Nonprofit Fundraising Plan: 7 Steps, Example and Template

It's late October, and the board of a community arts nonprofit has just approved a $385,000 budget for 2027. Program fees and dues will cover part of it, and one grant is already secured. The remaining $165,000 has to come from donors, sponsors, events and grants that nobody has asked yet. Without a written plan, that number turns into a year of last-minute appeals and a December scramble.

A nonprofit fundraising plan is a one-year document that says how much you will raise, from which sources and which donors, in which months, at what cost and under whose responsibility. It connects your budget to a calendar of specific activities, so the board knows what to expect and staff and volunteers know what comes next.

This guide walks through the plan in seven steps, with a worked example in US dollars that runs from last year's results to a month-by-month calendar. At the end you'll find a template outline you can copy into your own document.

What a Fundraising Plan Covers

A fundraising plan isn't your strategic plan, and it isn't a single campaign plan. Here's how the documents fit together:

A complete fundraising plan has seven parts: last year's results, a goal derived from the budget, a revenue mix, donor segments with targets, a calendar, a fundraising budget, and owners with measures. A volunteer-run club can fit all seven on two pages. A nonprofit with a development team will go into more detail, but the structure stays the same.

Write the plan two to three months before your fiscal year starts, so the board can approve it together with the budget.

Step 1: Review Last Year's Results

Start with facts, not hopes. Pull at least the last fiscal year, ideally three, from your donor records and accounting:

• Gross revenue, direct costs and net revenue for each source
• Number of donors, split into new and returning
• Donor retention rate: donors who gave last year and again this year, divided by all of last year's donors
• Average gift by source
• When gifts arrived, month by month
• Volunteer and staff hours for each major activity, even if estimated

Here's the example we'll use throughout: Cedar Creek Arts, a fictional community arts nonprofit with 220 members and a youth program. Its 2026 results:

Ask three questions of these numbers. What grew, and why? What cost the most for what it returned? Where did you lose donors?

In this example, the concert grossed well but kept only 63 cents of every dollar, while appeals kept 91 cents. Major gifts came from just 18 people, a concentration risk if two of them stop giving. And a 60% retention rate means four in ten of the previous year's donors didn't give again. Those three observations shape the rest of the plan.

Step 2: Set the Goal From the Budget

Your fundraising goal should come from the budget, not from "last year plus 10%."

1. Start with total expenses for the coming year.
2. Subtract earned revenue you can forecast with confidence, such as program fees, dues and contracts.
3. Subtract contributed revenue that's already committed in writing, such as a multi-year grant or a signed pledge.
4. What's left is the net amount your fundraising has to produce.

For Cedar Creek Arts in 2027:

That's 12.8% more than last year's net of $146,300. It's ambitious but possible, provided the plan names the specific changes that will produce the difference. If the gap had been 40%, the right response would be a board conversation about expenses or timing, not a plan that assumes everything goes perfectly.

Because some revenue in any plan is uncertain, aim for a cushion of a few percent above the goal.

Step 3: Choose Your Revenue Mix

Each revenue source has its own cost, lead time and predictability. A balanced mix means one rained-out event or one declined grant doesn't sink the year. If you're looking for new activities to add, our list of fundraising ideas for nonprofits sorts them by budget and effort.

Then write the plan by source, with the assumption behind each number. Cedar Creek's plan:

Weight Uncertain Revenue

Count revenue that's committed in writing at 100%. Forecast renewals from loyal donors close to their history. Count new grant applications and new major gift prospects at a realistic probability, based on your own track record. Cedar Creek funded one of three applications last year, so it counts new applications at one in three. For the major gift pipeline, it lists each prospect with an ask amount and a probability, and the weighted total is $14,500.

This is how you avoid the most common planning error: a budget that only balances if every grant comes through.

Step 4: Segment Donors and Set Targets

Your individual giving total is the sum of what different groups of people will do. Segment your records before you set numbers. Common segments:

• Current donors by gift level
• Monthly donors
• LYBUNT donors, who gave last year but not yet this year, and SYBUNT donors, who gave in some earlier year but not this year
• Members, volunteers, event guests and program families who have never donated
• Businesses and foundations

Cedar Creek's $56,000 for individual annual giving breaks down like this:

The plan rounds this to $56,000. Notice that it rests on many small, testable assumptions rather than one big hope.

Why Retention Belongs in the Plan

If Cedar Creek's retention drops from 62% to 50%, it keeps 205 donors instead of 254. That's 49 fewer gifts at $120, or $5,880, which wipes out the entire cushion. So the plan budgets time and money for keeping donors: thank-you calls within days, an impact update with no ask, and a personal note before every renewal. Our guides on donor stewardship and winning back lapsed donors cover both sides of that work.

Segments only help if you can pull them quickly. In campai, you can tag and filter member and contact records and save segments such as "gave 2023–2025, not 2026" to reuse for every appeal.

Step 5: Build a 12-Month Calendar

Put every ask, every stewardship touch and every deadline on one calendar. Cedar Creek's 2027 calendar:

A few rules make the calendar work:

• One direct ask per segment per month, at most. Map asks by segment so nobody gets three appeals in November from three different committees.
• Thank before you ask again. Every donor should hear what their last gift did before the next request arrives.
• Plan for cash flow. If your history shows that most individual gifts arrive in November and December, make sure spring expenses don't depend on them.
• Schedule acknowledgments. The IRS notes that charities typically send written acknowledgments by January 31 of the year after the gift, and donors need one to deduct any single gift of $250 or more (IRS Publication 1771). See our donation receipt guide for the required content.

