Excel for Fundraisers

Welcome! Excel for Fundraisers is a free, example-oriented resource for helping fundraisers learn to use Excel to make their jobs easier. This site was built and is actively maintained as a service to the community by Gambit Analytics.

How to use this site

The site is divided into two main sections: Excel Basics and How-to Guides. We recommend starting with:

• Excel Basics if you’re unsure what a cell reference is, how to enter a formula, or how to use the fill handle.
• How-to Guides if you need to know how to do a specific thing in Excel.

The How-to Guides are all problem-soution focused. We will walk you through the process using a downloadable example file and a few quick steps, showing you how to solve real-world problems like:

• How do I randomly split a list in half?
• How do I load data in strange formats?
• How do I use a pivot table to summarize campaign data?

All of the examples are built around actual fundraising use cases with example data very similar to what you will see in our industry. You will not have to sit through a 20 minute video while someone in the finance industry goes over a complex spreadsheet just to learn how to use countif().

Don’t forget to search!

We set this site up to be problem-solution oriented, not just another long list of “how to use X Excel feature.” If you just want to know how to use a pivot table for example, you won’t find a “pivot table” tutorial here. But if you search for “pivot table” you’ll find our guide to summarizing campaign data which provides a great overview of pivot tables.

Suggestions welcome!

Find Adam on LinkedIn and let him know what you think. Constructive criticism, typo corrections, and suggestions for additional content are appreciated!