Donor pyramids

What a donor pyramid shows

A donor pyramid takes everyone who gave in one period — a fiscal year, a calendar year, or the last 12 months — and puts each of them in exactly one tier, such as Major & planned, Mid-level or Annual. For each tier you see how many donors it holds and how much they gave, as counts and as shares of the whole.

It also compares the period with the one just before it. Every donor from either period lands in one of six movement groups: moved up a tier, stayed in their tier, moved down a tier, new, reactivated (back after skipping the period before) or lapsed. That's where retention and upgrade conversations start.

When to use it

• Annual planning and board reports. See where revenue really comes from: often a few dozen major donors give as much as thousands of annual donors.
• Retention. See how many of last year's donors gave again, and pull the list of those who didn't.
• Moves and upgrades. See who moved up or down a tier, then work those lists in your CRM.
• Consistent bands. When your team already agrees on dollar bands (say, mid-level starts at $1,000), a donor pyramid applies them exactly.

If your dollar bands feel arbitrary, or you want to know who already gives like the next tier up, try a True Pyramid, which learns its tiers from your data. Planning a campaign? That's a Gift pyramid. See which pyramid answers which question.

Creating a donor pyramid

Choose New pyramid on your Pyramids page, pick Donor pyramid and choose Continue with Donor pyramid. You can also start from an upload's page with Build a donor pyramid from it, which picks that file for you.

Name and gifts

The setup page, Where every donor sits today, asks for two things:

Name

Required, up to 200 characters. It starts as “Donor pyramid”; something like “FY2026 donors” helps your team find it on the dashboard.

Gifts

Every gift file your organization has finished importing, newest first, with its number of gifts and import date. The newest is picked for you. Choose Upload a new file to bring in a new CSV, Excel or ZIP file — or to connect your CRM, which the upload page also offers. Asks files and uploads still being read or reviewed aren't listed.

Choose Continue. With a file picked, the pyramid opens and starts building. With Upload a new file, you go to the upload page (it says “Building a Donor pyramid”), and the pyramid starts filling in as soon as the file is imported. Until then the pyramid page tells you whether the file is being read, waiting for your review, being imported or not usable, with a button to Review it or See it. See Uploading gift files and Connecting your CRM.

Note: There's nothing else to set on this page. A new donor pyramid starts with your organization's saved tiers (the standard five until someone saves their own), the fiscal year start month of your most recent donor pyramid (July if it's your first), and the period its first build picks. You change all of these on the pyramid page.

What happens next

The first build reads your gifts, settles the period (see the period we pick first), places every donor and compares them with the period before. The page fills in live — see Live build. When it's done you'll see Your donor pyramid is ready, with how many transactions it was built from and when.

Tiers and how each donor is placed

Each donor is placed in exactly one tier for the period. The tiers are checked from the top down and a donor lands in the first tier they match. A tier matches on two things: a dollar range for the money the donor gave in the period, and a rule about who's in it (anyone, recurring donors, repeat donors or first-time donors). A tier can also take in anyone with a planned gift, whatever they gave.

The default tiers

Every new donor pyramid starts with these five tiers, top to bottom, unless your organization has saved its own (see Use these tiers for future donor pyramids):

The dollar amounts are what each donor gave in the period, added up. “Up to $999” holds anything under $1,000, so a donor who gave $999.50 is still in the range and there's never a gap for totals with cents.

With these five tiers every donor fits somewhere: $10,000 or more (or any planned gift) is Major & planned; $1,000 to just under $10,000 is Mid-level; under $1,000, a recurring donor is Recurring, someone who gave before the period is Annual, and everyone else — whose first gift ever falls in the period — is First-time.

First match wins

Because the tiers are checked top to bottom, order matters:

• A recurring donor who gave $1,200 this period is Mid-level, not Recurring — Mid-level is checked first.
• A first-time donor who gave $15,000 is Major & planned.
• A new recurring donor giving $25 a month is Recurring, not First-time — Recurring is checked before First-time.
• The Annual tier's rule (“Repeat one-time donors in range”) checks only that the donor gave before the period started. It's the Recurring tier above it that keeps recurring donors out of Annual. If you remove or move the Recurring tier, repeat recurring donors land in Annual.

