Leadership is Teamwork in a Capital Campaign
“The ability of people to do remarkable things hinges on how well they pull together as a team. A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.” Simon Sinek
A capital campaign is major undertaking in trust. First we must place our trust in God to breathe wisdom, creativity, energy and generosity into our efforts to build God’s kingdom and serve a world overflowing with need.
A capital campaign asks people to trust their leaders as together your community creates a vision and plan for the future. To execute your capital campaign leaders will ask everyone to contribute their time, talents and hard earned financial resources to make the agreed vision and plans a reality. The future of our church depends on leaders who inspire trust in people to joyfully participate and make the capital campaign process successful.
Here are FIVE best practices to ensure your church has a trusted team to lead your campaign:
- Your priest should be and integral part of the campaign leadership team, but clergy and staff already have a full-time role and should not be expected to run a campaign alone.
- Strong lay leadership from Vestry recruits and supports a trusted campaign leadership team. This is key if a campaign happens during a clergy transition or your clergy is part-time. Yes, a successful capital campaign is possible in the absence of permanent clergy!
- Church, by its nature is about relationship and community building. Leadership of a campaign will result in identifying new leaders, stronger relationships between members, and a clearer sense of community identity and purpose.
- Hire a professional fundraising consultant with experience in leading faith-based campaigns. A good fundraiser can help you get started, navigate tough issues, support leadership, and offer best practices throughout to maximize results.
- Pray! Cultivate a spiritually grounded campaign from the start, driven by the question “What is God calling our church to be and do through a capital campaign?”
