Flagship service
Campaign Counsel
A seasoned campaign strategist beside your team from quiet phase through celebration, on a monthly retainer. Your staff runs the campaign. We make sure it's run well.
Counsel, not takeover
Some firms staff your campaign for you. It's expensive, and when the contract ends the capability walks out the door with the consultants. We work the other way: your team does the work, with senior counsel and project management keeping every piece on schedule and every solicitation sharp. When the campaign ends, you keep a development operation that knows how to do this.
We deliberately do not offer full-service campaign management. If that's what your situation requires, we'll tell you on the first call and point you to firms that do it.
What the retainer includes
- A standing strategy session with your campaign lead, plus availability between sessions when something moves.
- Solicitation planning for your top prospects: who asks, for how much, for what, in what sequence, and with what materials.
- Campaign cabinet support: recruitment strategy, meeting design, and keeping volunteer leaders confident and moving.
- Project management: the campaign plan, timeline, and benchmark tracking, so nothing drifts.
- Materials review: case statement, proposals, pledge agreements, and donor communications, held to the standard your largest donors expect.
- Pipeline and gift chart discipline: a monthly honest read of where the campaign actually stands versus where the schedule says it should.
- Board and committee reporting your leadership can present with confidence.
- Ask training for staff, board, and cabinet members who will be in solicitations.
Through every phase
Pre-campaign setup
Converting study recommendations into a campaign plan: goal, timeline, policies, cabinet, and the quiet-phase prospect list.
Quiet phase
Lead and major gift solicitations, one at a time, done right. The quiet phase decides the campaign; this is where counsel earns its fee.
Public phase
Broadening the appeal without letting the top of the chart stall, and protecting annual giving while the campaign runs.
Close and transition
Pledge fulfillment systems, donor recognition, and a stewardship plan so campaign donors become lifetime partners instead of one-time names on a wall.
In a campaign, or about to be?
Thirty minutes gets you an outside read on where your campaign stands and what deserves attention next.