A feasibility study is like an advance scouting party. Often, a fund raising consultant is hired to conduct approximately 40 in-depth interviews with key constituents to test the level and depth of support for a campaign. Through these interviews, you get important feedback on the case statement and the potential for current and planned gifts. This helps you decide upon a campaign goal. In addition, meaningful information is obtained regarding possible volunteer leadership.

Conduct your own informal feasibility study

You can get a sense for how your constituency will react to a campaign by conducting an informal feasibility study. This will not necessarily obviate the need for a professional study but it will provide valuable information upon which to base a decision for a campaign.

Here are the steps:

1. Develop a short "vision statement" about what the campaign will accomplish. (Limit it to two pages.) This vision statement should state the reasons for the campaign.

2. Pick 20 key decision-makers and major gift prospects to interview. You would like each of those interviewed to meet at least three of the four following criteria:

• Be key decision makers in your organization.
• Be individuals with a high degree of knowledge and interest in your organization.
• Have the ability to make a major current or planned gift.
• Have the ability to influence the philanthropy of others.

3. Mail them a copy of the vision statement along with a letter asking them for time to seek their counsel.

4. Go out and interview as many as possible (you may not reach all of them but aim for at least fifteen). Spend one hour going over the following subject areas:

• Share with them verbally your vision for the campaign.
• Ask them for both the "challenges" and the "possibilities" of this vision.
• Ask them about their possible level of volunteer involvement.
• Ask them if they would consider a current gift to the campaign.
• Ask if they would consider a planned gift to the campaign.

5. Listen carefully to their responses. Take in the negative responses but keep them in perspective. A campaign will require organizational change and some risk. Human nature abhors both change and risk. So some of the negative answers will reflect this anxiety about change and risk. Other critical statements will be "right on" the mark and should be heeded. Once the interviewee has expended his or her thinking on the "problems" they often can then move on to the point of discussing the "possibilities" of the vision underlying the campaign. Make notes so that you will have a written record of their responses.

6. Then ask yourself the following questions:

• What objections were raised about the vision for the campaign?
• What possibilities emerged in support of the campaign?
• Will they financially support the campaign through a current gift?
• Will they financially support the campaign through a planned gift?
• Will they provide volunteer leadership for the campaign?
• What challenges do you face in the proposed campaign?