Nonprofit Fundraising Plan Template

A development plan and a fundraising plan are the same document. Nonprofits use development as the polite word, and the two terms cover identical ground, so this page covers both.

Most fundraising plans are a list of activities with money attached. That is a calendar, not a plan. A plan starts from where your money currently comes from, decides what to change, and names who will do it.

Start with retention

The single most useful section, and the one most plans omit.

Sector-wide donor retention was 43.3% in 2025, and donor counts fell an estimated 3.6%, continuing a decline that began in 2021. Total giving rose anyway, because a shrinking group gave larger amounts.

A 43% retention rate means that of every hundred people who gave last year, fifty-seven will not give again. Replacing one costs several times what keeping them would have cost.

First-year retention is the number that separates organizations, and it is much lower than the overall figure because the overall figure is propped up by long-standing loyal donors. Improving it is nearly always the cheapest growth available.

Then the concentration check

What share of your income comes from the largest single source? If one funder provides more than about a third, their non-renewal is an existential event rather than a setback.

That is true whether the source is a foundation, a government contract or one very generous individual. Name it in the plan as a risk, with what you would do, because the alternative is discovering it in the month it happens.

Where the effort should go

Individuals gave $394.20 billion in 2025, 63.9% of all US charitable giving. Add bequests and it approaches three quarters. Foundations gave 19.0% and corporations 7.1%.

Most small organizations allocate effort in close to the opposite proportion, chasing corporate sponsorship and grants while the people who already gave once are never contacted again.

The monthly giving section

A donor at $20 a month gives $240 a year, renews without being asked, and typically stays for years. Recruiting one is worth several one-off gifts of comparable size, and the income is predictable enough to budget against.

Three things make the programme work. Offer it prominently rather than as an option people find. Suggest amounts small enough to feel easy, since $10 and $20 raise more in aggregate than $50. And watch card expiry, which is what actually kills monthly programmes: ask your platform whether it retries failed payments, emails the donor to update details, and reports lapses to you.

Then thank them annually with a note about what a year of their giving did. Monthly donors are the most valuable and least thanked supporters most organizations have, precisely because their gifts arrive silently.

Communications, and the ratio that matters

Aim for at least two communications telling people what happened for every one asking for money.

The common pattern at a small organization is one appeal in December and silence otherwise, which means donors hear from you only when you want something. Three or four appeals a year is normal and is not excessive, provided there is substance in between.

Board involvement, stated explicitly

The plan should name what each director will do: give, ask, host, introduce, thank. Not a general expectation, a named commitment.

Every director should give an amount meaningful to them. Funders ask what proportion of the board gives, and one hundred per cent is a strong answer where anything less prompts a question. It is also difficult to ask someone else for money you have not given yourself.

Where a director genuinely cannot give, an introduction or being present at an ask carries comparable weight. What does not work is a board that neither gives nor asks and expects the executive director to raise everything.

What you are not doing

Name the activities you are stopping or declining this year. A plan that only adds will not be delivered by the people you actually have, and everyone involved knows it.

The usual candidate is an event that continues because it always has, absorbing the fundraising capacity of the whole organization for a modest net return. Judge it on net, and on whether it brings you people you would not otherwise meet, rather than on gross.

Major gifts, with names in it

A major gift section without named prospects is a hope rather than a plan. Set a threshold that means something at your scale, which for a small organization might be $1,000 rather than $10,000, then list actual people.

Most small organizations already have three or four people on their list capable of giving considerably more than they do, and nobody has asked. The exercise of writing the names down is frequently more valuable than anything else in the plan.

Two disciplines. The relationship owner should be whoever genuinely knows the person, which is often a board member rather than the executive director. And the next step must be something someone does, on a date, rather than a state of intention.

Where a new organization starts

An organization with no donor list does not start with a campaign. It starts with concentric circles, in this order: the board and founders, everyone who has been involved in any way, their networks, then the local community.

A public appeal to strangers is the last circle, not the first. Organizations that begin there raise almost nothing and conclude, wrongly, that fundraising does not work for them.

Ask in person or by telephone for the first gifts. Email is efficient and converts poorly from people who do not yet know you.

Reviewing it

Quarterly, against the targets, reported by the owner of each line. Put the dates in the board calendar before the plan is adopted, because plans die from never being looked at again rather than from being wrong.

