In the Home Stretch: A Fund Raiser’s Capital-Campaign Challenge

Mark J. Drozdowski is in the home stretch of overseeing a capital campaign at Fitchburg State College that has raised all the big gifts it needs from wealthy donors.

But therein lies the rub, writes Mr. Drozdowski in The Fund Raiser, his regular column for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Now ready to open the campaign to donors capable of making relatively modest gifts, Mr. Drozdowski wants to figure out the best way to approach them.

“An audience of 50 lead donors just isn’t the same as the alumni population writ large,” not to mention the local corporations and foundations that will be asked to give, he writes. “That’s my dilemma now.”

Some experts might recommend using different solicitation messages for different types of potential donors, but Mr. Drozdowski sees problems with that approach, the first of which is cost.

Second, communications about the campaign’s final phase on the college’s Web site must appeal to “visitors of all stripes,” as Mr. Drozdowski calls them.

And third, he suspects donors giving modest amounts pay little attention to brochures and other campaign materials, no matter how carefully they are written.

“It remains a puzzling question,” Mr. Drozdowski writes. “How do we speak to the wide range of alumni and friends representing the complete spectrum of wealth and philanthropic intent?”

What approaches have you found to work well with donors in the last stages of a capital campaign? Click on the comment link below to share your ideas.