Well-designed capital campaign brochures possess an "in-hand" tangibility, which elevates the perceived significance of critical information, case statements, and the overall campaign.
However, there are a number of different factors that could lead to the underperformance of case statement brochures and other capital campaign materials. Perhaps one might not readily view professional graphic design as a means to increase donor comprehension and enthusiasm. Therefore, layouts are not structured to remain clutter-free, highlight essential info, or inspire potential donors to act. And if files are not saved correctly, they will not render quality prints.
Avoid these pitfalls! Explore the following list of capital campaign brochure ideas and examples of great case statements. Strive to achieve higher levels of awareness, recall, and commitment. Use these tips to execute effective brochure designs, writing techniques, and integrated capital campaign marketing strategies.
Build the content of your capital campaign case statement FIRST. Then, adhere to tried and true prototypes to avoid scope creep.
Before developing any capital campaign materials, it's essential to define the purpose, scope, feasibility, and duration of the campaign. Building capital campaign marketing materials must take place after you know the specifics. Establishing and locking down the specifics- FIRST- will allow you to discern what information and details would effectively compel members to give.
Note how we're starting with content-building before we even select a type of brochure. Focus on what you want to say, and whom you're saying it to- FIRST. Often churches need to communicate to a multigenerational community. Therefore, specific brochure lengths, styles, layouts, text structures, and pairings need to appeal to different segments of your audience. Regardless of who will receive these brochures, you should build content with the following case statement topics and techniques:
- Pastor's letter
- Campaign vision
- Timeline overview of your church history
- Campaign plans & goals
- Highlighted "Reason Why"
- Potential giving tiers
- Ways to give
- FAQs
- Campaign Team & Leadership recognition
- Infographics to breakdown complex content
- Imagery connections and applications to support text
- Floor plans & renderings (building campaign projects)
After thoroughly building (or at lease roughly outlining) your raw content, you now know what you wish to convey and disclose. This opens options to strategize the right type(s) of brochure(s) and create an effective style for your audience. And you can structure your raw content into the following capital campaign brochure prototypes:
// Multipage Case Statement Brochures — Also referenced as campaign booklets, and it provides the most space to present the case statement in a comprehensive and engaging manner. We offer both vertical/horizontal booklets in various sizes and number of pages. However, we often find horizontal layouts (up to 24 pages), with fully-customized spreads, to be the most effective. Horizontal layouts provide more "real estate" for design, which enables readers to view the details of architectural renderings and floorplans better (i.e. building campaigns). Also, the church capital campaign theme, and how its spiritual context supports your case statement, can be presented, explored, and fully-realized in a multipage format. See these examples of great case statements.
// Folded Campaign Brochures for Case Statement— This abbreviated brochure option can supplement or replace a full multipage case statement. However, they need to be focused and pertinent. The best capital campaign brochure content approach, when keeping things brief, is the "Who, What, Why & How" or "What, Why, & How" method. This not only keeps titles bold and short, but the document flow is predictable and skimmable, which better ushers donors to the desired outcome. Lastly, folded case statement brochures can be used as a "follow along" visual aid for capital campaign launch events. However, folded brochures are not the same; some folds and sizes can vastly alter the design and print process. View these folded capital campaign brochure examples.
// Naming Opportunities Brochures— These options can be folded or multipage. And the scope should be to showcase opportunities for commemorations (donated by) or memorial (in memory of). Within a building campaign, newly remodeled areas or entirely constructed facilities can be purchased or auctioned off to display the donor's name on a plaque. The layout should be menu-like, and present options with iconography, photos, or illustrations. Usually, you want to reveal how each naming opportunity donation tallies to a measurable fundraising goal. Explore these menu-style, half-folded capital campaign brochure examples.
// Pledge Nudging Brochures— Perhaps more overtness, persuasion, and a stronger sense of urgency might be needed. This abbreviated brochure should pique your audience's interest, route them to the digital assets of the church capital campaign, prompt them to ask questions, discuss, browse digital content, and share. With this approach, make sure the content doesn't come across too pushy or needy. And avoid using too many elements on the document for it not to be perceived as junk mail. Aim to craft a thought-provoking brochure to inspire action or sparks dialogue. Arrange for them to be direct mailed, dispersed after church events, or displayed in high traffic areas. For mailable hand-to-hand ready options, see these z-fold and trifold capital campaign brochure examples.
// Capital Campaign Launch Event Brochures— Highlighting critical campaign events, galas, or rallies dates or campaign deadlines, use this addendum brochure to compile and focus critical info. In some cases, these folded brochures are distributed before the official invite-cards or invitations. And both the brochures and cards can route donors to digital domains to learn more and RSVP. These awareness increasing efforts, fulfill the need to respectfully capture attention over months and years. Building anticipation and excitement around legacy building or anniversary-based capital campaigns could make the difference.
