Development + Fundraising (read time: 14 min)
What types of jobs exist in fundraising?
How roles vary based on organizational context
Across all four - distinctions between small and large organizations
Fundraising by the numbers (pay and hours)
How to get a job in fundraising
Exit opportunities
Next three steps
Fundraising (often called Development or Advancement at nonprofits) is a key department in any nonprofit institution. Whatever cause you care about, it almost always requires fundraising to pay staff and get stuff done. While asking for money might seem overwhelming, it is one of the best ways to understand how organizations operate and is a critical skill if you hope to run an organization yourself one day. On the spectrum of nonprofit jobs, fundraising can be on the higher end of the pay scale, with a quick learning curve. The work is engaging, and involves lots of interacting with other people who are passionate about your organization’s mission.
Though most careers in development have similarities, your experience will vary depending on where you work and the role you take within that organization. To help you get a better picture of the opportunities available in the field, this guide will take you through what types of positions exist and the different types of organizations you may work at. The guide will conclude with best practices for getting a job in fundraising, and of course, the next three steps to take if you want to move forward with fundraising!
This guide was written by Phil Dearing and Rachel Angle (SDIF '20) in partnership with the Second Day team.
Many thanks to experts in the field who supported this work:
Maya Buky Dabby, Director of Development, The Bridgespan Group
Claire Curran, Development Associate, Boston Museum of Science
Kevin Sullivan, Director of Advancement, Nativity Prep
Ben Weiss, Grant Writer, CAMBA, Inc
What types of jobs exist in fundraising?
Fundraising teams commonly have four functions: (1) writing grants, (2) soliciting individual donations, (3) hosting events, and (4) organizing communications. Fundraising teams can range from one person to hundreds of people and the bigger the team, the more specialized your role will be. For smaller organizations, it is much more often an ‘all hands on deck’ atmosphere where you will be expected to help out with a lot of different things and have the opportunity to take on a lot of responsibility very quickly. For larger organizations, there is usually a standardized job description and training apparatus, with a clear ladder of promotion opportunities and performance expectations.
GRANT WRITING
Nonprofits are generally expected to write custom applications each year for almost every foundation and government agency that they receive (or want to receive) funding from. These grants give context on who the organization is, its impact, and make a request for funding for the organization to further its mission. This funding practice provides an opportunity for those who love writing and positioning the mission of a nonprofit to fit best with the widely variable missions of funders. At larger organizations and social service organizations that rely heavily on government grants, there will sometimes be positions or teams just focused on writing dozens of grants per year. For smaller organizations, grant-writing may be just one part of your role. This position requires polished writing, research on funders, pulling impact reports on specific programs, and ensuring that all of your projected financials and funding requests line up appropriately. If you love writing but don’t want to be out talking to people, this can be a great opportunity to propel the mission of something you care about with your pen. There are also opportunities to be a contract or part-time grant-writer with many organizations that don’t have the funds to hire someone full-time.
INDIVIDUAL GIVING
Any jobs in fundraising will fall into the category of Individual Giving, which means raising money from...individuals. What this looks like varies widely depending on the funding model of the organization you work for (here are 10 examples of nonprofit funding models). Some organizations like the Red Cross or Make-a-Wish Foundations get millions of small-dollar donors, and so your role would be focused on keeping track of and engaging these donors. These departments are often called Annual Giving because they track who donates on a year-to-year basis. Universities and cultural institutions often have large annual giving campaigns. Large donors that give to these campaigns are often treated with extra care through a Major Gifts department. A major gift is classified differently depending on the organization but typically means $100K to $10M. Major gifts teams focus on building relationships with very wealthy donors and working to develop options for how a large donation to your organization would line up with their personal interests (e.g., naming a building or scholarship fund after them). Because these donations take a long time to develop, creative and long-lasting relationship building is critical here.
