By a Senior Advancement Executive at a National Health System (name withheld)
Feasibility studies are often described as a prudent first step in major gift fundraising. In theory, they test donor appetite, validate assumptions, and guide leadership toward informed decisions.
In practice, many exist for a different reason.
They protect people.
What Feasibility Studies Actually Do—Most of the Time
In many institutions, feasibility studies are commissioned not because leadership is ready to act, but because leadership is not ready to hear the answer.
A study delays the moment of truth.
Instead of discovering—through direct donor conversations—that the organization lacks readiness, alignment, or credibility, the institution hires a third party to absorb that risk.
The study becomes a buffer.
If the answer is encouraging, leadership can point to the report. If it’s not, leadership can point to “conditions” that still need work.
Either way, no one has to move.
The Incentive Everyone Understands and Nobody Mentions
Fundraising professionals operate in a labor market defined by short tenures and frequent movement. In that environment, the safest work is work that is visible, defensible, and portable.
Feasibility studies meet all three criteria.
They demonstrate activity. They align with best practices. They leave behind documentation.
Donor relationships, by contrast, are fragile, slow, and highly contextual. They don’t fit neatly into binders or dashboards, and they rarely survive staff turnover intact.
Given those incentives, it should not surprise anyone that staff gravitate toward studies rather than sustained donor engagement. This is not a moral failure. It is a rational response to how the profession is structured.
Why the First Study So Often Leads to a Second
A common pattern plays out quietly across the sector.
A feasibility study is commissioned. The findings are presented. Leadership hesitates. No campaign is launched. Donor momentum dissipates.
Three years later, another study is commissioned—sometimes with a different firm.
This second study is rarely driven by new information. It is driven by the hope that circumstances, messaging, or conclusions will somehow be more favorable the next time. In many cases, the second study is commissioned by leaders who already know the outcome of the first—but are hoping time, turnover, or a new narrative will make the decision easier.
When organizations cycle through studies without acting, the study itself has become the strategy.
Consultants Know This—And Work Within It
Consulting firms are not the villains in this story.
They respond to client behavior. When institutions signal caution, ambiguity, or internal disagreement, additional analysis feels safer than decisive action.
A study can always be justified. A stalled campaign cannot.
Over time, this dynamic trains everyone involved—staff, consultants, boards—to mistake preparation for progress.
The Quiet Cost to Donors
Donors notice.
They sense when leadership is tentative. They feel when conversations stop advancing. They lose confidence when institutions hesitate to ask.
A feasibility study cannot substitute for conviction. And when studies replace engagement, donor relationships cool—often permanently.
The Question That Rarely Gets Asked
Before approving a feasibility study, leaders should ask one uncomfortable question:
What truth are we avoiding discovering directly?
If the answer is lack of donor readiness, internal disagreement, leadership uncertainty, or fear of failure—then the study is not a tool. It is a shield.
And when it is a shield, the institution does not have a feasibility problem. It has a leadership problem.
Final Observation
Major gifts are raised when organizations are willing to test reality through relationships, not reports.
Feasibility studies can inform that work. They cannot replace it.
And when they do, the institution remains busy, credentialed, and well-documented—while the money quietly goes elsewhere—often to institutions willing to act without perfect certainty.