The 5 prototypes of church capital campaign brochures above can be used in tandem, scheduled to be distributed sequentially, and are not the only prototypes needed for a successful campaign. Analyze your audience on a personal level, and anticipate why they would NOT pledge. As you gain greater insight, sort through which reservations are due to a "lack of information or systematic process" specific. This could lead you to craft new brochure prototypes or other materials to distribute over the months or years of the capital campaign. And to inspire higher levels of donorship, better express the importance and urgency of the content- with professionally designed and printed materials.
Use a condensed writing style as capital campaign best practices.
Concision helps comprehension. Readers skipping, skimming, and disregarding information presented within your church capital campaign brochures can hinder results. Weed out any content that might obstruct clarity or unintentionally dampen enthusiasm.
In short, long sentences can interfere with your power to engage, persuade, and inspire. They add unnecessary bulk, causing readers to scan, skim, or skip. You should also choose your words carefully to connect with donors fully. This is a creative muscle that we're always in the literary weight room trying to build. And there is data supporting the best ways to connect. It's surprising that nearly 75% of 2-3 letter words are skipped, while 8 letter words are more favorable. Here's an interesting read on how to write less and say more.
As content specifics vary depending upon the type of campaign brochure, consider the following tips for a more impactful, comprehensive, and fluid layout.
// 1. Strive to submerge your congregation in the spiritual context of your capital campaign theme, its meaning, and how it applies to your church family's goals.
// 2. Compel donors to move forward through the subsequent stages of making a pledge and commitment.
// 3. Consider reductive rewrites of all large bodies of text, particularly within case statement brochures. Any sections or paragraphs that fail to usher your readers to make decisions or prayerful considerations should be considered for omission. Consider publishing additional information in the digital space, where it can be updated in realtime.
// 4. Don't try to answer an excessive amount of questions in a brochure. Your "extra information" can unnecessarily clog your pledge funnel. If needed, feature the most obvious questions in your case statement brochure. Then, constantly monitor and update a long format FAQ's section within your digital assets.
// 5. Use the following questions to reword and re-prioritize content sections for better engagement:
- What elements of your brochure connect at a human level, making the "campaigning" of church fundraising and stewardship less technical and business-like?
- How can you always keep the big picture in focus, such as the premise for giving, whom you collectively serve, and how the campaign will impact your community for years to come?
- What are the facts and figures that strengthen the basis for pledging?
- How does the content anticipate the potential inquiries of the donors before moving on to make a pledge?
Establish and maintain aesthetic consistency across a series of brochures.
The design and print quality of brochures can alter the perceived value of the capital campaign and the significance of the moment. Toeing the line between being too flashy and not engaging enough, capital campaign marketing materials should be crafted with great attention to detail. The key to campaign design (beyond quality content) is getting a community to celebrate the spirit of giving.
There should be excitement surrounding your plans to grow God's kingdom. Precise creative efforts are needed. And professional design consistency, while sending a unified message, enhances the recall and realness of capital campaign communications. Therefore, it should leverage your church's integrity, leveling up the aesthetic appeal to achieve a uniquely relevant design. The following tips will help you establish the look and feel of your fundraising brochures:
Design Mentality— Aim for creative elements and aesthetics appeal that genuinely invites to inspire action, as opposed to awkwardly following treads that don't fit your church- true graphic design over template downloads.
Capital Campaign Slogans— The right church capital campaign theme logo captures the reader's attention, as they engage with the brochure design and overall layout. It should be your most identifiable and recall-ready component of any capital campaign brochure design.
Subtitling & Bible Verses— Creative names for fundraising campaigns explore ways to turn capital giving into a movement. And capital campaign slogans can be defined or support with a subtitle that paraphrases a Bible verse. Look for ways to align your capital campaign with the broader spiritual context so that it's not solely about capital and giving.
Fonts— Use a straightforward font for the brochure's running text. Shortlist fonts based on how they aesthetically pair up with or express the campaign theme, subtitle, and desired vibe of your church capital campaign.
Content— Use bold headlines, condense copy, maximum negative space, and well-balanced typography styling elements. Build higher levels of intrigue by writing copy around highly relevant and impactful photographs or illustrations. Ensure all photographic elements are clear and sharp. Only include them if they genuinely complement your text.
Complex Content— Turn pertinent, complex content into infographics.
Layout— Use empty space (negative space) for readers to gather their thoughts, and let the information sink in.
Color Schemes— Keep your brochure design fresh and exciting by experimenting with Analogous, Triad, and Complementary color pallets. BUT, make sure you don't overdo it.
Paper Selection— Match the paper of your campaign brochures with the overall design, motivation, and style. Choose "Paper Stock" as the most cost-effective and less durable option. Choose "Card Stock" for a more substantial paper option with plush texture.