Typically, the Director of Development or CEO is the one building relationships with major donors, so your role as an entry-level Development Associate is usually behind the scenes. Sometimes that involves database management or data analysis, sometimes it involves researching potential donors or writing thank you cards, other times you are preparing memos or brainstorming positioning to get a donor to give. At smaller organizations or grassroots fundraisers, you may get the chance to engage directly with donors more and this certainly changes as time goes on and you move up through the ranks.
EVENT PLANNING
Most nonprofits have at least one big annual gala or fundraising event per year. For fairly large organizations or those that organize a lot of events, there may be a role or a team focused on organizing events. Other times, event planning will be an element of a role or nonprofits will hire an external event planning company to organize an event. Nonprofit event planners often have openings for junior-level folks if you are really excited about this type of work. The work of event planning varies based on the event type, but it is generally what you’d expect for any event - working with vendors and venues, creating promotional materials, securing sponsors, and making sure that lots of people show up and are inspired by the mission of the organization. There is more detail on event planning roles in Second Day’s Communications Guide.
COMMUNICATIONS
This is the work of writing newsletters, creating videos, posting on social media, and sharing the story of your organization’s impact. Because sharing the mission of an organization is critical to fundraising, the communications team can sometimes sit within the fundraising team, while other times it can be its own team. Just like with all of these roles, a smaller organization might have a ‘Development and Communications Associate’ while larger organizations might have whole teams of graphic designers, social media specialists, and communications roles. For more details on communications roles, check out our Communications Guide.
Check out Claire talking about her day-to-day work here.
How roles vary based on organizational context
This section of the guide will take you through four types of organizations where you might take a job in fundraising. Overall, the most important takeaway is to find a sector/organization you feel passionate about, and focus on that cause. Though you may not find your first job out of college there, it will give you an anchor as you search through lots of jobs in fundraising. The fundraising industry has a lot of turnover, and the skills are relatively transferable, so you can move across sectors as you advance in your career.
Education (Universities, Colleges and Preparatory Schools): Raising money is important for almost every educational institution. Fundraising beyond tuition and government funding can be a critical way to ensure equitable access, invest in growth, and advance a school's mission. Though colleges and universities have the largest fundraising programs, you can also look into private high schools for additional fundraising jobs. Depending on the size of the institution, there may be one central development team, or larger universities may have separate development teams for graduate programs like medical schools and law schools. In comparison to other fields, education is a great place to get your start in fundraising. Many alumni relations departments value younger employees to reach out to recent alumni, so many entry level jobs exist. Furthermore, by working at a university early in your career, you may get tuition assistance or remission for a part-time graduate degree while you work there. The easiest way to get your foot in the door is with your own alma mater, but it is possible to get jobs in fundraising or alumni relations at colleges across the country.
Cultural Institutions (Theaters, Museums): Cultural institutions form another sector where you will find jobs in fundraising. With limited public funding, operas, theaters, and all types of museums rely on a combination of endowment funds, ticket prices, and fundraising to keep their doors open and services available in their communities. Your targets for fundraising will likely be patrons of your institution, so make sure you are ready to talk about the experiences your institution features (e.g., your favorite piece of art or your favorite production a theater has put on). Along the same vein, it is helpful to have specific coursework or work experience with a relevant cultural experience (talk up that intro to art history class you took). Look into student and young-professional programs at these institutions both to experience them, and see where you may find a job. Because many of these institutions are so reliant on big donors, they’ll often have fairly large development teams that hire quite often.
Healthcare (Hospitals): Another sector where you might find fundraising jobs is in healthcare. Perhaps controversially, many hospitals and health care clinics are officially nonprofits. As a result, they have fundraising departments. Similar to educational institutions, many hospitals with a development team will have a larger team and more metric driven success models. However, you will likely also have a better salary and benefits than working at a smaller organization. Another differentiating factor between these paths are your fundraising targets. For health care fundraising, you’ll likely draw from wealthy community members and former patients (see the grateful patient model).