Which gifts count

Every gift in your file is matched to one of six types when it's imported (see matching gift types). A donor pyramid treats them like this:

Negative amounts, such as refunds, are subtracted from the donor's revenue for the period but don't count as gifts. Someone whose refunds cancel out everything they gave in the period, with no planned gift, isn't a donor of that period.

A file with no money received and no planned gifts at all shows No gifts to place. and explains that open pledges don't count.

Planned gifts

The Major & planned tier has Also include anyone with a planned gift turned on. A donor matches it if they gave in the period and have any planned gift on record dated on or before the period's last day — even one recorded years earlier. The planned gift's amount is never counted as revenue.

Donors who don't fit any tier

With your own tiers there can be gaps — say a tier for $5,000 and up and another for up to $499, with nothing for $500 to $4,999. Donors who gave in the period but match no tier are still counted in the Donors and Revenue totals. A notice under the tier table says how many there are and how much they gave, with View records to list them; their tier shows as “No tier”. Choose Edit tiers to close the gap.

Periods

Once a pyramid is built, the bar under Your donor pyramid is ready has a Period menu, and for fiscal years a Fiscal year starts in menu. Changing either one saves it and rebuilds the pyramid straight away. Both menus are hidden while a build is running.

Choosing a period

The Period menu lists, in this order:

• Fiscal years, latest first, from the one your latest gift falls in back to the one your earliest gift falls in — for example “Fiscal year 2026 · Jul 1, 2025 – Jun 30, 2026”. A fiscal year is named for the calendar year it ends in.
• Last 12 months — the 12 months ending on the latest gift in your file, for example “Last 12 months · Oct 25, 2025 – Oct 24, 2026”.
• Calendar years, latest first, January 1 to December 31.

Movement always compares the period with the one of the same length just before it: the fiscal or calendar year before, or the 12 months before the last 12 months.

Careful: The menu also lists years your file only partly covers — the fiscal year that's still under way, and the year your data starts in. Picking one shows only the gifts your file has for it, with no warning, so a half-finished year looks smaller than it is.

When your fiscal year starts

Set Fiscal year starts in to the first month of your fiscal year. It starts as July (July 1 to June 30, the most common fiscal year for US nonprofits) or, if your organization already has donor pyramids, as the month your most recent one uses. Choose January to make fiscal years match calendar years. The menu only appears when a fiscal year is picked.

The period we pick first

The first build picks your latest full fiscal year: the most recent fiscal year that has ended by the latest gift in your file and that your data reaches back to the start of. Data that starts within a month of the year's first day still counts, because the first gift of a year often comes a few days in. If your file doesn't hold a full fiscal year, the first build picks the last 12 months instead.

After that, the period stays as it is until you change it. A refresh or sync that brings in newer gifts doesn't move a fiscal or calendar year forward — but the last 12 months always end on the latest gift in the file, so that window moves with new data.

Reading the page

Donors, revenue, retention and top 20%

Four numbers sit above the tiers:

Donors

Everyone who gave in the period: money received, or a planned gift dated in it. Includes donors who fit no tier.

Revenue

All money received in the period, net of refunds. Planned gifts and open pledges aren't included.

Donor retention

The share of the period before's donors who gave again in this period. See Donor retention. Shown only when movement can be counted.

Top 20% of donors gave

The share of revenue that came from the fifth of your donors who gave the most this period, rounded to a whole percent — for example “75% of revenue”.

The tier table

The drawn pyramid shows your tiers top to bottom, darkest at the top. Every band is drawn the same height, so the drawing shows the order of the tiers, not their size; the table beside it has the numbers.

Tier

The tier's name, a short description of who's in it (such as “$1,000 – $9,999 this period”) and, once the pyramid is built, View records for tiers with donors in them.

Donors

How many donors the tier holds this period.

Of donors

That count as a share of all the period's donors, to one decimal place.

Revenue

Money the tier's donors gave in the period, in whole dollars.

Of revenue

That revenue as a share of the period's revenue, with a bar to compare tiers at a glance.

Shares are of everyone who gave in the period, including donors who fit no tier, so the tiers' shares only add up to 100% when every donor is placed.

