CLIENT STORY: COLLEGE OF IDAHO

Building Legacy: Leading a $150M Campaign Through Relationships & Storytelling

In the heart of Idaho, a small liberal arts college with a rich 134-year history was not immune to the challenges in modern higher education. With society’s shifting perceptions about the value of going to college, the College of Idaho needed a fresh perspective and support to secure its future. For Co-Presidents Doug Brigham and Jim Everett, the answer wasn't just about building or upgrading new facilities—it was about investing in what they already did exceptionally well and inviting others into their story.

When they partnered with us to launch the most ambitious comprehensive campaign in the college's history, what they discovered was that the power of authentic storytelling, leadership, and relationship would become their greatest assets.

Here's how a small college with big dreams is securing its future.

Founded in 1891, the College of Idaho is a private liberal arts college located in Caldwell, Idaho. With just over 1,000 students, the institution purposefully maintains a small, intimate setting where students can develop close relationships with professors, staff, and coaches.

Despite its size, the college has produced eight Rhodes Scholars in its history—a per-capita rate that puts it near Harvard—and boasts a 100% acceptance rate to law and medical schools for its graduates.

Background: Why Their Work Matters

College of Idaho exemplifies the power of personalized education. In a world where large universities can leave students feeling like a number, the College of Idaho creates an environment where every student feels seen, known, and challenged to excel.

"We're relatively small in size, just over 1,000 students, but we're purposefully small in that we want an intimate setting where our students can get to know their professors, get to know the staff, get to know coaches, “ explains Doug Brigham, President of the College of Idaho. “And we think that's the magic which has helped us do so well, turning out great students who go on to amazing things."

One of the stories Doug likes to share with donors is about a young man who came to the school and likely would not have had the same opportunities at a larger university. "This young man came in very capable, very smart, but very limited in terms of comparative academic skills to a lot of our other students.

“I'll never forget. He got into a research lab as a freshman, and when we brought donors to the lab, he couldn't look up. He stared at his shoes the entire time," Brigham recalls. "Fast forward a couple of weeks later, we bring another donor group through, and he takes a more active role. The third time, he literally seeks us out in the hallway and says, 'Hey, can I tell you guys about my research?'"

By his junior year, this once-shy student had received a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship and conducted physical chemistry research in Taiwan—opportunities made possible through donor support. "Had this student gone to a large university, he would have been lost and buried and would have never sought out a research opportunity," notes Brigham. "Instead, he's in a class with 10 students. He got to know the professor who realized, 'Hey, this kid's got something, and I'm going to help him realize it.' That's what we do at the College of Idaho.”

Challenge: Headwinds in Higher Ed

Like many small private liberal arts colleges, the College of Idaho faced significant challenges to its business model. The college needed to address declining "go-on rates" (the percentage of high school graduates pursuing higher education), demographic shifts creating fewer potential students, and changing perceptions about the value of a college education.

"The business model for small private liberal arts colleges in America isn't a great business model without philanthropy," Brigham notes. "There's a challenge around the number of high school students going on to college. In our state, the go-on rate is anemically low in my mind. We've been in the low 40% range in Idaho."

Within the context of these high-level challenges, the college needed a partner who could help them test the feasibility of its fundraising goals and develop a comprehensive plan that would secure its financial future.

They found that partner in the DBD Group. "We heard about DBD through my partner Jim Everett, who was co-president at the time," Brigham explains. "Jim had a prior life as the CEO of Treasure Valley YMCAs and had dealt with DBD back in his YMCA days. As we started to think about fundraising, we really wanted somebody we could feel comfortable with."

Ultimate Goal: Securing Excellence for Generations to Come

With DBD Group's help, the College of Idaho set an ambitious $150 million comprehensive campaign goal—the largest in the college's history. But unlike many capital campaigns focused on new buildings, this campaign aimed to fund what the college already did well: providing an intimate educational setting where students develop close relationships with professors, achieving exceptional academic outcomes."We wanted to fund the things we do well today," says Brigham. "We were looking for a partner who we thought would understand that mindset."

The college's primary objectives were to endow faculty chairs and increase student scholarships, creating financial sustainability while making education more accessible.

Process: Building Momentum Through Authentic Relationships

Through our partnership, which offered accountability and counsel, we gave the College of Idaho team a platform to build momentum.

The process began with a feasibility study that allowed us to understand not just the giving capacity of potential donors but, more importantly, their connection to the college. This approach helped identify the stories and values that would resonate most with supporters.

Guidance Through Partnership

"It was a partnership right from the start," Brigham recalls. We provided resources at multiple levels, from strategic guidance to practical support with materials and timelines. Their team worked closely with the College of Idaho's small fundraising staff, offering expertise where needed while empowering the college's team.

"Our fundraising team is pretty small. We're a small school and so we wanted people that could give us ideas but could also execute on some of those ideas because we were just too thin an organization to do everything," Brigham explains. "DBD offered up resources and allowed us to choose. They said, if you guys want to do it internally, that's fine. We have the resources. Here's what we can do. It gave us a great chance to pick and choose where we wanted to spend our money and what resources we needed."

