The threshold for a major gift can vary based on the nonprofit’s size and focus. For a new nonprofit, a major gift may be anything over $1,000, but for a more established organization it may be anything over $10,000. The important thing is to only compare major givers to the same organization’s entire constituent group. Here is how to calculate a major donor baseline:
Run a report of your top ten gifts last year. It is important to pull top ten givers rather than top ten gifts because reporting on gifts would result in overlooking donors who may give more frequently. For example, a monthly gift of $200 would not cause notice if just reporting on large individual gifts. However, this amount would result in that giver contributing an annual gift of $2,400 which could fall into the major donor category depending on the nonprofit.
Exclude outliers like excessively large gifts
Exclude corporations and foundations
Take the sum of the ten gifts and divide it by ten for the average major gift amount
Round up (For example, if your average is $4,300, make it $5,000)