The revenue pipeline is the ensemble of all future revenue opportunities that are currently being pursued at Tides Canada Foundation and tracked as opportunities in Salesforce.  The donations pipeline is tool that allows us to forecast future revenue, make strategic decisions, and drive activity that will sustain and grow our revenue stream.

To maintain an accurate and effective donations pipeline, specific opportunity fields and key related records must be kept updated to reflect the latest information and interactions with a donor. These are described in detail in the following section.

Each Opportunity Lead is responsible for keeping their own pipeline of opportunities up to date on an ongoing basis.

The Senior TCF Coordinator will undertake a quarterly process in consultation with Opportunity Leads and Development Leads to ensure the ongoing accuracy of the pipeline by:

• Reviewing and updating all open opportunities to ensure they are accurate
• Identifying and entering renewals of opportunities received in the previous quarter

b)  Close Date, Amount, Probability 

Observe the following guidelines in setting these fields and keeping them up to date:

• Close Date: The date the gift will foreseeably be received. This should be set and updated based on information about proposal deadlines, board meetings, or indications of a donor’s plans.  Without better information, observe the following guidelines to determine the Close Date:
  • For renewals, 12 months from when the previous gift was received.
  • For new business, typically 18 months from when the prospect is first identified.
• Amount: The maximum amount that we expect to ask for or to receive. Without better information, observe the following guidelines to determine the Close Date:
  • For renewals, typically the amount of the previous gift plus an incremental increase.
  • For new business, set to $1 initially as a placeholder, then to the amount determined based on the strategy for the prospect.
• Probability: Represents the estimated likelihood that the donation will be won. This is used calculate expected revenue for each donation and to create revenue forecasts for the overall pipeline. Probability defaults to the default percentage for any given donation stage. However, the Opportunity Lead may also assign a custom probability to a donation based on individual factors.