Our team maintained accountability while respecting the college's unique culture and leadership style, including its unconventional co-presidency model. This accountability proved crucial to maintaining campaign momentum. "Left to our own designs, it would have been very easy to just say, let's just move that deadline back a month or three weeks, and DBD was always great at saying, 'Okay, here's the timeline. We're going to schedule this call for next week,'" says Brigham. "That was hugely helpful, at least for me, to have somebody holding our feet to the fire."

Strategic Counsel

Beyond timelines and resources, we provided valuable strategic counsel for donor relationships, helping the College of Idaho team approach each potential supporter with thoughtfulness and authenticity. "We feel like we know our donors pretty well, but it was great to have DBD at the table and get their input. They’d say, ‘Have you thought about this? What about that? Are you asking for too little? You may only get one shot at this ask, so don't under-ask if that makes sense.’ The strategy part of it was great."

Building Momentum

The campaign strategy emphasized securing larger gifts during the quiet phase to build momentum. While the feasibility study suggested the college would need one or two eight-figure gifts to reach their goal, the campaign has succeeded through numerous million-dollar-plus commitments, demonstrating the effectiveness of our relationship-focused approach.

Outcome & ROI: Financial Sustainability, Expanding Access

The campaign has already raised $125 million toward its $150 million goal (as of March 2025), with remarkable success in endowing faculty positions. In fact, in the first 131 years of the college's existence, it had only one fully endowed chair. Through this campaign, they've added nine more in just three years—all at $2.5 million each!

"All of these are funding existing positions. None of these are new positions," Brigham emphasizes. "When you fund those as endowments, they're funding those positions in perpetuity, which for us, from a business standpoint, takes around a million dollars off the bottom line, which is huge for us from a sustainability standpoint."

The campaign has also significantly increased student scholarships, making education more accessible while addressing the college's financial challenges. These outcomes keep building momentum as new donors are inspired by others’ generosity.

"It's been exciting to see our relationships grow," Brigham notes. "We've celebrated each win with that group of donors and the confidence and the excitement of being part of something. You get that momentum, and at the end of the day, people are investing in a mission and in leadership."

3 Key Learnings & Discoveries

1. Start Every Conversation with a Story

The campaign revealed that authentic stories create the strongest connections with donors. Every donor conversation begins with “What's your story?”—a practice that we emphasized from the beginning.

"Bruce and Jason and the DBD team really drove home the power of those stories," Brigham explains. "I can't tell you how many times I've sat across a coffee table from a donor, and the number of times we've actually made a hard ask is very few. We just are sharing the stories of the outcomes."

2.Gain Momentum Through Gifts that Inspire Others

Rather than relying on a few large eight-figure gifts, the campaign has succeeded through numerous significant contributions. After the feasibility study, we had initially cautioned that the college would need one or two of those eight-figure gifts to get the momentum going, but the reality proved different

"The outcome has been, to use a sports analogy, a lot of singles and doubles, not too many home runs," Brigham notes. "We still have hopes we'll hit that big eight-figure gift. But it's been a lot of million, two million, three million dollar gifts that have added up.

“This approach created a virtuous cycle of giving, as each commitment inspired others. People started to say, ‘I saw so-and-so just committed to a chair, and I like what's happening at the College of Idaho. We want to support it too,’” Brigham explains about donor reactions.

3. Lead As You Are

We helped Doug Brigham recognize that authentic leadership is more effective than trying to adopt someone else's style. This insight proved particularly valuable given the College of Idaho's unique leadership structure at the time, with Doug and Jim Everett serving as co-presidents—the only co-presidency in higher education.

Doug recalled Bruce's advice, "The best style is your style. Don't be afraid to be you. That's gonna resonate. If you try to be somebody different, it's not going to resonate. People respect that you're doing this for all the right reasons."

This guidance was especially meaningful to Doug, who described himself as "generally a little more reticent" compared to his partner Jim Everett, who was "much more of a get out there kind of person." We encouraged Doug to embrace his own leadership style rather than attempting to emulate Jim's approach.

While affirming Doug's natural style, our team also helped him understand the importance of visibility in a leadership role during a campaign. "People in a campaign, if they're going to make an investment in the college, need to see and hear and get comfortable with the leadership," Doug noted, adding that "the leadership starts with the president."

This balanced approach—staying authentic while stepping forward as a visible leader—proved to be "hugely helpful" in Doug's development as a fundraising leader.

Conclusion: Partnership Takes You Further

Our partnership demonstrates how a thoughtful, relationship-driven approach to fundraising can secure an institution's future while staying true to its mission. By focusing on what the college already does well and telling those stories authentically, they've created a sustainable path forward in challenging times.

"If you want somebody who's going to feel like they're part of your team, that you feel like is getting up and thinking, 'Hey, what can we do to help the College of Idaho?' It's DBD," Doug Brigham shares. "From the start, I felt like they cared. They wanted to know the stories. At the end of the day, it just feels like a true partnership."

For us, working with the College of Idaho and leaders like Doug Brigham exemplifies why we’ve spent 20 years helping mission-driven organizations achieve their goals—because when these institutions thrive, communities and individuals flourish!

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