This was once thought of a powerfully illustrative image of a typical donor file:
It’s fairly correct of most recordsdata, although if it had been formed just like the precise numbers of donors, it will look extra like a aspect view of a sombrero.
A donor pyramid tells you a really primary reality: You will have extra donors who give decrease quantities than who give greater quantities.
Duh.
Generally that’s useful, particularly in the event you present a companion pyramid of how a lot income is coming from which donors. That one will likely be an upside-down pyramid. It might probably awaken folks to the lopsided nature of donor recordsdata, and assist them be smarter about how they spend their money and time on which donors.
The issue that usually comes together with the donor pyramid is the impression that it reveals a typical donor journey: That donors begin on the backside and work their solution to the highest. Actually, I’ve been to displays that implied “climbing” is strictly what occurs, and that our job is to encourage all donors on their upward climb.
It’s considerably true. However in the event you assume climbing the pyramid is a typical donor journey, you might goal and domesticate donors in expensively ineffective methods.
Right here’s how donors behave on most actual donor pyramids:
- Most donors keep precisely the place they’re on the pyramid for his or her whole stick with a company.
- Some transfer up, most of them by one or two ranges.
- Some donors transfer down the pyramid — largely by a degree or two.
- There are donors who be part of your file close to the underside and finally attain the highest. Their quantity is tiny, however their monetary impression is necessary.
- Bequest donors, who are sometimes positioned on the high of the pyramid due to their outsized impression, can come from any degree of the pyramid.
- The pyramid is a snapshot of the way in which your file seems — from a number-of-donors perspective — at any given second.
An actual donor file isn’t very similar to a large historic edifice of stone. It’s extra of a seething, natural factor that may develop, shrink, and even die. Like this:
(Created years in the past on the Area Group by the good Mark Oehlschlaeger.)
Pondering of your file like this makes it clearer what’s happening. It captures the significance of the way in which donors transfer round — not simply climbing upward:
You see that you must have as many coming in as are leaving — or higher but, extra coming in. You additionally see how necessary it’s to scale back donor lapsing — simply as necessary than new donor acquisition — if no more so.
And it captures the reality that there are a number of “upward” journeys for donors:
- Many donors will keep in that enormous group of basic donors. For them, the journey you need is for them to stick with you so long as potential.
- A couple of will turn into main donors, however much more will turn into mid-value donors — which will be a particularly necessary supply of revenue.
- The commonest type of upgrading, out there to nearly any donor, is month-to-month giving.
- Some will depart you of their will. And their impression will likely be extraordinarily excessive. (And these donors come from each giving degree, not simply the highest.)
This image tells us extra about what’s actually happening with a donor file. The pyramid is okay … however solely tells you a few issues you may act on.
(This put up first appeared on February 13, 2019.)