Movement between periods

The Movement since … card compares this period with the one just before it — for example Movement since fiscal year 2025. Both periods are placed with the same tiers, so a donor's movement is a fair comparison. Each group has View records when it has anyone in it; open one, then export the IDs to match back in your CRM.

The six groups

Under the groups, a sentence ties them together, for example: “940 donors gave in fiscal year 2025. 610 of them gave again (64.9% retained); 330 did not. Of the 1,000 donors in fiscal year 2026, 610 gave again, 290 are new and 100 are reactivated (back after skipping fiscal year 2025).” The arithmetic always works out:

• Moved up + stayed + moved down = donors who gave again (retained).
• Retained + lapsed = the period before's donors.
• Retained + new + reactivated = this period's donors.

Note: “New” means new to your file. If your file starts only shortly before the period before, someone who gave years ago — before your file begins — counts as new.

What counts as up or down

Up and down follow the order of your tiers, top to bottom, not dollars alone. With the default tiers that has a few consequences worth knowing:

• A donor who was First-time last year and gives the same $100 again this year is now Annual — one tier higher — so they count as moved up.
• An annual donor who starts giving monthly moves from Annual up to Recurring; a recurring donor who stops and gives one $200 gift moves down to Annual.
• A donor who fit no tier is ranked below your lowest tier, so moving from “No tier” into any tier is up, and the reverse is down.

Donor retention

Donor retention = donors who gave in both periods ÷ donors who gave in the period before, to one decimal place. While a build is running it shows “Calculating…”. It's hidden when movement can't be counted.

When movement is skipped

Movement needs gifts from the whole of the period before. If your file's earliest gift is more than a month after that period starts, we skip movement: the card says “Movement needs gifts from all of fiscal year 2025 (Jul 1, 2024 – Jun 30, 2025). Your file's gifts start on …, so we skipped it,” and the Donor retention number is hidden. The build stage “Comparing with the period before” shows “Skipped: your data doesn't reach back that far.” Upload more history, or pick a later period, to see movement.

Note: The History tab's Compare two snapshots works from saved snapshots rather than your whole file, so its new and reactivated groups are judged against earlier snapshots. Its numbers can differ from this card's.

Worked example: a small arts center

A made-up arts center's fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30. Its gift file covers five fiscal years, up to a last gift on Jun 30, 2026, so the first build picks Fiscal year 2026 · Jul 1, 2025 – Jun 30, 2026 and compares it with fiscal year 2025.

The tiers

The shares are each tier's count or revenue divided by the total: Major & planned's $186,000 ÷ $515,580 = 36.1% of revenue from 12 ÷ 1,000 = 1.2% of donors. The top two tiers — 7.6% of donors — gave 63.7% of the money. If the 200 largest donors (20% of 1,000) gave $386,700 between them, the page shows Top 20% of donors gave 75% of revenue ($386,700 ÷ $515,580 = 75.0%, rounded to a whole percent).

Movement, donor by donor

C1042 gave $800 last year — under $1,000, and they'd given before, so Annual — and $1,500 this year, which is in Mid-level's $1,000–$9,999 range. Mid-level sits above Annual, so C1042 is in Moved up a tier, and View records shows their tier as “Mid-level (was Annual)”. C0099 is Major & planned both years because of the bequest intention, though each year adds only $500 to revenue.

Across the whole file the card reads: Moved up 95, Stayed 440, Moved down 75, New donors 290, Reactivated 100, Lapsed 330. That's 610 retained; 610 + 330 = 940 donors in fiscal year 2025; 610 + 290 + 100 = 1,000 donors in fiscal year 2026; and retention of 610 ÷ 940 = 64.9%. There are 290 new donors but only 254 in the First-time tier: the other 36 new donors are recurring donors or gave $1,000 or more, so they matched a higher tier first.

Edit tiers

Choose Edit tiers at the top of the pyramid to open the side panel. Donors land in the first tier they match, top to bottom. You can have 2 to 7 tiers. Edit tiers is unavailable while the pyramid is building.

Each tier's settings

Tier name

Required, up to 100 characters. This is the name on the page, in View records and in exports.

