For about two decades, many principal and major gift (PMG) teams have employed the general industry guideline of 150 as the maximum number of prospects for a major giving portfolio. As explored in the first part of this series, “Debunking Dunbar: Part 1,” this benchmark portfolio size does not come from an assessment of real-world portfolio management experiences, and is probably too high for most gift officers and teams. That said, there is no “one size fits all” portfolio size guideline. Rather, it’s best to consider several factors and determine guidelines that work for your unique program. Here, we’ll explore factors to consider in determining the ideal portfolio size for your organization’s gift officers.

While the 150 benchmark has had enduring staying power, industry experts have long questioned its validity and continue to explore alternative approaches. A prominent example of this is David Lively’s work at Northwestern University, which reduced the number of assigned donors to each gift officer to just the prospects a gift officer planned to solicit in the next 36 months. As Lively articulated in this 2023 podcast, the intent was to maximize the productivity of the PMG team’s overall portfolio, as opposed to maximizing the value of any one gift officer’s portfolio.

Say a gift officer makes an average of 12 major gift solicitations per year. This means in the next 36 months, they can expect to make around 36 solicitations. If the gift officer’s portfolio is larger than about 36 assigned prospects, any additional prospects would likely be sitting unengaged and unsolicited, even though they are assigned and known to be excellent prospects. Therefore, a larger portfolio is not maximizing its value — and in some cases, it may mean that some of your best prospects are neglected. Portfolio assignment generally removes a prospect from the annual giving pool, so they may not be getting any contact from your development department at all.

In order to prioritize the collective portfolio, as Lively puts it, any donors that a gift officer does not have plans to solicit in the next three years should be removed from the portfolio so that another gift officer could have the opportunity to properly engage them. Let’s assume the timeframe of three years because this is the average length of time between solicitations of an individual donor. With this framing, a logical and straightforward formula for portfolio size could be the following:

[Average number of annual solicitations for a major gift officer at your organization] x [The average time, in years, between solicitations for the same donor] = Portfolio size

A narrative example of this formula: You conduct some analysis on historical giving and solicitations at your organization. You find that on average, your gift officers ask for 15 major gifts a year. You exclude outliers for special principal level gifts, and see that most major donors are solicited every 3-5 years, averaging out to every four years. With this information, we can utilize the formula above like so:

15 (annual solicitations) x 4 (years between solicitations) = 60 assigned PMG donors per portfolio as a proposed benchmark.

For many organizations, particularly those related to higher education, a formula like this is an excellent place to start. It is a worthwhile exercise to do this calculation with your organization’s historical giving information to see what you get. If the number is notably smaller than the average portfolio size on your team, that may be an indicator some assigned donors may be stagnating.

This may not be the right framing for all major gift teams, though. For example, many cause-based organizations solicit their major donors much more frequently — even annually — and using the formula above could result in portfolios that are too large to leave time for gift officers to engage in qualification work of new major donor prospects. This could lead to year over year decline in major giving, as some existing major donors inevitably aren’t retained. Or, say, gift officers at your organization share that the solicitation volume and pace they have achieved in years past feels unsustainable, which means basing portfolio sizes on historical actuals would perpetuate a culture of unrealistic expectations.

Portfolio size can also be a challenging subject because of internal team dynamics and politics. Many team members will have a stake in the conversation, including prospect development professionals, gift officers, frontline and organizational leadership and sometimes even members of the finance department. That’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen, which can always complicate a process. While you may not be able to fully control the outcome, as a prospect development professional, you can come to the conversation with industry context, relevant internal data and a clear goal that can provide a level set for those at the table and hopefully curb any excessive expectations.

When determining an appropriate portfolio target, the goal should be to make sure your gift officer’s portfolios are sized to allow them to:

• Comfortably engage with and solicit everyone assigned to them within your organization’s solicitation cycle.
• Conduct qualification work with new prospects to feed the PMG donor pipeline (if that is part of your organization’s PMG structure).
• Have time for professional development and any other job duties.

With that in mind, here are some additional factors and variables worth considering as you are developing portfolio size guidelines for your organization:

• Annual solicitation rate: Many industry guidelines for PMG portfolios are based on soliciting donors once every 3-5 years. Does your organization rely on more frequent solicitations? If so, your portfolios probably need to be smaller.
• Portfolio geography: If a portfolio is geographically diverse and requires frequent travel, each donor relationship — and therefore each solicitation — will require more time and effort. If a gift officer’s portfolio is more weighted towards donors who prefer virtual solicitations, more donors may be possible.
• Additional job duties of gift officers: If gift officers at your organization have any job duties beyond donor engagement, such as event management or staff supervision, calculate what percentage of their role can actually be devoted to working with their portfolios, and reduce portfolio size accordingly.
• Portfolio maturity and donor capacity: As portfolios mature and asks become bigger, portfolios should be reduced in size to allow for more strategic engagement with principal level donors. This means gift officers managing your organization’s largest donors should have smaller portfolios. It may be valuable to create tiers of target portfolio sizes based on the average ask amount of a portfolio, where the targets are smaller as the average ask goes up.
• Experiences of your organization’s gift officers: Speak with gift officers frequently about their workload and experience with the size of their portfolios. Listen to what is working and not working with their portfolio sizes, share this with leadership, and recommend adjustments based on their feedback.

As you determine a target, your goal should be to strategically consider the unique qualities of your organization and how they impact the time and effort required for meaningful donor engagement. A good way to get started is to make an educated hypothesis based on the information you have access to, and then set some parameters to test adjustments to portfolio size. Portfolio size targets need not be set in stone — they serve as guidelines and can be revisited and adjusted at regular intervals or as needed. Remember, there is no one perfect number and every organization’s needs will be different, so thoughtfully considering the above factors will inform a strategic, data-supported approach that will set your program up for success.

Juliet Carpenter
Director of Prospect Management and Strategy, Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Juliet Carpenter is a prospect development professional with over 15 years of experience in non-profit fundraising. She began her development career as an Americorps VISTA member in Kansas City, and has contributed to organizations that support food access, the arts, higher education, the environment and reproductive healthcare through her work. She currently serves as the director of prospect management and strategy for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.