How the forecast reads pace
What On pace, Behind, and Ahead mean, and why a single quiet month does not, on its own, mean the year is behind.
The forecast tells you where the year stands against goal, and whether you are on track for the time left. The pace read is the honest part: it accounts for the fact that giving is lumpy and back-loaded, so a normal slow stretch does not register as behind.
What the numbers mean
- Raised is money already in and booked.
- Expected adds the gifts you can reasonably project from proposals and pledges in flight.
- If every ask lands adds the outstanding asks on top, the optimistic ceiling.
- The gap is your forecast minus your goal, so you can see where to push.
Why pace is not just time elapsed
A naive read would say you are halfway through the year, so you should be halfway to goal. Real giving does not work that way: year-end and event months carry far more than a quiet summer. The pace read weighs where you are against how your giving actually falls across a year, drawing on your own recent history, so a normal slow patch reads as on pace, not behind.
One big gift changes everything
For a small shop, a single major gift can swing the whole picture. That is why the forecast keeps projected and confirmed money in separate lines: so one large ask still in flight does not read as though it has already landed, and one that lands does not hide the work still to do.