Campaign Counsel
Foster Avenue’s capital campaign consultants help universities, hospitals and cultural institutions plan a campaign and lead it to the public launch. Senior counsel sits at your table from the first planning question. The same team then builds your case for support and campaign materials, so your case matches your plan.
The questions campaign counsel answers
Every campaign starts with the same hard questions. Our counsel helps your president, your board and your advancement leaders answer them with evidence.
Are we ready?
We look at your leadership, your board, your staff and your donors before you commit to a goal.
What should the goal be?
A feasibility study tests your goal with the donors who will decide it.
Which priorities lead?
Most institutions start with more needs than a campaign can carry. Donors give to things they can picture and price. We help you choose the few priorities donors will fund, and name each one in words a donor understands.
Why should a donor give now, and to you?
We build the campaign rationale: what makes this the moment, what only your institution can do, and what each gift will change.
Who gives first?
We plan the approach to your first and largest donors and write the proposals they will read. Those early gifts set the pace for everyone else.
We will tell you if you are not ready
Sometimes the best counsel is to wait. If your leaders have not agreed on what the campaign is for, we help them decide before anyone writes a word of the case. If your advancement team is not yet in place to carry the work, we say so, and we hold until it is. A campaign that launches before it is ready stalls in public.
Counsel that stays in the room
One team carries your campaign from the plan to the page. When our writers hear a donor motive, a shifting priority or a priority that does not seem fundable, they bring it straight to counsel, because it changes how the campaign should run. And our counsel stays involved in the case and the materials, reviewing them with you. That keeps the materials true to the plan, from the first interview to the last brochure.
Who you will work with
Charlie Melichar, Principal, leads our campaign counsel. He has advised campaigns for more than 25 years. His firm, Melichar Consulting, partnered with Foster Avenue for more than a decade before the two firms joined in 2024. Every engagement is led by a principal, and the people you meet in the first meeting are the people who do the work. Counsel runs on standing strategy calls, every week or every two weeks, for as long as the campaign needs. Meet the team.
Campaigns we have worked on
DePaul University, $650 million goal. DePaul needed integrated counsel with its brand work still in progress and a launch date coming. We built the campaign rationale, 11 unit cases, and fluency training for more than 200 staff, faculty and leaders before the October 2025 public launch. Read the case study.
UNC Greensboro, $266 million raised. The campaign finished 33% above its goal. We built the campaign rationale, the case statement and the campaign identity. Read the case study.
Arizona State University Foundation, more than $2.3 billion raised on a $1.5 billion goal. Foster Avenue principals worked directly with Foundation leadership to build the messaging, the case and the pillar cases. Read the case study.
Canterbury Shaker Village. A six-month engagement, led by a principal from start to finish, set the campaign’s rationale and identity and gave the board language it could champion. Read the case study.
Questions we hear
What does a capital campaign consultant do?
A capital campaign consultant helps an institution decide whether to run a campaign, how large it should be, which priorities it will fund, and how to win the first and largest gifts. Good counsel stays with you through the quiet phase to the public launch.
When should we bring in campaign counsel?
Before you set a goal. The earliest decisions, such as which priorities to test and which donors to talk to first, shape everything after them.
What size campaigns do you work on?
Campaigns from about $20 million to more than $1 billion. Recent goals include $500 million at Intermountain Health, $650 million at DePaul University and $1 billion at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
How is campaign counsel different from a campaign communications firm?
Counsel sets the plan: the goal, the priorities and the strategy for leadership gifts. A communications firm tells the story: the case, the theme and the materials. Foster Avenue does both with one team, so you do not need two firms.
Will you tell us if we should wait?
Yes. If your priorities are not settled or your team is not ready to carry a campaign, we will say so before you commit to a goal.
What sectors do you serve?
Higher education, healthcare and cultural institutions. See our work in education, healthcare and cultural institutions.
Let’s Talk About Your Campaign
One team for campaign counsel and campaign communications, from the first planning question through the public launch.