Forecasting for small shops

A forecast is not a guess with a spreadsheet; it is the dashboard's five numbers projected forward with arithmetic you can defend line by line. Small shops skip forecasting because it feels like something that needs a finance department, then spend the year surprised by their own results. This worksheet builds a real forecast in an afternoon, from numbers you already track, and it becomes the backbone of your annual plan's goals and your budget's defense.

Work the sections in order. The brackets are your inputs.

The principle: forecast the base, then the additions

A development forecast has two parts: what your existing donors will likely do (the base, which the five numbers predict well), and what new activity you will add (acquisition, upgrades, campaigns: less certain, honestly banded). Keep them separate; conflating them is how forecasts become fiction.

Part 1: The base forecast (from retention and behavior)

Your existing file, projected by its own patterns:

• Active donors, current: [N]
• Retention rate (from the dashboard, use a conservative recent

average): [%]

• Projected retained donors: [N × retention%] = [R]
• Average gift, retained donors (they give more than new; use

their figure if you can segment): [$]

• Base revenue from retained donors: [R × avg] = [$]

Then the base's internal growth:

• Upgrade lift (loyal donors invited up; from the annual-giving

systems approach, or conservative if you have no program yet): [+$]

• Sustainer revenue (current monthly run-rate × 12, plus

realistic new sustainers): [+$]

• Adjusted base: [$]

The base is your forecast's bedrock: it rests on how your donors have actually behaved, not on hope, which is why a shop that knows its retention rate can forecast its base within a believable range.

Part 2: The additions (banded, because they are less certain)

Each new-activity line gets three numbers: conservative, likely, optimistic. Forecasting a range instead of a point is the honesty that survives contact with reality.

• New donors acquired × their (lower) average gift:

[CONS / LIKELY / OPT]

• Lapsed recovery (recovery-sequence math): [CONS / LIKELY / OPT]
• Grants (the pipeline's weighted forecast, if you run one):

[CONS / LIKELY / OPT]

• Events (true net, not gross): [CONS / LIKELY / OPT]
• Major-gift closes from the pipeline (weight by stage

probability; never book INVITE-READY at 100%): [CONS / LIKELY / OPT]

Part 3: The forecast, in a range

• Conservative total = adjusted base + conservative

additions = [$]

• Likely total = base + likely additions = [$]
• Optimistic total = base + optimistic additions = [$]

Present the likely as your working goal and the conservative as the floor you would defend to a nervous board or build the operating budget against. The gap between conservative and optimistic is your program's real uncertainty, made visible instead of hidden inside a single confident number that will be wrong.

Part 4: The re-forecast rhythm (what keeps it honest)

A forecast made in the fall and never revisited is a decoration. Re-forecast quarterly, updating each line against actuals:

• Q[1] actual vs. forecast, by line: [VARIANCES]
• What the variance changes about the rest of the year: [READ]
• Revised likely total: [$]

Quarterly re-forecasting turns surprises into adjustments: the major gift that slipped shows up as a moved line, not a December shock, and the board that sees your re-forecast each quarter learns your numbers move for understood reasons: the same trust the reporting lesson builds, in forward-looking form.

Part 5: The sensitivity check (the one question that teaches most)

Before you finish, stress one number: retention. Re-run the base with retention two points lower and two points higher, and watch what happens to the total.

• Base at retention [−2%]: [$] · at [+2%]: [$]

For most shops the swing is startling, and it delivers the worksheet's real lesson in your own dollars: the highest- leverage line in your entire forecast is retention. Two points of retention outweigh most acquisition campaigns you could run. Which is why this free stage of the curriculum keeps returning to the same place: the cheapest money you will ever raise is the donor you already have, and the forecast, like the dashboard and the thank-you system, exists mostly to keep that truth in front of you until you act on it.

Evidence and adaptation note

This is a working tool, not a universal benchmark. Replace every bracketed field and example number with your organization's facts. Composite cases are labeled; their figures illustrate the method and should not be cited as sector results. Check legal, tax, privacy, employment, and accounting language against current guidance and your jurisdiction before adoption.

Primary references for review

Use these as verification starting points. The named reviewer still owns the final interpretation and must confirm that each source is current.

• Association of Fundraising Professionals, Fundraising Effectiveness Project reports: https://afpglobal.org/fepnews
• M+R Benchmarks 2026, fundraising: https://mrbenchmarks.com/fundraising/