One of the benefits of hiring consultants or “experts,” including fundraisers, is avoiding common mistakes and pitfalls that are often caused by following conventional wisdom or “armchair quarterbacks” within your organization or community. One such mistake is the notion that approval and endorsement of a new program or project - and a campaign to fund it - by an executive board or committee will foster fundraising success. To be sure, such endorsement is a prerequisite to even think about launching a campaign. The mistake (and it’s an easy one to make, even by professionals) is to assume that approval by your leaders will inevitably lead to capacity level investments from them. In our experience, the bar must be set higher than just “approval and endorsement.”