The gift pyramid is the single most-violated discipline in capital-campaign planning — and the single best predictor of whether a campaign hits goal on time. This tool builds the pyramid backwards from your goal, calibrates prospect-coverage at each tier (4 prospects per gift needed at lead level), checks year-by-year pacing against the quiet-phase threshold, and tells you whether you're ready for public launch or not.
Defaults are typical for a mid-size hospital foundation comprehensive campaign — $50M goal over 5 years, with a 65% quiet-phase threshold before public launch.
Classic campaign rule: lead gift = 10–20% of goal (× 1), major gifts at multiple tiers, broad base of smaller gifts. The defaults below are auto-scaled to your goal — adjust if your campaign architecture differs.
Standard campaign rule: you need 3–4 identified, qualified prospects for every gift you intend to close at the top tier; ratio narrows to 2–3 mid-tier and ~1.5 at the broad base.
Standard campaign pace: front-loaded — 30–40% closes in years 1–2 (silent phase), 30–35% in years 3–4 (public launch peak), 25–35% in year 5 (final push). Adjust your expected close shape below.
The math here is one input. The guides below cover the surrounding architecture: how to actually move a lead donor from cultivation to a $10–25M signed pledge, how to structure naming rights without giving away ceiling value, the campaign counting rules that determine what counts toward goal, and the planned-gift integration that lets families say yes in ways they couldn't otherwise.
Educational and informational purposes only. This calculator and any output it produces are intended solely for general educational and decision-support purposes. They do not constitute investment, tax, legal, accounting, or fundraising-counsel advice, and they do not create a fiduciary, attorney-client, accountant-client, or advisor-client relationship of any kind.
Estimates based on your inputs. Gift-pyramid, coverage-ratio, and pacing outputs are estimates derived from the prospect counts, gift sizes, and conversion assumptions you provide. Industry benchmarks shown are illustrative and vary materially by sector (healthcare, higher education, arts, social services), geography, institutional age, prior campaign history, and economic environment. Campaign-counting rules (what counts toward goal, treatment of deferred gifts, government grant inclusion, etc.) vary by institution and by campaign counsel; verify with your campaign counsel before relying on any number.
Consult your own qualified professionals. Before acting on anything calculated here, consult your campaign counsel, fundraising-counsel firm, CPA (for 990 reporting and pledge-receivable treatment), and attorney (for pledge-agreement language, gift-acceptance policy, and naming-rights enforceability). The Baratelli Institute is a publisher of practitioner reference material. It is not a registered investment adviser, fundraising-counsel firm, law firm, or accounting firm.
Co-branded versions: If a professional advisor's name and contact information appear on this tool, that advisor has elected to make the tool available to clients as a courtesy. Inclusion of an advisor's name does not constitute the advisor's endorsement of any specific result, nor does it transfer professional responsibility for the underlying methodology to that advisor. The disclaimer above applies regardless of co-branding.