Raising 3.5x Goal with an Upstate NY Art Museum
Impact:
The Everson Museum raised $17M in the largest arts and cultural campaign the region had experienced. As a result, the museum secured its largest-ever gift through an estate and received more multi-year commitments from new donors through an initiative than it ever had.
Summary of work:
Campaign Execution over 18-months to help organize the nonprofit around its goal, develop and implement internal campaign tracking systems, build and manage a campaign steering committee who helped to drive activity consistently, join leadership on key stakeholder visits to elevate the discussions around commitments, offer strategy on all major gift prospects monthly, and consistently assess and advise on the strategy and timeline for the silent and public phases of the campaign, including increasing the goal by $12M and adjusting the timeline based on prospect momentum.
George Philanthropy Group (GPG) engaged with an art museum in Upstate New York to bring to life the leadership’s vision for more sustainability through endowment growth. The campaign was intended to grow the endowment by $5M over a period of two years. As we came to understand the museum’s priorities and donor base, we opened them up to the idea of expanding the campaign to include more initiatives and have a greater monetary goal.
We built a campaign steering committee from a small group of invested board members and the Executive Director and set a committee schedule and agenda for consistent campaign activity. GPG worked with the fundraising team to create lists based on wealth capacity and giving history to rightsize prospect portfolios and generate a campaign tracking system. In preparation for visits, we advised the committee on engaging a marketing firm to bring the campaign priorities and goals to life through high-end materials and a captivating video.
Our firm’s principals joined leadership on the top 3 largest potential donor visits to help secure over $5M of support within the first 6-months of the silent phase of the campaign. From here, we continually worked on the campaign strategy, including a new goal of $17M. Each month, GPG helped assign relationships to campaign committee volunteers and museum leadership to move with detailed suggested strategies. We offered support around campaign tracking, contact reports, and gift commitment templates, holding development staff accountable for the organization required to keep the process clean and fluid.
As the public phase grew nearer, GPG consulted with the internal and campaign leadership on the strategy and approach to announce this monumental campaign and effort, and develop a plan to keep the momentum and energy high through the 12-month public phase. This campaign was highly publicized with influential community members committing to significant support publicly, and resulted in the museum’s ability to do more than they had originally intended and anticipated.