A fundraising plan template built from your funding mix

A fundraising plan says what you will raise, from which sources, who owns each line and when the work happens. It needs targets by revenue source, the activities that produce them, an owner and date for each, and a monthly check of actual income against plan. This fundraising plan template gives you all of it, plus the step most plans skip: knowing which sources you actually depend on.

The nonprofit budget template is the budget these revenue targets feed.

A common way to build a plan is to set a revenue goal, then pick methods to reach it. That order produces a document that looks sensible and predicts very little. The same activities raise wildly different amounts depending on whether you live on grants or on individual giving.

Sheet 1 asks where last year's revenue came from, then tells you which calendar to lead with.

Institutional income (government, foundations, corporate foundations) runs on application windows, renewals and reporting capacity. Individual and event income runs on retention, upgrade paths and the months that carry the year. Whichever side is heavier decides where your staff hours go first.

Nonprofit finance guidance commonly holds that no single revenue stream should exceed 25% to 30% of the budget. Sheet 1 shows your largest source against that line, because a plan has a risk problem before it has a growth problem. A declined renewal or one weak appeal should cost you a quarter of the year, not the year.

Concentration is not only a budget question. The IRS public support test gives no credit for any single contributor's gifts above 2% of total support. A public charity also generally needs a third of its support from public sources. A foundation that funds half your budget can put your public charity status under pressure as well as your cash flow.

That is the case for a more balanced approach, and it is a case about risk rather than virtue. Plan for the mix you actually have, because a plan built on an aspiration is a plan nobody follows. Then give the second source a real target, and one activity in the calendar.

You do not need a tidy chart of accounts to start. Last year's Form 990, an accounting export or a board finance packet is enough.

1. Know your mix. Enter last year's revenue by source. The sheet shows your largest source against the 25% to 30% guidance and tells you which calendar to lead with.
2. Set the total, then the sources. Put the board-approved total in one cell and split it by source underneath. The sheet reports the gap if the two disagree.
3. Schedule the work. Application windows, letters of inquiry, appeals, event dates, board asks, report due dates. If it has no month on the calendar, it is not in the plan.
4. Check the shape. Compare your targets with a worked grant-led and donor-led example on the same budget.
5. Plan one move toward balance. Give your second-largest source a real target rather than a rounding figure, and put one activity under it. This is the step that reduces risk, and it is the one most plans leave out.
6. Review monthly. Replace targets with actuals once a month. A plan nobody updates stops being read by October.

The quietest failure in fundraising plans is arithmetic. The board approves a total, the team writes targets by source, and the two numbers never meet. Everyone agrees the plan looks right and nobody reconciles it.

Sheet 2 runs that check. Enter the approved total and the source targets below it. A cell at the bottom reports, in dollars, how far apart they are. Fix the sources or the total before the plan reaches a meeting.

Spreading targets across the year is the other half. Most income is lumpy. A plan that assumes one twelfth each month hides the months that carry the year. It hides the months that need a decision too.

Those numbers can move on their own as applications and gifts land. Revenue360 forecasts from the live pipeline, not from a figure you retype each month.

An annual plan covers the next 12 months. A strategic plan covers three years and answers harder questions: which sources you are building, which you are leaving, and what capacity each choice demands.

For most organizations, the practical difference is the calendar. Sheet 3 holds the activities that produce the money, with a month and an owner on every row. Sheet 2 tracks whether the money arrived.

The monthly review is where a plan survives. Fifteen minutes comparing actual against target, with a note on why the number moved, beats a longer report nobody opens.

Sheet 4 shows two organizations on the same $8M budget. Both are illustrative, not benchmarks, and the figures are sample data.

Four things change between them.

• Calendar. The grant-led organization works to funder deadlines. The donor-led organization works to a giving calendar: spring appeal, fall appeal, year-end.
• Staffing. Grant-led needs writing and compliance capacity. Donor-led needs stewardship and clean data: who gave, when, how much, and who is lapsing.
• Risk. One lost renewal is a large hole. Many small lapses are a quiet one.
• Control. You choose when to apply. Donors choose when to give.

If the grant line is the heaviest part of your plan, the grant tracking spreadsheet handles the deadlines and deliverables underneath it.

The revenue categories follow IRS Form 990 Part VIII, so the numbers can come from a filed return. Government grants are line 1e. Federated campaigns are line 1a. Fundraising events are line 1c, plus net event income on 8c. Program fees are lines 2a to 2f. Everything else sits in 1f, all other contributions, gifts and grants.

That last line is the limitation. Line 1f merges individual, foundation and corporate giving, so your return cannot tell you which foundations funded you. Your own records can, and so can each funder's 990-PF. Reading one is its own skill: the guide to reading a 990-PF walks through it.

Plenty of organizations run this plan in a spreadsheet for years. The triggers to move are specific.

• More than two people editing the same file.
• More than 20 live applications, each with its own deadline and report.
• Leadership asking monthly for a forecast that reflects what is actually in play.
• Gifts and applications arriving from three systems that never reconcile.

At that point the file is no longer doing the work you need. What costs you the time is retyping the same numbers into a second place, and reconciling figures that should already agree.

mission360 covers the three parts that the file cannot. Grants360 finds opportunities that fit, tracks each application to a decision, and builds funder briefings from 990-PF filings. Donor360 records gifts and recurring gifts, keeps lifetime giving per constituent, tracks receipt numbers per gift, and syncs both ways with Salesforce and HubSpot. Revenue360 forecasts income from the live pipeline.