Who's in it

• Gave in this range — anyone whose giving in the period is in the range.
• Recurring donors in range — in the range, with at least one recurring gift in the period.
• Repeat one-time donors in range — in the range, and gave at any time before the period started.
• First-time donors in range — in the range, and their first gift ever in your file falls in the period.

From $ and Up to $

Whole dollars of money received in the period. “From” is included; “Up to” covers everything below the next whole dollar, so “Up to $999” holds $999.99. Leave Up to $ blank for no limit (it shows “No limit”); a blank From $ means $0. You can type commas or a dollar sign.

Also include anyone with a planned gift

When ticked, any donor of the period with a planned gift on record by the period's end matches this tier, whatever they gave and whatever its rule. See Planned gifts.

Adding and removing tiers

Add tier adds a row at the bottom, starting as “New tier”, Gave in this range, $250 up to $999. Remove tier takes a row out. You can't go below 2 tiers or above 7; the buttons stop working at those limits.

There's no way to drag tiers into a different order. To put a new tier in the middle, add a row at the bottom and then retype the rows below the new tier's place so each row holds the tier that belongs there.

The estimated preview

Each row shows About N donors: how many of this period's donors the tier would hold if you saved now. It updates as you type, using the same placement rules on the donors already placed this period. If some donors would fit no tier, the panel says “About N donors wouldn't fit any tier.” Movement isn't estimated — it's worked out again when you save. Estimates show “—” until the pyramid has finished building at least once.

Save and rebuild

Save and rebuild saves the tiers and rebuilds the whole pyramid: both periods are placed again with the new tiers and movement is counted again. The page starts filling in from zero, live. Cancel closes the panel without saving.

Before saving, the panel checks that every tier has a name and that no “Up to” is less than its “From”. If the tiers still can't be saved — fewer than 2, more than 7, a missing name, “Up to” less than “From”, or a negative amount — nothing changes, the page shows The tiers weren't saved: with each problem, and the panel opens again with what you typed.

Use these tiers for future donor pyramids

Tick Use these tiers for future donor pyramids before saving to make these tiers your organization's starting tiers. Every donor pyramid anyone on your team creates after that starts with them. Existing donor pyramids keep their own tiers. The box starts unticked each time you open the panel, and saving with it ticked replaces whatever was saved before.

There's no button to go back to the standard five. To return to them, type them in (the default tiers table has every value) and save with the box ticked.

Live build

A donor pyramid builds on our servers and fills in on the page as it goes. You'll see Building your donor pyramid, a percentage, a progress bar and four stages:

1. Reading and sorting transactions — “N of M transactions”.
2. Placing donors in tiers — “N of M donors placed”.
3. Comparing with the period before — “N of M donors from fiscal year 2025 matched”, or “Skipped: your data doesn't reach back that far”.
4. Final checks — “Checking totals…”.

Gifts are read in constituent order, and each donor is placed once all their gifts are read and never moves after that, so counts and dollars only go up while the tag Still counting shows. Percentages can shift as more donors arrive. The pyramid's bands fade in as the build goes.

You can leave the page; building keeps going. If you leave before a build you started finishes, we email you a link when it's ready (rebuilds after a scheduled sync or Sync now don't send email). While building, Edit tiers, Export CSV and the period menus aren't available.

Anything that changes who lands where starts a new build: saving tiers, changing the period or fiscal year start, a CRM refresh or sync, or matching a new gift type from your CRM. If a new build is asked for while one is running, the newer one wins.

Minimum data and hidden sections

We never refuse to build for lack of data. Instead we warn you and leave out what can't be worked out:

• No file yet — an Upload your transactions card with an Upload transactions button. Your tiers are listed with “—” until there's data.
• No money received or planned gifts in the file — No gifts to place.
• Less than a full fiscal year — the first build picks the last 12 months.
• Not enough history for the period before — movement is skipped and Donor retention is hidden. See When movement is skipped. Two or more full years of gifts show movement.
• Donors who fit no tier — a notice under the table, with View records.

View records

View records opens a side panel listing the constituents behind any tier, the “not in any tier” group or any movement group: constituent ID, total given in the period, number of gifts, first and last gift, and tier — “Mid-level (was Annual)” for donors who moved up or down. You can open any row to see that donor's gifts, add columns kept from your file (such as fund), search by constituent ID, filter, sort and export the list as CSV. Lapsed donors are shown with their totals and tier from the period before.

