January 14, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
Is it worthwhile to think about giving like a pyramid?
Two fund-raising experts are arguing about whether it makes any sense to keep looking at giving that way. Proponents of the idea say it helps people visualize how masses of low-dollar donors at the base of the pyramid can be moved up into progressively smaller ranks of donors who give large sums.
But according to Mark Rovner, a Takoma Park, Md., online fund-raising consultant, the pyramid idea of fund raising is inherently false.
In reality, “most major donors at most organizations do not rise up through the ranks of $15 donors, who become $100 donors, and then ultimately $100,000 donors,” Mr. Rovner writes. “Most major donors come to organizations via other major donors.” And most low-dollar donors, he adds, stop giving after a year or so.
Most low-dollar donors don’t ever join the ranks of an organization’s most generous supporters, at least partly because fund raisers don’t do a lot to seek them out and learn what would motivate them to give, Mr. Rovner writes.
But Lawrence Henze, an experienced direct-marketing expert, takes exception to that view. The fund-raising pyramid is a reality, at least some of time, he writes.
Mr. Henze says donors who give modestly for several years are “approximately 900 percent more likely to make a major gift in their lifetime than donors without that progressive history.”
The fact that many donors never make bigger gifts does not mean the fund-raising pyramid is a lie, writes Mr. Henze. Instead of throwing out the pyramid altogether, fund raisers need to understand why some donors do expand their giving — and how to increase their numbers.
“Then we will have a fund-raising pyramid that fulfills its promise,” he concludes.
