A fundraising calendar provides you with a detailed plan for the year ahead. Instead of reacting or trying to play catch-up, you have an easy-to-reference roadmap for fundraising events, both major and minor, as well as all the work that needs to go into organizing them and connecting with donors.
Here, we’ve provided a free fundraising calendar template to help your organization reach its 2026 goals.
Key Takeaways
- Fundraising calendars can include everything from activities that engage donors to communication plans.
- By establishing key dates months in advance, fundraising calendars ensure you’ll never miss a deadline.
- Fundraising calendars help your organization with strategic planning and improve time management.
What Is a Fundraising Calendar?
Like any calendar, a fundraising calendar is a planning tool nonprofits and charities use to provide a detailed schedule of activities, donor drives, and campaigns they’ll host to raise money throughout the year.
Planning fundraising activities can take longer than expected, and a fundraising calendar allows nonprofits to clearly lay out their specific goals for the year and budget the time needed. Additionally, a fundraising calendar ensures efforts don’t conflict or overlap in order to maximize how much revenue they bring in.
Fundraising calendars can also help you plan:
- Communication plans
- Staff and/or volunteer schedules
- Activities that engage with donors
- Major events
- Fundraising costs and goals
- Important dates and deadlines
What Makes A Great Fundraising Calendar?
While it may not be necessary for every non-profit, many choose to create fundraising calendars that go into granular detail about timelines, deadlines, goals, and the resources that will be required to meet their goals throughout the year.
A great fundraising calendar won’t just include major fundraising events; it will also provide dates for planning meetings, marketing, and donor outreach, and key giving seasons where hosting events or running fundraising drives may be most effective.
There are a few key things to include in your fundraising calendar:
Key Dates & Deadlines
This may seem obvious, but establishing key dates can set a foundation for the rest of your fundraising calendar. That may include major events, like a silent auction, a gala, or a raffle, but also make sure you include dates that aren’t directly tied to your fundraising. That can include:
- Major holidays
- Deadlines for grant applications
- Important dates in your organization’s fiscal year, including deadlines for annual reports
- Days when your office may be closed
- Board meetings
- Specific dates tied to charitable donations, like Giving Tuesday, the global day of giving that happens on the first Tuesday of December every year.
Key Giving Seasons
Anyone who has worked in fundraising knows that donors are often more likely to give at certain times of the year. Identifying those time periods is especially useful as it means you can concentrate your fundraising efforts on them while using slower, quieter times of the year to plan and organize.
Donor Groups & Goals
Your donors are central to your fundraising goals, and when you set goals for the year, they are likely a big part of that process. How will you reach new donors? What efforts will be made to show current donors that their contributions are valued? How will you retain donors who are already helping you reach your fundraising goals?
Those are all important questions to ask and should be factored into your fundraising calendar. Include your strategies throughout the year so they remain front-of-mind and consistent, whether it’s sending notes of appreciation to donors or community outreach days where you can connect with new people interested in supporting the work you do.
Fundraising Activities (Large & Small)
While some organizations rely on a single big event for fundraising, most hold multiple fundraisers throughout the year. They can and should be front-and-center in your fundraising calendar, so you can see how they intersect and how to space them out to avoid donor fatigue.
Include everything, from big charitable runs to monthly recurring raffles. Some of these fundraising activities may overlap, and that’s perfectly OK, but your organization may be better served by spreading out major fundraising initiatives.
Remember, too, that there’s an extensive planning stage required for almost any fundraising event. Be sure to include:
- Dates when planning will occur
- Time for organizing sponsors and booking venues
- When will ticket sales begin and end
Communication Plans
Whether it’s connecting with major donors or informing your audience about your fundraising efforts through social media, marketing, and communication, they are an important part of any fundraising calendar.
Marketing for a fundraising event should begin weeks, if not months, before the event itself, and it can make-or-break your efforts to raise funds for your organization. Ensure that key dates for marketing and communications are clearly established on your fundraising calendar, including:
- Dates for launching marketing campaigns for major events
- Consistent communications to keep donors up-to-date on your organization’s work
- How and when you’ll use social media, direct e-mails, or other methods to communicate
Roles & Responsibilities
Wherever possible, include details about who will be responsible for anything on your fundraising calendar. Whether it’s volunteer recruitment, marketing, acquiring items that will be available in a silent auction, booking a venue for your fundraiser or anything else, someone on your team is going to need to be responsible.
Including clear, concise roles and responsibilities in your fundraising calendar will ensure everything gets done and no one is forced to take on too much.
When to Complete Your Fundraising Calendar
The short answer to this question is the earlier, the better. That might not always be possible, though, and the goal is to provide a roadmap for your year ahead that guides your organization and prevents you from scrambling.
Ideally, you’ll want to create a fundraising calendar before the calendar year or your fiscal year begins. This way, when the new year starts, you’ll be organized and won’t be playing catch-up when things get busy.
How to Build Your 2026 Fundraising Calendar
We’ve included a template for your 2026 Fundraising Calendar that has everything you’ll need to get started. Once you’ve downloaded it, you can begin.
Meeting with your team and identifying as many key dates as possible is a great starting point. Include people from different departments, such as marketing, to ensure you have as detailed a fundraising calendar as possible.
Cheers to a Great Year of Fundraising Ahead!
Having a fundraising calendar ready for the start of 2026 will help your organization stay clear in its goals and ready to tackle the challenges of the year ahead.
Looking for an engaging and fuss-free way to meet your fundraising goals? We can help. Online silent auctions get donors excited, can be run alone or in conjunction with other fundraising activities, and are easy to organize.
Learn how to add a silent auction to your fundraising plan today.
FAQ
How does a fundraising calendar work?
Like any calendar, fundraising calendars provide key dates, deadlines, and important reminders throughout the year. Your organization can add as much information as it wants to help everyone stay on track throughout the year.
How much information should be included in a fundraising calendar?
A fundraising calendar should include the amount of information most helpful to your team. That might be incredibly detailed, or it might only include key dates.
