How do you set fundraising goals for your Nonprofit? Do you simply try to raise 10% more than last year? Or, do you worry you might set a goal is not attainable or based in reality? Or, perhaps you feel like you can raise significantly more that last year, but you’re not sure just how much more.

The best way to see if your fundraising goal is attainable is to work backwards. In other words, you need to “back into” your fundraising goal. That is – you want to figure out where those funds are going to come from, and in what amounts.

For example, the board wants to set a goal of $1,000,000. This is a nice goal – all those beautiful zeroes – but how will it be achieved?

To determine if a $1,000,000 goals is realistic, you can use Excel to develop a chart that demonstrates how many donors are required, and at what giving levels, to reach your goal.

In this case, your chart would look something like this:

The chart keeps the goal “reality-based”, and demonstrates how important it will be to secure those top gifts which are essential to the success of achieving your fundraising goal. If you don’t want to use Excel, draw a pine tree or a pyramid on the back of a napkin and fill it in from there. Seriously, it will look like a pine tree in terms of being very narrow at the top and quite wide at the bottom.

The next step is to build on your initial chare. This step is critical as you are putting names to numbers. That is:  Who will you ask at each gift level? And just as important, how many folks will be needed at each level to secure the number of gifts you need, because not everyone is going to say “yes”! Just as a note, it’s vital to put prospect names for the larger gifts, but you can don’t need specific prospect names for the lower-level gifts.

This is all forecasting, but getting this detailed really helps you set a realistic goal.  Your chart would something like this:

I’ve used this chart in a billion-dollar capital campaign, and I’ve put it work for a volunteer led Nonprofit where our goal was $25,000. Regardless of the amount of your goal, this chart goes a long way to helping your Nonprofit set a fundraising goal that is based in reality and data, not just numbers with all those beautiful zeroes.