Track two numbers monthly regardless: income against plan, and donor count against plan. An organization on target for money and behind on donors is being carried by a small number of large gifts, which is a fragility worth seeing early.

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• Nonprofit fundraising plan template Eleven sections with retention, pipeline and board involvement tables DOCX · 38 KB

Questions people ask

What is the difference between a development plan and a fundraising plan?

Nothing substantive. In US nonprofit usage, development is the conventional word for fundraising, and a development plan and a fundraising plan cover the same ground.

Some larger organizations use development more broadly to include communications, marketing and relationship building alongside solicitation, while fundraising refers to the asks themselves. That is a distinction of emphasis rather than a different document.

Whatever you call it, the plan needs the same content: where your money comes from now, your retention rate, what you will do this year, who owns each item, and what you are stopping.

How do I write a fundraising plan for a small nonprofit?

Start with last year's actual income by source, with donor counts, because you cannot plan without knowing where you are.

Then calculate your retention rate: donors who gave both this year and last, divided by last year's donors. Set a target for improving it before setting any growth target, since retention is nearly always the cheapest growth available.

Then choose three or four activities, each with a named owner, a target and a date. Not twelve. A small organization delivers three things well or twelve things badly.

Finish with what you are not doing, and put the review dates in the board calendar.

What should a fundraising plan include?

Eleven sections cover it: where you are now, retention targets, the funding concentration check, campaigns and activities, monthly giving, major gifts with named prospects, the grants pipeline, donor communications, board involvement, what you are not doing, and review dates.

Two of those are usually missing and matter most. Retention, because most plans jump straight to growth. And what you are not doing, because a plan that only adds cannot be delivered by the staff you have.

Every target needs a named person against it. Items owned by a committee are owned by nobody.

How much should a nonprofit spend on fundraising?

Enough to do it properly, and there is no correct ratio.

The pressure to minimise fundraising and administrative costs is widely recognised as damaging, and it has produced real underinvestment across the sector in the systems and staff that make fundraising work. The phenomenon is usually called the nonprofit starvation cycle.

More useful than a ratio is cost per dollar raised, tracked by activity over time. Acquisition costs more than retention. Events cost more than appeals. Knowing your own numbers lets you decide where the next hour goes.

If a funder demands an arbitrary ratio, that is information about the funder.

How many fundraising appeals should we send a year?

Three or four is normal for a small organization and is not excessive.

The common pattern is one appeal in December and silence for the rest of the year, which means supporters hear from you only when you want money. That is what makes appeals feel intrusive rather than the number of them.

The ratio that matters is asks to updates. Aim for at least two communications telling people what happened for every one asking. That makes the ask part of a relationship.

Offer a preference option and honour it. It costs very little and prevents the unsubscribes that remove someone permanently.

Should we set a fundraising goal for each board member?

Set an expectation of participation rather than a fixed dollar quota.

A give-or-get requirement of a specific amount is used by some organizations and it excludes people you should want on the board, particularly those with lived experience of the issue you work on.

The workable expectation is that every director gives an amount meaningful to them, and that every director does something to help raise money: an introduction, hosting, thanking donors, or being present at an ask.

Record what each has agreed to in the plan by name. A general expectation produces general effort.

How do we set realistic fundraising targets?

Build them from the components rather than from a desired total.

Take last year's actual by source. Apply a realistic retention rate to your existing donors. Add growth only where you can name what will produce it: a specific number of new monthly donors, a specific major gift prospect, a named grant application.

Targets built downward from what the budget needs are wishes. A plan requiring you to double individual giving with no new activity and no new capacity will not happen, and the organization will spend the year knowing it.

If the honest total does not cover the budget, that is a real finding and the budget needs revisiting.

When should we write next year's fundraising plan?

Two to three months before your fiscal year begins, alongside the budget, so the board can approve both before the year they govern.

For a calendar year organization that means drafting in October, reviewing in November and approving in December. A plan approved in March for a year that started in January means a quarter run without one.

Build in a mid-year review as well. A fundraising plan that is never revisited becomes a document nobody consults by about month four, and the quarterly review is what keeps it alive.

This is reference information, not legal or tax advice. Rules vary by state and change over time. For a decision that carries real consequences, check the current text at irs.gov or your state registry, and talk to a nonprofit attorney or CPA.