Giza-Googled October 13, 2006

Hi Folks:                                                                            (Originally posted 10/2/06)

What's that doing in a development/advancement post?  Its an allusion to the Pyramid at Giza in Egypt

The term "pyramid" comes up often in strategic or conceptual discussions of fundraising.  Off-hand, I can think of three.  There's the traditional Gift Pyramid, the general Giving Stages Pyramid, and the Campaign Pyramid...and they come from various environments:  Yours, your nonprofit cohort community, and nonprofits at large.  For now, I just want to establish some definitions for our discussion so we can discuss their value and the processes required to construct them.

The first pyramid is closest to you.  Often limited to a time span of one year, it depicts the number of gifts, sorting them in terms of size, largest at the top, divided into ranges.  It is a simple, yet powerful, graphic that is easy to construct.  Using similar charting from year to year can often reveal trends.

The Giving Stages Pyramid refers to that oft-used graphic discription of the affiliation and commitment of donors.  The "grass-roots" Occasional Giver community forms the broader base.  Your Annual Giving group typically occupies the next narrower level.  In the simple scheme, the next narrower level are Major Donors.  And the top of the pyramid is occupied by Planned Givers.  This pyramid depicts what is typically the case.

The Campaign Pyramid is a tool often used by campaign consultants to depict the scarcity and likelihood of gifts needed at various levels to complete your campaign successfully.  For example, working from the top, for a $5 million effort, there might be projected a single lead gift of $1.5 million.  At the second level, you could see two $500,000 gifts.  Perhaps a third level will propose four commitments of $250,000.  And so on.  These projections are based upon your organization's past experience, past campaign experience, feasibility interviews with key constituents and the considerable experience that consultants can bring to the process.

In future posts, I plan to look more in depth about what each pyramid really shows and how you can use them to help you--and your Board and leadership--come to terms with the resource development challenges you face.

Your comments and observations about this perspective are most welcome...