Everything about the panel is explained in Viewing records, including exactly what each column counts.

Exporting

Export CSV at the top of the pyramid downloads the tier table for the period shown, named after the pyramid and period (for example “FY2026 donors - Fiscal year 2026.csv”). Its columns are:

Tier,Who's in it,Donors,% of donors,Revenue,% of revenue

There's one row per tier, a “Not in any tier” row when some donors fit no tier, and a Total row with the period's name. Revenue is a plain number with two decimals (515580.00); shares have one decimal (36.1%). The button is unavailable until the pyramid is built and while it's building. To export the constituents in a tier or movement group, use Export CSV in View records.

Refreshing from your CRM

When the pyramid's gifts were pulled from a connected CRM, a Refresh from button (for example Refresh from Bloomerang) sits at the top of the page. It pulls your gifts again and then rebuilds every pyramid built from that pull. While it runs, the page shows Refreshing from … and the pyramid keeps its current numbers until the new gifts are in. If the CRM has signed TruePyramids out, the button reads Reconnect … to refresh. See Refreshing from your CRM; with Plus, scheduled sync does it nightly or weekly.

After a pull, a summary card shows how many gifts were read and skipped, with Download skipped IDs. If the CRM sends a gift type it hasn't sent before, a notice asks you to match it; until you do, those gifts aren't counted.

History Plus

Each donor pyramid has Pyramid and History tabs. With Plus, we save a snapshot of the pyramid every month and after each CRM sync; the History tab charts each tier over time and compares any two snapshots — who moved up, moved down, stayed or lapsed — with View records for each group. On the Free plan the tab carries a Plus tag; an organization whose Plus has ended keeps the tab for the history it already has. See Pyramid history and Plus.

Advanced: exact rules

For database managers and analysts who want to reproduce the numbers.

What's worked out for each donor

For each constituent and each of the two periods (both ends of a period are included):

• Received = the sum of every one-time, recurring, pledge payment and in-kind amount dated in the period, including negative (refund) rows.
• Gifts = rows of those types, plus planned gifts, dated in the period with an amount above zero.
• Gave = Received is above zero, or a planned gift with an amount above zero is dated in the period.
• Recurring = at least one recurring gift above zero in the period.
• Gave before = the first gift ever in the file (any counted type, including planned, above zero) is dated before the period's first day.
• Has planned = the first planned gift above zero is dated on or before the period's last day.

Pledges and gifts whose type was never matched are ignored entirely. Constituent IDs that differ only in letter case (C-5 and c-5) are the same donor.

Dollar ranges

A tier with From a and Up to b holds Received ≥ a and Received < b + 1. With no Up to, there's no upper limit. Amounts typed in Edit tiers are rounded to whole dollars.

Placement

A donor matches a tier when the tier includes planned gifts and they have one on record, or Received is in the tier's range and the rule holds: Recurring needs Recurring; Repeat needs Gave before; First needs not Gave before; Gave in this range needs nothing more. The donor's tier is the first match from the top. Only donors who Gave are placed; a donor who Gave but matches nothing is counted with no tier.

Movement

Movement is counted only when the file's earliest counted gift is no later than one month after the period before starts. The period before is placed with the same tiers, using that period's own facts. Then, for each constituent who gave in either period:

• Gave in the period before but not now → Lapsed.
• Gave now but not in the period before → Reactivated if their first gift ever is before this period started, otherwise New.
• Gave in both → compare tier positions, counting “no tier” as one position below the lowest tier: a higher tier now is Up, the same is Stayed, lower is Down.

Donor retention = (Up + Stayed + Down) ÷ (Up + Stayed + Down + Lapsed).

Period dates

• Fiscal year N starting in month M: the first of month M in year N − 1 to the day before the first of month M in year N. With M = January, it's calendar year N.
• Calendar year N: Jan 1 – Dec 31.
• Last 12 months: the day after one year before the latest gift, through the latest gift. The period before is the 12 months ending one year before the latest gift.
• “The latest gift” and “the earliest gift” are the latest and earliest counted gifts in the file (money received or planned, above zero).
• The default period is the fiscal year the latest gift falls in, or the one before it if that year ends after the latest gift; if the earliest gift is more than a month after that year's start, the last 12 months.

