Revenue and Donors

Purpose of this perspective

The Revenue and Donors perspective provides a clear view of how a fundraising base is currently built. It shifts the focus away from headline totals and toward observable patterns in revenue and donor data, showing how income is generated and how many donors support that revenue over time.

This perspective establishes a factual starting point for understanding the structure of the fundraising system as it exists today.

What this perspective looks at

This perspective moves beyond isolated results to focus on the relationship between income and donor volume across multiple years. Depending on the organisation and its fundraising model, this can include elements such as:

Revenue separated into meaningful streams
Total revenue is broken into its main components, such as recurring giving, one-off activity, and long-term donor intent like legacy giving. Viewing revenue this way helps prevent one-off income from obscuring underlying trends in everyday fundraising performance.

Donor counts per revenue stream
By connecting revenue to donor counts, it becomes clear how wide or narrow the foundation of each stream is. This clarifies whether a stream is supported by a broad, reliable base or by a smaller, more concentrated group.

Revenue composition and distribution
This shows how income is spread across the donor base. It highlights where concentration affects stability, particularly when a large share of revenue comes from a small number of donors, making results less predictable over time.

Average gifts, annual giving, and gift frequency per stream
Because recurring donors behave differently from one-off campaign donors, these measures are examined per stream. This explains why similar revenue totals can have very different levels of reliability and continuity.

Multi-year trends in revenue and donors
Tracking both revenue and donor counts across years shows which parts of the system behave consistently and which fluctuate. This makes it easier to see whether a change reflects a short-term variation or a shift in the underlying structure.

Note on legacy giving
For organisations with legacy programs, legacy gifts are deeply meaningful but do not follow the same rhythm as other forms of giving. They are tracked separately so that exceptional, long-term gifts do not blur the picture of the active and more predictable fundraising base.

Some of the questions this perspective answers

• What is actually driving our total revenue, such as recurring giving, one-off activity, or long-term donor intent?

• How many donors are required to generate each part of our revenue?

• Which parts of our revenue are stable and predictable?

• Where does concentration affect overall stability?

• How is the underlying structure of our fundraising changing over time?

Want to explore how this approach might apply to your organization?

Curious to hear your challenges and ideas.