Soapbox Engage Blog

Launching a capital campaign can be an intensive yet rewarding endeavor. Whether you’re looking to construct a new building, invest in new technology, or start a new program, a well-executed campaign can be pivotal to your nonprofit’s growth, sustainability, and long-term success. Consequently, it’s important to build a solid foundation for your fundraising efforts by crafting a compelling capital campaign case statement.

Also known as a case for support, this document outlines your campaign goals and needs, demonstrating to your supporters why they should contribute to your campaign. Your case statement will serve as a key resource to guide your campaign planning and marketing activities.

In this quick guide, we’ll walk through these five essential elements to include in your case statement:

1. Strong, Evocative Opening
2. Nonprofit Overview
3. Vision and Mission Statement
4. Fundraising Needs
5. Recent Accomplishments

Each element, when assembled thoughtfully, will set your nonprofit up for securing the support it needs to reach its capital campaign goals.

1. Strong, Evocative Opening

When you stumble across an article or social media post on the internet, what makes you keep reading? Chances are, you’re hooked by a strong opening. Maybe it spawns several burning questions that you need to find the answers to. Or maybe you just want to find out what happened next. Composing a strong opening for your capital campaign case statement is crucial for catching the attention of your audience and compelling them to continue reading.

Use these tips to guide your writing:

• Incorporate vivid, urgent language.
• Give readers someone or something to empathize with.
• Include a clear, urgent call to action.

For example, let’s say that a hunger relief nonprofit is undertaking a capital campaign to construct a new facility for conducting its programs. When crafting its case statement opening, it might write something like:

“Every year, 149 billion meals go to waste in the U.S. Yet, for 13 million children across the country, those meals could make the difference between eating dinner and going to bed with empty, rumbling stomachs. With your support, Halting Hunger aims to expand our facilities and serve more nutritious meals to our community’s youth in need. Will you help us build a brighter future by contributing to our capital campaign?”

2. Nonprofit Overview

Once you’ve hooked your audience, provide them with a little more context by sharing key details about your nonprofit. Averill Solutions’ capital campaign case statement guide recommends including your:

• History
• Place in the community
• General cause

This basic information will bring prospective donors closer to your organization by presenting them with a clearer picture of where you’re coming from and how your capital campaign will make a difference in your work.

Continuing with the hunger relief nonprofit example, its capital campaign case statement might include an overview like this:

“For 15 years, Halting Hunger has provided over one million meals each month to children and their families facing food insecurity. Our initiatives include food delivery, hosting classes on teen nutrition, and advocating for policy solutions that will lead to more assistance for food-insecure families. However, we are currently only meeting 80% of the needs in our community. Because of this, we plan on building a new operations center to expand our programs and impact.”

3. Vision and Mission Statement

Your organization’s vision and mission statement serve as guiding principles for all you do, uniting your staff, board, and volunteers in a common purpose. By communicating them on your nonprofit’s website, social media pages, and other marketing materials, you can solidify your identity within the community and attract new people to your cause.

With this in mind, you should feature your vision and mission in your capital campaign case statement, too. These statements will become powerful resources during the quiet phase of your campaign, allowing you to align with prospects on all that you aim to accomplish through your programs and remind existing supporters about your overall goals.

In the next section of its capital campaign case statement, Halting Hunger might share its vision and mission statement by adding:

“This exciting construction project will bring us one step closer to achieving our vision of a hunger-free community, where every child can thrive physically, mentally, and emotionally. Until then, we will continue our mission of increasing access to high-quality meals and promoting healthy eating for children. To do so, we need your support.”

4. Fundraising Needs

Once you’ve established your background, mission, and urgency, make it easy for prospective donors to understand how they can contribute to your capital campaign. Clearly explain:

• How much money your nonprofit needs to raise.
• When your capital campaign deadline is.
• How you plan to use the funding.

Transparency is key to building strong, lasting relationships with your donors. As NPOInfo’s donor cultivation guide points out, building a sustainable future for your nonprofit requires both locating prospects and inspiring them to continue giving year after year.

While in the previous examples, Halting Hunger has mentioned its plan to build a new operations center for its programs, it might go into more detail about its goals by writing something like:

“By constructing another facility, we will be able to serve twice as many meals to children in need and increase our volunteer capacity by 85%. The building will include significant storage space for meal items, a kitchen, sorting stations, and additional rooms necessary for our operations. To complete this project, we need to raise $4 million over the next five years.”

5. Recent Accomplishments

To secure new donors for your capital campaign, you must prove that you’re capable of achieving the results that you’re aiming for. To do so, summarize a few of your most recent accomplishments and tie them back to your campaign project. Consider including a brief testimonial from one of your beneficiaries or pull from data that you’ve included in previous impact reports to illustrate your impact.

To wrap up its capital campaign case statement, Halting Hunger might highlight some recent successes in this short section:

“Over the past year, we’ve launched a new afterschool program for children in four schools in our area, providing nutritious meals alongside homework support and extracurricular activities. We’ve rescued over 16 million pounds of fresh food and engaged 745 volunteers in our initiatives. Your invaluable support will empower us to help hundreds of more children in our community receive the nutrition and care they need to flourish.”

---

Take the time to review and revise your capital campaign case statement to ensure that it’s as clear and impactful as possible. Ask for feedback from other team members and make adjustments as necessary.

If you need a little extra guidance, you can always enlist the support of a fundraising consultant. Many nonprofits choose to partner with one of these experts for assistance with drafting capital campaign collateral, conducting a feasibility study, and meeting their campaign goals. With the right tips and tools at your disposal, you’ll be well on your way to crafting a capital campaign case statement that resonates with your supporters.