historically segregated and isolated. “During Covid, everyone experienced isolation,” Miller says. “When we were running the campaign, we leaned into that a little bit. People could relate and be a little bit more empathetic.”

Penn-Mar exceeded its campaign goal, raising $7.7 million by June 2023.

A hot topic for today: Should you call out how Trump’s actions have harmed your charity?

SOS Community Services, a 55-year-old charity that runs an emergency shelter and provides food assistance in Ypsilanti, Mich., had never received a $1 million gift before launching its first campaign last year. The campaign is for a new building — SOS has outgrown its current space, and some employees are forced to work remotely as a result.

Last summer, Rhonda Weathers, the charity’s CEO, and Barbara Cecil, its development director, talked to some top donors to try to figure out whether obtaining a seven-figure gift was even possible. Without at least one gift of that size, they figured their planned $10 million campaign would be doomed to fail.

None of the donors would commit to a gift of that size — until the 2024 election. After Trump’s victory, one top donor called back and said she would give $1 million.

“She was concerned about the impact that Trump administration policies would have on the families SOS serves,” Cecil says. “The majority of our families are dependent on Medicaid.”

Since then, the charity has continued to emphasize the impact of federal cuts on its website and in social-media advertising, as it tries to boost visibility before launching the public phase of its campaign in 2027.

Lasell University, in Massachusetts, has raised $10 million and is still in the quiet phase of a $30 million campaign, but the recent threats to higher education have prompted the school to revamp its pitch when the campaign goes public. The prior plan had been to emphasize the needs of students, including the many undergraduates at Lasell who are among the first in their families to attend college.

But the broad questioning of the value of a college degree — coupled with Trump’s recent head-on assault of higher education — prompted the board to make a shift, says Chelsea Reiff Gwyther, the university’s vice president for advancement.

“The shift here is to recognize that education matters — a donation is an opportunity to stand for the power of education,” Gwyther says.

Kevin Wallace, a fundraising consultant who specializes in campaigns, thinks organizations like SOS and Lasell are smart to emphasize the challenges posed by federal funding cuts or policy changes.

“Lean into it, man,” he says. “Go to your donors — they’ll understand. It doesn’t matter what their politics are if they love your mission. You have a stronger case for support than you did six months ago.”

… but think twice before using political language.

Other fundraising experts caution charities against making Trump executive orders or federal spending cuts the central plank in any campaign. Heller says he’s currently working with an international-aid charity that wanted to make the threats posed by cuts to USAID the main theme in its planned $200 million campaign.

But Heller cautioned against it — and the charity’s board ultimately agreed. What if mid-term elections in fall 2026 reduce the power of Republicans in Congress?

“They had wanted to be very topical,” Heller says. “We were very clear that that would get stale quickly.”

Josh Birkholz, CEO of the fundraising consulting firm BWF, says charities might alienate as many donors as they inspire. He points to research by Arthur Brooks in his 2007 book, Who Really Cares, which found that Republicans give more to charity than Democrats.

“We’re an industry of Democrats asking Republicans for money,” Birkholz says. “Some of your donors might like what’s happening.”

Be ready to pivot.

For public television and radio stations, the cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, assuming the rescission bill passes, will take away a huge chunk of their budgets. At some small and rural stations, which receive less underwriting and philanthropic support than urban stations, the federal grants make up 20 to 40 percent of their revenue.

At public broadcasting stations, pledge drives are a type of campaign that typically occurs more than once a year. Michal Heiplik, president of the Contributor Development Partnership, which helps more than 200 stations with fundraising, says pledge-drive messages in past weeks emphasized the threat from Congress.

“Everyone is encouraging their donors to contact their representatives to tell them how they feel about public media,” Heiplik said before it was clear the bill would pass.

But he said that stations would need to switch to emergency appeals to individuals and foundations if the rescission bill passed — and his group was preparing. It had already drafted those appeals.

“You always have to have your fundraising prepared to pivot,” Heiplik says.

Temple Shalom, a synagogue in Chevy Chase, Md., launched a $7 million campaign a year ago to improve its building and make it more accessible to elderly and disabled people. Then came Trump’s election and cuts to the federal workforce by the administration’s Department of Governmental Efficiency.

Temple Shalom sits just outside Washington, and many of its members work for the federal government or for contractors that rely heavily on federal contracts. Many have lost their jobs, or fear losing them, and are in no position to donate, says Mike Rubin, a board member who is co-chairing the campaign.

The synagogue had hoped to move to the public portion of its campaign by May, but it has decided to hold off for now amid the fundraising challenges, Rubin says. On the bright side: Many retired members, with steadier incomes, have stepped up and are making significant gifts to the capital campaign and giving more to the annual fund, he says.

“We’ve always said it’s a marathon,” Rubin says. “Sometimes in a marathon you walk for a couple of miles. If you keep walking, at some point you’ll be able to run again. That’s kind of where we’re at.”

Donors want to see impact… not desperation.

Martha’s Vineyard Museum, on the Massachusetts island known for its affluent summer visitors, has plenty of challenges, but the museum’s new campaign emphasizes its recent accomplishments and the potential to do more.

The museum wrapped up its last campaign in 2019 — an effort to purchase and renovate a historic marine hospital to serve as its new campus. But the charity only raised 80 percent of its goal, forcing it to take on debt to finish renovating the building, says Heather Seger, the museum’s executive director.

The museum’s current campaign, tied to its 100^th anniversary, focuses on its efforts to tell more inclusive stories that it hopes will attract more-diverse crowds to the museum. Those include stories about the indigenous Wampanoag people, and the island’s complex history for Black Americans — the island once had slavery but is now a destination for affluent Black families.

The current campaign faces some challenges of its own — especially now that charities that provide essential services are under threat. Seger recently met with a donor who she says could easily write a check for $500,000, but the donor told her that he plans to focus on Martha’s Vineyard Community Services this year due to the impact of cuts to Medicaid and food-assistance programs.

Laura MacDonald, a fundraising consultant, says arts groups and other charities will need to lean heavily into messages about impact if they hope to raise campaign gifts at a time when donors are likely to be most focused on charities meeting basic needs.

“You may be raising money for a wonderful, gleaming building,” MacDonald says, “but really tell the story of the impact it’s going to have on the people you serve.”

Seger acknowledges it can be challenging to make the case for an organization that doesn’t sit at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. But even without the support of the donor she approached, Seger believes the museum’s focus on new and untold stories is resonating with donors.

The museum has raised about $12 million toward its $16 million goal, and Seger has identified 40 additional families that could each give $100,000 or more. She thinks the charity can hit its campaign goal by the end of the summer.

“This is the only place on the island that’s telling everybody’s stories, and no one is left out,” Seger says. “People have loved that.”