Percentages and rounding

• Of donors, Of revenue and retention: one decimal place. Shares are of all the period's donors and revenue, including donors in no tier.
• Top 20% of donors gave: the number of top donors is 20% of the period's donors, rounded up (so at least one); their share is the sum of the largest Received totals ÷ revenue, shown as a whole percent. With ten donors who gave $5,000, $3,000, $1,000, $500, $200, $100, $100, $50, $25 and $25, the top two gave $8,000 of $10,000: 80%.
• Dollar amounts on the page are whole dollars; CSV exports have two decimals.

How a build runs

A build reads every gift in the file sorted by constituent and date, works out each constituent's facts for both periods, places them and saves the results in batches, telling the open page as it goes. Reading, placing and comparing make up the first 95% of the progress bar; final checks the rest. Only the latest build's results are kept. A build that's replaced by a newer one stops early.

Questions

Why does my pyramid show last fiscal year instead of the one that just ended?

Because your file's latest gift is before that year's last day, so the year isn't over in your data. Pick the year yourself from the Period menu. See The period we pick first.

Why is a donor who gave the same amount both years counted as moved up?

Most likely they were First-time last year and are Annual this year. Annual sits above First-time, so that's a move up. See What counts as up or down.

Why is a $50 donor in Major & planned?

They have a planned gift on record. The Major & planned tier includes anyone with a planned gift, whatever they gave this period. Untick Also include anyone with a planned gift in Edit tiers if you'd rather place them by giving alone.

Why don't pledges count?

A donor pyramid counts money received. An open pledge is a promise; its pledge payments count as they arrive. The same donor who pledged $25,000 and paid $5,000 this year counts $5,000.

Why don't I see movement?

Your file doesn't reach back to the start of the period before (give or take a month), so we skipped it rather than show misleading numbers. The card says which dates are needed. Upload more history or pick a later period.

Can I change the tier boundaries or names?

Yes. Choose Edit tiers, change any name, rule or amount, add or remove tiers (2 to 7), then Save and rebuild. Anyone in your organization can do this. See Edit tiers.

Do my tier changes affect other donor pyramids?

No. Each donor pyramid has its own tiers. Ticking Use these tiers for future donor pyramids only changes the tiers new donor pyramids start with.

How do I go back to the standard five tiers?

Type them back in from the default tiers table and save. Tick Use these tiers for future donor pyramids too if your organization had saved different ones.

Are the counts in Edit tiers exact?

They're labeled estimates, but they're worked out with the same rules from this period's donors, so they show what the tier table will hold after you save. Movement isn't previewed; it's counted when the pyramid rebuilds.

Does a CRM refresh change the period?

Not a fiscal or calendar year: it stays until you pick another. The last 12 months always end on the newest gift, so that window moves forward with new gifts.

What do “Still counting” and “Calculating…” mean?

The pyramid is still building. Counts only go up from here; percentages may still shift. Both disappear when the build finishes.

What if the build doesn't finish?

You'll see Building the donor pyramid didn't finish. with the reason. Choose Try again. If it keeps failing, upload the file again or email us.

Can I rename a donor pyramid or point it at a different file?

Not from the pyramid page. Create a new donor pyramid with the name and file you want. You can then delete the old one in Settings › Data if you created it; the owner can delete any pyramid.

What happens to the pyramid if I delete its upload?

It's deleted too, along with its tiers and results. This can't be undone. See Deleting uploads and pyramids.

Can I see donors' names?

No. We never store names, emails, phone numbers or addresses, so View records lists constituent IDs. Look the IDs up in your CRM — see Looking people up in your CRM.

What's the “How did building this pyramid go?” card?

A one-tap star rating, shown once your pyramid is built. Show my rating anonymously on the TruePyramids home page is ticked unless you untick it; the card shows exactly what the home page would say, such as “A user just created a Donor Pyramid with about 2,500 records”. Under five stars, you can tell us what would have made it five; that goes only to us. Not now hides the card.