When looking if your organization has what it takes to succeed with a capital campaign, FundRaiser reports can help. As a rule of thumb, fully one third of your goal will be met by only 10 to 15 donors, and that the next third will be met by another 75 to 100 donors. While you may have a good idea if you have that kind of commitment from a large enough pool of donors and who those top donors are, it would be asking a bit much that you also, off the top of your head, know who those next hundred top donors might be. So here are a few ideas that can help:
1. Use the Donor List Report in Amount Order
The Donor List report can be set up to list donors in order of their giving amounts, with the largest donors always at the top of the list. You can limit the range of gifts in many ways, to consider only monetary gifts, for instance, or to look at just a certain time period in the recent past. And, when you are previewing the report, you can choose to print only the first few pages (or whatever number you need) to get the top 115 or so donor names, based on your selection criteria.
2. Find the "dividing line" between top donor groups
In other words, once you have that Donor Report, look at the top 10 or 15 donors and determine the dollar amount that separates them from the next most generous donors. In you set the Donor List report to show the names, plus a total of gifts that meet your criteria, you'll just go down 10 to 15 names, check out the total giving at that point, and set it as your dividing line or lower limit for your top donors. Then you'll move down another 75 to 100 donors from that point to see what the next break point will be. This will also give you dollar amounts that you can use for creating Groupings or setting Advanced Criteria for any other reports you may want to do on major or mid-level donors.
3. Determine a reasonable expectation of donations
Hopefully the Donor List reports will give you a better sense of what your donors may be capable of giving when asked to help with a capital campaign, and the Donor Period Comparison report can show how their giving has changed over time. It's found in the Print menu, under Analysis Reports. Use the Advanced section to limit the report based on the gift criteria used in Tip #2, or create separate Groupings for them, using those same criteria. This report can show if giving has gone up or down for any of the selected donors, and may give you a better insight on how to approach these donors. This article is adapted from the original by Larry Weaver published in July 2014
As you work with reports, remember that help is available and just an email or phone call away at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 800-543-4131 or register for our Reports class. Also, check out the training videos, on reports, groupings, and more, available in the Customer Portal section of our website.