What Is A Gift Table & Why Does Your Library Need It?

A gift table/calculator is one of the more scientific aspects of giving involved in fundraising. The gift table is an important step in assessing the financial capability of your library. Let's cover some of the basics.

Who should create the gift table? The gift table should be created and evaluated by your steering/leadership committee (a group of people that help lead your fundraising project or annual fundraising). If you don’t have or don’t want to start a leadership committee at this time, you could create an internal library team.

How do you create the gift table? Look at the third column from the left named the number required field. Based on a $100,000 project, you will need at least one lead gift ranging from 10 to 15 percent of your total goal. You will need 2 gifts from $10,000 to $12,999 in this example. For the third major gift amount, you will need two gifts totaling between $7,000 and $9,999.

You will see in this particular example, that once you obtain 4 donors in these ranges, you will have reached 54% of your goal. Another key maxim in relationship to determining prospective donor amounts is to analyze the number of prospective donors needed in each level.

In the top-level or lead gift a pledge or gift of 10 to 15% is required and you will need typically 6 prospects to complete one gift. For the next two levels, which are equally as significant in terms of impact on a fundraising initiative, you will also need 6 prospects for each gift and with the lead gift and next two levels you should reach about 45% of the total goal. However, once you move below the two three tiers, a rule of thumb is that you will need 3 prospects to complete one gift in those ranges.

Whether you are raising $500K, $1 Million, $10 Million or $100 Million, approximately 60 to 70% of your funds will come from 12-16 donors.

How do you use a gift table? It is absolutely vital to try to speak personally with those folks who can make or break your library project, when speaking about larger projects in the $1-$3M range. During your solicitation visit, you can use the gift table as a conversation aide. Point to the amount you'd like the prospect to consider. This small act makes a big difference. You can say, "Would you consider a gift in this range?" And point to the amount. 

The other $1,000, $5,000, $10,000, etc. donors are necessary as they all are, but they will not make or break the project like the top prospects. They will come once they see the project being supported by larger gifts. 

Important reminders:

• Do not expect to move down the gift table in order. Some donors who were identified may give at lower levels because of their commitment to other organizations and causes. Be thankful for every gift you receive, because even at the lower levels, you need a greater number to fulfill those giving levels.
• The gift table acts as a guide to determine how you need to proceed if some entities give less than you may have originally hoped for. The gift table serves as pieces of your entire project puzzle. The key is to try to fit those major corner pieces first, the largest gifts – that is why it is important to solicit those with more financial ability first, to see where they decide they want to support the project.
• Please also be encouraged to edit the gift table as you receive gifts so you can accurately depict activities. If you receive three gifts at the second level instead of two, for example, you could update the number of gifts needed at level three and below.