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Momentum Rounds

For Impact Ideas | | Nick Fellers

Time is money – true enough… but what if you don’t know the relationship between the two? What if you’re embarking on a new major gifts effort – engaging leadership for the first time? How long will it take to reach the goal?

Sometimes it makes more sense to reverse the question.

How much money can we raise in X amount of time?

In three campaigns we’re working on right now we’ve implemented a ‘momentum round of funding’. In some ways, you could find parallels to the old ‘silent phase’ of a campaign – the idea there was that you were trying to see how much money you could raise before ‘going public’ – but typically you had a set time frame, say 6-12 months. The momentum round is a little different – not about ‘silent’ – all about momentum.

  • “We’re asking each person to make a commitment by March 31, 2010.”
  • Note: doesn’t have to be ‘THE’ commitment. You could keep working toward a million dollar figure while securing a $200K commitment.
  • Can say to your very best, “We’ve met with some 20 prospects and have numbers on the table. I can leverage your commitment – IMMEDIATELY – with 19 others.”
  • Provides a TIMEFRAME in the rationale. HUGE! Otherwise, gifts could be pending FOREVER and you don’t know what to make of them.
  • Also gives you a great baseline on which to build your major gifts / campaign / funding model (goal and timeline).