Finish— Think carefully about your paper finish as a design aesthetic. Matte finishes suggest an exclusively sharp and modern low profile. Whereas Glossy finishes are an industry-standard option for a traditionally professional feel.
With case statement brochures, always include a Pastor's Letter.
The Pastor's Letter brings the human element to "campaigning." Most importantly, it can serve a case statement summary, outline, or foreword people will most likely thoroughly read and not skim.
Beyond prefacing or setting the tone of fundraising brochures, Pastor's Letters are often distributed as updates, boosters, reminders, and thank yous via letterhead & envelope sets or capital campaign websites.
Present your campaign goals dynamically.
When crafting your church capital campaign materials, we strongly urge infographics to break down technical, must-know information. With the right design, complex content in non-paragraph form, command attention, and increase the recall of the content. To serve as a planning tool for donors to prayerfully consider their contributions, we suggest illustrating at least the Giving Opportunities and Ways-to-Give.
Incorporate a bright and captivating call-to-action.
Take your time to craft a clear call-to-action with the right message and tone. A call-to-action serves as a precursor or prompt to give, learn more, ask questions, follow next steps, pray, etc. Therefore, the language, design, presence, and placement of CTAs can be crucial to overall campaign success.
Create a capital campaign brochure that tells your story, not someone else's.
We get a considerable number of clients who come to us after their copy/paste/downloadable capital campaign templates fail to connect, compel, or yield results. Whether you use our affordable full-service campaign materials or not, take time to establish more targeted, calibrated, and substantive content.
Portray the significance of the special time. Beyond being the best way to communicate effectively, fully custom designs have the added bonus of commemoration. A future capital campaign committee should regard these capital campaign materials as a standard and guide, aiming to continue your story and legacy for years to come.
Use correct file-prepping techniques and the right brochure printing.
We can't even begin to express the importance of receiving quality campaign prints; this would be a much longer post. But one can imagine how the follow-through of quality design is dependent upon the file, and how well it's prepared for the print process.
With about 3 capital campaign materials or more, this task becomes highly tedious. And the ink load, prep time, and quality of an in-house church printer/copier might interfere with your budgets, deadlines, and overall campaign cohesion.
Whether you use our full-service capital campaign marketing materials or not, consider the cost benefits of professional bulk printing, and how to NOT overrun your church's human, equipment, and monetary resources.
Integrate your Brochures with other capital campaign marketing materials.
If you have read this far, it's most likely because:
- you need a more effective brochure than campaign template options;
- you're exploring church capital campaign brochure examples to create a highly effective brochure;
- you're generally looking for capital campaign best practices to build a better church fundraising strategy.
Here's the big takeaway, following capital campaign ideas and tips 1-8 will help you craft a quality booklet or brochure design with the right content to compel. However, the most significant results will come from building a comprehensive capital campaign communications strategy that leverages a mix of print and digital media to communicate and appeal to a multigenerational congregation. This approach delivers the "the essential" in-hand print materials while aiming for top-of-mind awareness with digital engagement- video, web, and social media. And it might not be too hard or expensive! Often an integrated media approach is the difference-maker. And here are more reasons you should leverage the benefits of digital and print campaign materials:
// You'll still cater to the less tech-savvy portion of your audience while opening up new, more accessible channels to better communicate with younger or more digitally engaged members.
// With a capital campaign website or microsite, you'll be able to flexibly edit and update any load-bearing details – such as FAQ's, dates and times, point persons, contact information, etc. (You can't edit printed materials).
// Less-wordy print materials are more effective print materials! Most of your highly detailed information will be better received in the digital space, where your audience can select what they want to know. Previously, we've discussed how to NOT complicate or dampen the process and spirit of giving, and how NOT to trigger the scanning, skimming, or skipping of critical content.
You'll build a community of donors, where the general communications, info sharing, and storytelling that surrounds your church capital campaign theme can become two-way and more immersive.
Try our effective, affordable, and full-service capital campaign materials.
This might seem like a self-servicing tip, but we've served over 100+ in-house church teams, pastors, and capital campaign consultants with our highly adaptive creative talents and resources. Before moving forward, view instant quotes for capital campaign case statement brochures designed, printed, and shipped. Or, consider this list of must-have "Focused Essentials" (our most popular and affordable church capital campaign package ). Lastly, don't hesitate to ask questions and discuss them via live chat.
Other Church Capital Campaign Ideas:
// 12 "Christ-Themed" Church Capital Campaign Slogans
// 7 Church Capital Campaign Slogans for Construction Projects
// 11 "Take-Action" Church Capital Campaign Slogans
// 10 "Gospel-Themed" Church Capital Campaign Slogans
