Writer’s Notebook: How Small Groups Run Big Capital Campaigns

A day after the Chronicle published my cover article about the rise of high-octane capital campaigns, I received a long email from Lorri Jean, chief executive of the Los Angeles LGBT Center. “What about capital campaigns by nonprofit organizations that aren’t universities or huge hospitals?” she wrote in response to my April article.

She then filled me in on the extraordinary story of the center’s campaign to build an intergenerational housing and community center in her city’s downtown. It’s a visionary project, and one for which the center’s fundraisers ultimately brought in $57 million — far beyond what an initial feasibility study said was possible.

The drive to build the Anita May Rosenstein Campus, which opened in April, is a tale of fundraising glory (a single dinner with trustees and a few high-level donors brought in about $8 million) but also of the coming-of-age of LGBT philanthropy.

Jean, now in her second stint as head of the center, recalls how in the 1990s, when she first led the group, donors were so nervous about being associated with gay causes that some balked at receiving mail with the center’s return address on the envelope.

In the campaign for the new campus, the center received its first seven-figure gift from a living supporter.

The drive also brought in 350 new donors and drew significant gifts from straight allies, who often chipped in to honor LGBT family members.

I hope this story is inspiring to nonprofits that, as Jean put it to me in her email, “don’t have ready-made prospect lists of well-heeled alumni or patients.” And I hope Jean’s example will inspire other readers to tell us their stories so we can share them with the nonprofit world and help people do their jobs better.