Campaigns, Explained: What They Are and Your Part in One
Phases, gift tables, and the quiet phase, seen from the seat of a first-year fundraiser who will be asked to help. Enough to be useful in a campaign before you are asked to lead one.
Through the Faith-Based lens
A first-year role here often belongs to the DRE or parish secretary pulled into research briefs on the handful of families the pastor already knows are capable, tracking pledges through systems the parish has never used at this scale, and protecting the weekly offertory while capital pledge asks run alongside it. The worksheet's early-warning habit, reporting whether the offertory is holding while the campaign runs, matters because in a tight parish community everyone will notice if it isn't.
Continuing education
1.00 points
Securing the Gift · Leadership and Management
Learning objectives
- Define a capital campaign, distinguish it from annual giving, and explain why campaigns are sequenced from the largest gifts down.
- Read a gift table and a campaign timeline, and describe what happens in the quiet phase and the public phase.
- Carry out the support roles a first-year fundraiser is given in a campaign: research briefs, stewardship, pledge tracking, and event and volunteer logistics.
- Map the campaign's demands against the annual program and protect the relationships that fund both.
Designed for CFRE continuing education. Not yet accepted; no CFRE points can be claimed.
Lessons
- 18 min
Video lesson
What a campaign is, and why it runs from the top down
II See · Securing the Gift
- 18 min
Field guide· PDF
Phases, the gift table, and the quiet phase, from your seat
IV Invite · Securing the Gift
- 16 min
Template· DOCX
Campaign support checklist for the first-year fundraiser
VI Accompany · Leadership and Management
- 14 min
Worksheet· XLSX
Your part in one: mapping the campaign against the annual program
VI Accompany · Leadership and Management
This is members-only material.
Members get every lesson, template, and worksheet in all eight tracks, plus the support to put them to work in your shop.
More in this stage
Fundamentals & Ethics
How Fundraising Works
The map you weren't given: where the money comes from, why people give, and what a development program is made of.
Major & Principal Gifts
Your First Donor Conversations
Scripts, practice, and nerve for the conversations that fund your mission: discovery visits, thank-you calls, and your first ask.
Annual Giving & Direct Response
The Annual Fund, Explained
Appeals, segments, and the giving calendar: how recurring annual revenue gets built, one season at a time.