Fundraising Forecast

Ask Joy to read your fundraising pipeline — grants pending, major-gift asks, recurring base, and campaign momentum — and project revenue to year-end: best, likely, and worst case against goal, with the gap and the source to push.

For Development Directors Executive Directors Advancement Operations Major Gift Officers
Sample prompt to Joy's Assistant

Read our fundraising pipeline and project revenue to year-end against our [goal] goal, with best-, likely-, and worst-case scenarios weighted by our historical close rates, and tell me the gap and which source to push.

What it can look like

An illustrative example. Your output will reflect your own sources, data, and prompts.

Read our fundraising pipeline and project revenue to year-end against our $2.0M goal, with best-, likely-, and worst-case scenarios weighted by our historical close rates, and tell me the gap and which source to push.

I read your open pipeline across all four sources just now and weighted each against how gifts like it have closed for you over the last three years. Here is where the year lands against your $2.0M goal, and the gap to close.

Year-end fundraising forecast

Your year-end goal is $2.0M, and $940K is already in as of July. Weighted against your last three years of close rates by source, the open pipeline adds a likely $895K, landing the year at $1.84M — 92% of goal, a $165K gap. The swing sits in grants and major gifts, where the close rates are lowest.

$2.04M
Best case
$1.84M
Likely case
$1.64M
Worst case

Against the $2.0M goal, the likely case lands at 92% — a $165K gap.

Best case assumes the strongest grant and major-gift close rates you have seen and lands at $2.04M, just over goal; worst case, if the grants and asks mostly slip, is $1.64M.

Here is how each source contributes to the likely case.

SourceOpen pipelineClose rateWeighted (likely)
Recurring & base giving$360K90%$324K
Year-end campaign$200K88%$176K
Grants pending$540K42%$227K
Major-gift asks$480K35%$168K
Total$1.58M—$895K

Grants and major gifts are where the gap lives, but they behave differently.

  • Major-gift asks are the lever you control. $480K sits in active asks, weighted to $168K at your 35% close rate. Two of them are close: a $90K ask from a major donor your team re-engaged this spring, and a $75K ask with a board champion attached. Landing both covers the full $165K gap on their own.
  • Grants are lumpy and on the funders' timelines. $540K is pending across five proposals, but decisions land on the foundations' schedules, not yours, so there is little you can do to pull them into this year.
  • Recurring and campaign giving are near their ceiling. Base giving is already weighted at 90% and the year-end campaign at 88% — steady, but with little room left to push.

The move is major gifts. If the two asks above close and everything else holds to its weighting, you finish around $2.0M, right on goal, without needing a single extra grant. Prioritize those two cultivations now, while there is still time before year-end.

Want me to draft a push plan for the two major-gift asks that close the gap, or break this forecast down by month through December?

From a scattered pipeline to a year-end number

Fundraising Forecast reads your whole pipeline when you ask — grants pending, major-gift asks in progress, recurring and base giving, and campaign momentum — and weights each source by how often gifts like it have actually closed. You get best-, likely-, and worst-case revenue against your goal, the size of the gap, and the one source worth pushing to close it.

  1. Connect your fundraising data

    Point Joy at your CRM or donor database so it can read open grants, major-gift asks, recurring gifts, and campaign pledges, along with how similar gifts have closed before.

  2. Say your goal and the horizon

    Tell Joy your year-end goal and any thresholds that matter — which grants to count, how you define an active ask — and it applies exactly that.

  3. Read the projection

    Get best-, likely-, and worst-case revenue against goal, each source weighted by its own close rate, plus the gap and which source moves the number most.

  4. Work the gap

    Copy the forecast into your board deck or pipeline notes, and ask Joy to draft a push plan for the source it flagged.

  5. Make it one click for your team

    Save this ask as a custom command on the assistant your team already uses, so anyone can run it in one step.

Make it yours

Weighted by Source

Each source — grants, major gifts, recurring, campaign — is weighted by how often gifts like it actually close, not by hope.

Best, Likely, Worst

Three scenarios against your goal, so you know the range instead of a single optimistic number.

The Gap, Named

Joy states the shortfall in dollars and the one source with the most room to close it.

Reads Every System

Pulls grants, gifts, and pledges from your CRM and grants tracker so nothing sits in a spreadsheet you forgot.

Board-Meeting Snapshot

Run it the morning of your board meeting for a current read on where year-end lands.

By Source

Project each source on its own — grants, major gifts, recurring — to see which is carrying the year.

Month-by-Month

Break the forecast into monthly landing points through December to spot the crunch.

Push-Plan Draft

For the source Joy flags, have it draft the specific asks or moves to close the gap.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I forecast fundraising revenue for the year?

Ask Joy to read your pipeline and project to year-end. It reads open grants, major-gift asks, recurring gifts, and campaign pledges, weights each against your own history, and gives you best-, likely-, and worst-case revenue against your goal with the gap named.

How does Joy weight the forecast?

By source. Each source carries its own close rate from how often gifts like it have actually landed over your last few years — recurring giving high, grants and cold major-gift asks much lower. The likely case is the sum of every source weighted by its own rate, not a single blended guess.

Is this a scheduled report or a live projection?

A live projection you run on demand. Joy reads the pipeline the moment you ask and returns the forecast; it does not run on a schedule or send anything. Run it before a board meeting or a pipeline review whenever you want the current number.

Which source should we push to close a fundraising gap?

Joy names it. It looks at where the gap sits and which source has the most controllable upside — usually major-gift asks in cultivation, since grants land on funders' timelines and recurring giving is near its ceiling — and points you at the specific asks that would close it.

Does Joy change anything in our CRM?

No. Joy reads your pipeline to project it and does not edit records, update stages, or log activity. You act on the forecast in your own systems.

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