The Fundraising Giving Pyramid
The Fundraising Giving Pyramid
Part 13
In Part 12 the discussion focused on the importance of timing in building a fundraising campaign. Now it is time to focus on the Fundraising Giving Pyramid and concerns for raising the necessary funds to reach the target goal of any fundraising campaign.
Over several years of developing fundraising campaigns one common theme seems to emerge over and over again. The theme unfolds something like this: if we have 180 families in the church and they all gave a total of $5,000 the campaign would generate $900,000. In some situations it might go like this: if every family gave $3,000 each year for 3 years the fundraising campaign would generate $1.62 million. The problem is it doesn’t work like that.
There are families in every cohort that are unemployed or in transition from one job to another. There are others who are retired and don’t have the income to support large giving to a fundraising campaign and of course there are students who just don’t have the funds. There are families struggling just to get by and a few of them that have no financial worries at all. So then where does the money come from that is given to a church?
In the church circles if one divides the giving into quarter it works out to something like this. Approximately 25% of the cohort gives a total of 3% of the money given to the church. The second 25% give about 10% of the total money raised by the church. The third group or 25% gives about 20% of the money raised while the last 25% gives about 67% of the total money raised in the church.
So, 13% of the money raised in a church comes from 50% of the congregation. A further 20% brings the total to 33% of the money in donated by 75% of a congregation. The fundraising campaign needs to be developed to reach and engage the 75% of the members who are only supporting 33% of the budget needed by the church.
Consultants are interested in how many families make up the top 10% of giving in a church followed by the number of families who give the next 20%. They are also interested in how many families fall in the bottom 33% of giving. Combine this with average incomes in the community along with the demographic composition of the congregation and their scores on the relational statistical survey one would get a good understanding of what exactly the potential might be in reaching a fundraising goal. It is for this reason that the feasibility study is so important.
The giving pyramid is a quick snapshot of potential giving which could impact the fundraising campaign.
Well, that’s the way I see it!
Monty McKinnon
Master Financial Planning Services Inc.
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