Step 6: Budget the Fundraising Work

The plan's direct costs are in the Step 3 table: printing and postage, the concert venue and catering, shirts for the recital-a-thon. Add the cost of people's time as well. Cedar Creek budgets $29,000 for half of a development coordinator's salary and benefits.

There's no single correct cost per dollar raised. Acquiring new donors and testing a new activity cost more in the first year; renewing loyal donors costs less. Compare your figure with your own history, and look at each source separately: the concert costs far more per dollar than the appeals, which is acceptable only if it also brings in sponsors, guests and future donors.

Also budget the timing. Concert deposits are due in January, months before ticket revenue arrives. Make sure your cash flow forecast shows that.

Step 7: Assign Owners and Track Progress

Every activity in the calendar needs one named owner, a due date and a measure. Board members belong in the plan too: as donors, as people who open doors, and as people who thank. Our overview of nonprofit board responsibilities explains the board's role in fundraising.

Track a small set of measures every month:

Review plan versus actual once a month, and reforecast with the board every quarter. If the concert comes in $4,000 short in April, you still have seven months to adjust the major gift or year-end targets. For a broader set of measures, see our guide to nonprofit KPIs.

campai's donations dashboard compares donation volume, gift count, unique donors and average gift with the previous period and shows new versus returning donors, which covers several of these measures without a separate spreadsheet.

Fundraising Plan Template

Copy this outline into a document and fill it in section by section. Keep it short enough that board members will read all of it.

[ORGANIZATION] FUNDRAISING PLAN, FISCAL YEAR [YEAR]
Approved by the board on [DATE]

1. Summary
   Net fundraising goal: $______   Planned net: $______   Cushion: $______
   Three biggest changes from last year:

2. Last year in numbers
   Table by source: gross, direct costs, net, donors
   Donor retention rate: ___%   New donors: ___   Average gift: $___
   What worked, what didn't, what we learned

3. How we set the goal
   Expenses − earned revenue − committed contributions = net goal

4. Revenue mix
   Table by source: plan gross, costs, net, key assumption, probability

5. Donor segments and targets
   Table by segment: pool size, expected response, average gift,
   revenue, approach, owner

6. Calendar
   Month by month: asks, stewardship, deadlines, owner

7. Budget
   Direct costs by source, staff time, cost per dollar raised,
   cash flow notes

8. Roles
   Staff, board and volunteer responsibilities, including board giving

9. Stewardship and acknowledgments
   Thank-you standards (who, how, how fast)
   Written acknowledgments for single gifts of $250 or more
   Disclosure statements for payments over $75 that include
   goods or services

10. Risks and fallback options
    What happens if the event or a large grant falls short

11. Measures and review schedule
    Monthly dashboard, quarterly reforecast, year-end review

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Working backward from a wish. A goal that isn't tied to the budget or to past results won't guide decisions.
• Relying on one source. If one event or one funder provides half your contributed revenue, a single bad year becomes a crisis.
• Planning asks without stewardship. Retention drives next year's results; leaving it out of the plan quietly shrinks your base.
• Counting unsecured revenue at 100%. Weight grants and new prospects by your real success rate.
• No owners. "The committee will handle it" means nobody will.
• A plan nobody looks at. If you don't compare actual results with the plan monthly, it's a document, not a plan.

If you raise most of your individual support through one campaign each year, our guide to the annual fund campaign goes deeper into running it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a nonprofit fundraising plan include?

At minimum: last year's results by source, a goal derived from your budget, a revenue mix with the assumptions behind each number, donor segments with targets, a 12-month calendar, a fundraising budget, and named owners with measures. Add a short section on stewardship and acknowledgments and a fallback plan for the biggest risk.

How do you set a realistic fundraising goal?

Subtract forecast earned revenue and committed contributions from total expenses. Then check the result against your history: if it requires far more growth than you've ever achieved, change the budget or the timeline instead of the assumptions.

How far in advance should you write the plan?

Two to three months before the fiscal year begins, so it can be approved with the budget. Events, sponsorships and grants often need four to nine months of lead time, so some early-year activities may need to start before the plan is final.

What is a good cost to raise a dollar?

There isn't one figure that fits every organization. New donor acquisition and new events cost more per dollar than renewals and major gifts. Track your own cost per dollar by source over several years and look for trends rather than comparing yourself with a single benchmark.

How often should a fundraising plan be updated?

Compare actual results with the plan every month and formally reforecast every quarter. Rewrite the plan once a year, starting with the review in Step 1.

Do small volunteer-run organizations need a fundraising plan?

Yes, but it can be short. A one- or two-page plan with a goal, three or four activities, a calendar and one owner per activity prevents most of the problems that come from improvising.

Next Steps

1. Export last year's results by source and calculate your donor retention rate.
2. Derive your net goal from next year's draft budget.
3. Choose your revenue mix, write one assumption per source and weight uncertain revenue.
4. Build donor segments in your database and set targets for each.
5. Lay out the 12-month calendar with one owner per row.
6. Add direct costs and staff time, then calculate cost per dollar raised.
7. Present the plan to your board with the budget, and set a monthly review date.

Want to manage donors, appeals and acknowledgments in one place? See how campai supports nonprofits.