Not Every Capital Campaign Builds a Building — But This One Changed 800 Lives

When most nonprofit leaders hear "capital campaign," they picture a new building. A groundbreaking ceremony. Architectural renderings. But what if the most transformative investment your organization could make isn’t a building at all — it’s the people who do the work? In this Capital Campaign Pro podcast episode, Andrea Kihlstedt spoke with Esther Landau, Senior Director of Advancement Services at the Arc San Francisco, about a $3.3 million capital campaign that had nothing to do with bricks and mortar. Instead, the campaign funded staff pay increases to reduce crippling turnover and shrank a waitlist that was keeping adults with developmental disabilities from accessing services they needed. The Arc San Francisco, now celebrating its 75th anniversary, serves roughly 800 adults across three Bay Area counties. When their strategic planning process surfaced the root problem — staff wages were not sustainable, which meant they couldn’t hire enough people, which meant the waitlist grew — the campaign became the solution. Of the $3.3 million goal, $2.5 million went directly to increasing staff compensation, and $800,000 funded program growth including a new internship program with San Francisco Rec and Park. With one month left in the campaign and only $150,000 to go, Esther reflected on the surprises along the way. One donor she’d prepared to ask for $7,500 immediately responded with $25,000. Clients of the Arc — people the organization serves — asked to donate to the campaign themselves, raising important questions about ethical fundraising and the universal desire to contribute to something meaningful. For organizations considering whether they have the internal capacity to run a campaign, Capital Campaign Pro’s campaign resources offer a practical starting point. Not every moment was easy. Esther described stretches that felt like dragging a bag of rocks — donors who answered every email except the one about making a gift, months of cheerful persistence before a single meeting materialized. Her advice: the campaign moves at the speed of your donors, not the timeline your board wants. And if you haven’t gotten a no, the answer isn’t yet no. Some of the most creative work happened in cultivation. For the public phase launch, Esther’s team built an immersive experience where attendees assumed the identity of someone trying to access disability services and navigated real-world barriers — bureaucracy, transportation, waitlists — with outcomes determined by a roll of the dice. Some didn’t make it through. The ten-minute exercise gave donors a visceral understanding of the problem the campaign was solving. Esther also championed low-tech, high-touch donor outreach. When emails went unanswered, she recorded short personal video messages — casual, unpolished, like popping into someone’s office to say hello. Donors watched them. And they responded. As she put it: people feel it when you’ve made the personal effort to do something just for them. The takeaway from the Arc’s campaign is simple but powerful: capital campaigns don’t have to be about buildings. They can be about building capacity, building wages, and building the ability to serve more people. And sometimes that’s the most important building you can do. Considering a capital campaign for your organization? Download Capital Campaign Pro’s free campaign resources to explore your options and plan your path forward: https://capitalcampaignpro.com/campai... “The success of any campaign is that you got every dollar that was out there to get. And sometimes you can set a goal and you’re just doing your best — the money might not be there or more money might be out there.”