What I'm about to tell you sounds simple and intuitive, and yet I watch organizations get it wrong year after year: you cannot reach your fundraising goal by focusing on your small gifts.

Not through appeals. Not through events. Not through email campaigns, no matter how well-written they are. Those things matter — and I'll come back to that — but they will not carry your goal.  Your goal is achieved at the top of the pyramid. And if your team isn't laser-focused on getting that right, everything else is noise.

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The 80/20 rule is real — and it holds up

Across more than 30 nonprofits of every size, locations in the U.S., and fundraising mix, I have watched the same pattern hold without fail: roughly 80% of the dollars come from roughly 20% of the donors. The research confirms it.

According to the Association of Philanthropic Counsel Major Gifts Fundraising Benchmark Study, major gifts make up as much as 80% of a typical nonprofit's charitable income — and come from 20% or fewer donors.

Every time. It doesn't matter if you're raising $500,000 or $5 million. The math is remarkably consistent.

That means the most important question in your fundraising planning isn't "how do we get more donors?" It's "who are our top prospects?” And then, “what do they care most about, how can we engage them, what can we ask them for, and who is going to make those asks?"

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Gift pyramids aren't dead — they're essential

Some people in the sector have written off the gift pyramid as an outdated planning tool. I disagree. Used well, a gift pyramid is one of the most clarifying planning exercises a fundraising team can do.

It forces you to answer important questions before the year begins. How many gifts do you need at the top of the pyramid to hit your goal? Who are the prospects you could realistically ask at each level? Do you have enough prospects identified at the top to make your numbers work — and if not, where is the gap?

When you build your pyramid thoughtfully and get that top 20% right, the rest becomes much more manageable. Your appeals, your events, your lower-dollar giving channels — they fill in the foundation. They are important. But they are the pebbles, not the big rocks. 

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Where organizations go wrong

The mistake I see most often is organizations that pour their energy into the bottom of the pyramid — more appeals, more events, more campaigns — while the top sits underdeveloped and under-cultivated. It feels like activity. It looks like fundraising. But it won't get you to your goal.

If your Director of Development isn't spending the majority of their time focused on your largest gift prospects — cultivating relationships, moving donors through the pipeline, closing asks — that is a red flag. The same goes for your CEO or Executive Director if they carry fundraising responsibility. (For more on who should be doing this work and what to look for, read our piece on frontline fundraising.)

The top of the pyramid requires the right people doing the right work. Without that, no amount of activity at the bottom will close the gap.

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Start here

If you're not sure where your organization stands, start with this question: of the goal you're trying to hit this year, how much is already identified in your major gift pipeline? If you can't answer that confidently, or if the answer is "not much," that's where your attention needs to go first.

Build your pyramid. Know your best prospects to close your top-of-pyramid gifts. Get your top 20% right.

Everything else follows.

Julie Cruit Angilly is the founder and principal of Lotus Revenue & Brand Consultants, a boutique fundraising consultancy serving nonprofits. Over the course of her career, she has raised $100 million and served as a VP of Development with personal responsibility for fundraising targets as high as $15 million annually. Lotus works with organizations to build stronger fundraising programs from the ground up. Learn more at grow-with-lotus.com.