A Q&A conversation with Julia McGuire on campaign goals, credibility, and ambition
Campaigns ask leaders to make one of the hardest decisions in fundraising: how far should we stretch?
Set the goal too low, and you risk leaving money on the table, reinforcing business-as-usual, and underplaying one of your biggest opportunities to transform fundraising among your donors, board, and staff.
Set it too high, and you can turn even a period of dramatic fundraising growth into a perceived failure that saps confidence and credibility.
Somewhere between caution and overreach lies a sweet spot—the borderline of ambitious and achievable. No formula gets you there: this is a question of judgment, diligence, and leadership.
In this Q&A conversation, Campbell & Company Co-President Julia McGuire shares how leaders can find that edge, test it thoughtfully, and avoid the hidden risks that come with getting it wrong.
There are generally two paths organizations take. One is deciding on a goal first, then backfilling what they’ll do with the money—essentially deciding it’s time for another campaign and figuring out how much to spend later. That can be an okay starting place in a very large-scale campaign with dozens of funding priorities—most commonly in higher ed—but it’s not ideal for most organizations.
The better place to start is: What is our vision? Who do we want to be? What do we need to do to get there—and how much does that cost?
A regular concern I hear is: ‘My team is already working so hard. We’ve been static for three or four years—how do we possibly do more?’ Often, that stagnation comes from a vision that hasn’t been bold enough to bring in new people or inspire donors to think differently about their giving.
A campaign is really not about charity—it’s about philanthropic investment. Donors want to know: Why do you need to do this? Why are you the right organization to do it? And if I invest, what changes because of that?
Takeaway: If your goal feels hard to rally around, the issue may not be fundraising capacity—it may be the clarity or audacity of the vision.
Yes, we generally want to see overall capacity at four to five times the goal. That’s total potential giving to all causes—not what people are currently giving to your organization.
For example, if the goal is $100 million, you want to see $400–$500 million in top prospect capacity.
But I’m quick to caution against treating wealth screening as a simple formula. You don’t want to simply look at capacity and then set the goal.
Capacity analyses are based on publicly available information, so it’s very important to confirm the data and then fine‑tune it with what you actually know about your donors.
Capacity also doesn’t tell you whether donors are excited about the vision, whether they’re ready to give to your organization, or whether your staff and programs are ready to handle those gifts well.
Takeaway: Capacity is an important data point, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. It helps you understand what might be possible to test—not what you’re guaranteed to raise.
There’s often an expectation that each campaign should be at least as big as the last—if not bigger. And a smaller campaign can feel like moving backward. But that’s not always true.
If the current need is more limited—say, a $30 million building after a $100 million campaign—it may make more sense to frame that effort as a focused initiative rather than a full campaign.
Timeframe matters too. If you raised $50 million over eight years and now you’re raising $50 million in three, that’s a huge improvement—even if the number itself hasn’t changed!
Takeaway: Growth isn’t just about headline dollars; context, focus, and timeline change the story.
You cannot double your fundraising without investing in technology, in staff, in volunteer leadership, and in time.
Fundraising campaign investments typically fall between 5% and 15% of the total goal, depending on size and readiness, but money is only part of it.
A CEO can’t expect their team to double fundraising without understanding the amount of time they have to spend doing that work. Often, that means the CEO is fundraising close to half their time during key phases.
To make that possible, organizations need backup internally. Sometimes the investment isn’t just development staff—it’s program or operational staff, so the CEO can be out talking with donors instead of running day‑to‑day operations.
And one more thing.
Board and leadership giving has to be calibrated to the shift in the campaign goal. People watch what leaders do, not just what they say.
Takeaway: Audacious goals require audacious alignment—across budgets, calendars, and leadership behavior.
It’s not easy to diagnose in real time, but the pattern is familiar. When a goal is undershot, it’s often because the vision underneath it is undershot too. People calibrate their giving to what they believe in—and if the vision doesn’t ask them to think differently, they won’t give differently either.
Overshooting carries different risks. If you don’t make the goal—even if you raise more than you ever have before—it can come off as poor planning. It introduces a narrative that something’s wrong, whether that’s true or not.
For example, we once recommended a goal of $20 million based on what the organization was ready to deliver. Momentum was strong, so partway through, leadership raised the goal to $25 million. We got to about $24.6 million—and then everything just froze.
On paper, the result was still a win. They raised more than anyone originally thought they would. But because the goal had shifted, the conversation became about what they didn’t hit instead of what they did accomplish.
The lesson isn’t to avoid ambition—but to be thoughtful about how changing the goal can change the narrative and the expectations.
Takeaway: The right level of boldness stretches donors without risking the organization’s credibility.
This is why preparation matters so much. A strong planning or feasibility process gives you benchmarks—not just for fundraising progress, but for organizational readiness too.
You’re not just testing whether donors will invest. You’re also testing whether the organization is actually ready to use that investment—from staffing and systems to programs and operations.
Is the program really ready to be funded?
Do you have the people, the infrastructure, and the decision‑making in place to put those dollars to work the way you’ve promised?
Is your fundraising team ready to manage, steward, report impact, and keep donors engaged after they make their gifts?
If you’re not ready on the inside, raising the money faster or in larger amounts can create real strain.
That’s why good planning helps you pause and ask: do we need to change the goal, or do we need to strengthen the organization so it can deliver on what the goal implies?
Sometimes that means raising or lowering the target. Other times, it means tightening or extending the timeline. What matters is that those decisions are rooted in both data and what you’re hearing from donors.
Final Thought: You want to push to the outer edge of an aggressive, achievable goal. A bold vision can create bold giving—but only if it’s tested and grounded in reality.
Interested in exploring the right level of bold for your organization’s next campaign? Our team regularly partners with CEOs and boards to test, plan, and activate ambitious goals grounded in readiness, reality, and vision.
We’re ready to invest in your success. Are you?
