Capital campaign timeline template

The spreadsheet behind Capital campaign feasibility: readiness first, then what a study buys. One cell for your campaign start date, one cell for your goal, and the timeline, the gift chart, and the readiness score all compute from them. No email required.

What is in it

Tab one is Timeline. Five rows, one per phase: Readiness, Feasibility study, Quiet phase, Public phase, and Close. A single Campaign start cell drives the Start and End date for every phase by formula, using the typical phase lengths described in the guide. Change that one cell and every date below it moves. Beside the dates, each row carries the gate that has to be passed before the next phase opens, the target share of the goal that should be in hand by that gate, and an owner. The target share column is filled in from the guide’s own numbers: 0 percent at readiness, roughly 90 percent by the end of the quiet phase, the remaining share by the close of the public phase, and 100 percent at close. Every header cell carries a comment explaining the rule for that column.

Tab two is Gift range chart. Enter your goal in one cell and eight tiers below it compute automatically: a lead gift near a tenth of the goal, each following tier roughly half the size of the one above it, the number of gifts needed at that size to reach its share of the goal, the number of prospects needed at a standard four-to-one ratio, and a running total against the goal. Change the goal, or the lead gift percentage above it, and every tier recalculates.

Tab three is Readiness checklist. Twenty yes or no items in five groups of four, Board, Donors, Staff, Case, and Systems, matching the groups in the guide. Mark each Yes or No in a dropdown, and a score cell totals the Yes answers out of twenty, with a plain-language reading of the score beside it: seventeen or more is ready to move to a study or the quiet phase, fourteen to sixteen needs specific fixes named on the sheet, and below fourteen means the campaign is not ready to start the clock.

How to use it

1. Set the Campaign start cell on the Timeline tab to the date you expect to begin the readiness check, not the date you hope to announce the campaign. The rest of the dates follow from it.
2. Score the Readiness checklist tab first, without rounding up, with the executive director, the development lead, and the board chair in the room together. A score under fourteen means stop here and come back to the Timeline tab later.
3. Enter your campaign goal on the Gift range chart tab. Adjust the lead gift percentage if you already know a specific prospect’s likely gift, then check whether you can name a real person for tiers one through three.
4. Fill in the Owner column on the Timeline tab with a person for each phase, not a department or a committee.
5. Use the Target share column as the gate. Do not move a phase’s End date earlier than planned just because a calendar date arrived. Move it when the share is met.
6. Rebuild the Gift range chart tab if the study or the quiet phase changes the goal. The chart is only useful with the real number in it.

When not to use it

Do not use it for a project under roughly half a million dollars at a $4M to $9M organization. The readiness tab is still useful; skip the phase-gated timeline and run the smaller process described in the guide’s “When not to do this” section.

Do not use the Timeline tab’s phase lengths as fixed. They are typical lengths, not your organization’s lengths, and a campaign three times the size of a typical one for your budget will run longer at every phase.

If the organization is in a leadership transition, fill in the Readiness checklist tab to see the gap, then stop. The Timeline tab assumes a stable executive director carrying relationships through the whole campaign, and a transition invalidates that assumption regardless of what the score says.