Social Support Organizations: Social service organizations might be what comes to mind when you traditionally think of a nonprofit一an afterschool program, offering food/housing, or providing disability support in your community. For many of these organizations, fundraising roles require you to become deeply immersed in the community and the work of that nonprofit. You are charged with telling the story of the work that the organization does and bringing in funders to help expand that mission. For smaller organizations, there is often an opportunity to get involved more directly in direct programs or the overall community. These organizations often rely more heavily on government funding and are generally more lean organizations一this means that you’ll often have more opportunity to take on responsibilities, but will also likely have less formalized structure and support.
Across all four - distinctions between small and large organizations
We’ve talked about the differences between small and large development teams through this guide, but it’s worth calling out the distinction even more clearly here. If you go work at a large institution like a hospital or college, you’ll be working on a team with dozens or hundreds of staff. You’ll have a robust training program and support for your work and it’ll be much easier to ‘learn the ropes.’ There will be clear promotion titles and opportunities to move up the ladder. The downsides are that you’ll likely feel more distant from the work and the departments will be much more clearly defined. Even within fundraising, the annual giving folks might not interact with the grant-writing team much at all.
On the flip side, small organizations offer far more opportunities with far less structure. If you are hungry to take on challenges and learn on the fly, working with a small organization presents opportunities to do so. The trade-offs are clear一you’ll likely have less formal training and support and you are more dependent on having an awesome manager for support. With such a small team, getting promoted might require going to another small organization or someone above you leaving. But you’ll also have a higher ability to pivot within the organization and to collaborate deeply with other departments. Smaller organizations often have a more flexible culture because there is less predictable funding and an ever-changing context.
No matter what, if you find a job at an organization where you believe in the mission, fundraising jobs can be both rewarding and satisfying. You get to directly contribute to that mission and see the fruits of your labor in real-time. And work in fundraising is certainly not boring. You will be working with and meeting with interesting people who care about the same mission as you!
Fundraising by the numbers (pay and hours)
Compared to other social impact jobs, a job in fundraising is typically on the higher end of the pay scale at a nonprofit. Larger organizations and those in major cities have higher salaries, while the salary at smaller organizations will vary more widely. In general, you’ll likely make between $40k-$60k in an entry level position. There is a great deal of room for growth in fundraising, whether internally at a large organization or switching between organizations.
In terms of hours, it is generally more predictable than a program-facing role. Particularly at an entry-level role, you can likely work a pretty standard 9-5 except for major events or deadlines that come up from time to time. This does vary widely though depending on the culture and role, so it’s a good thing to probe on during interviews. And once you move into more senior positions, it is more likely that you will have more intense hours, travel, and responsibilities.
How to get a job in fundraising
The great news about fundraising is that this is one of the most consistently available jobs available to a graduating college student. There are always organizations looking to expand, and they need to raise more money in order to do so. In order to get a role, we recommend a good mix of networking and standard job applications to open positions.
For networking, the person you should be trying to talk to is the Director of Development (if it’s a large organization, an Assistant Director works great, too). Typically, that senior leader will have a lot of discretion about who to bring on to their team. For that reason, if you win them over, you’ve got a great shot at getting hired (even if they don’t currently have a role posted publicly). Talking to this person is also really important because they’ll be your boss and you want to make sure that you are excited to work with them. So how do you win them over?
GENERAL SKILLS TO HIGHLIGHT
Development is all about execution. You need to be 100% reliable in executing on things that you say you’ll get done. If you’ve raised money before or had a development/communications internship, that is great to highlight. If you are a really strong writer, that is absolutely essential for most roles, so try to highlight that. It is also great to show your ability to connect with people or tell compelling stories (e.g., on a debate team, as a tour guide, as a service worker). If you’ve got any experience with administrative work, data analysis, or management, that can be quite helpful as well.
SPECIFIC SKILLS TO HIGHLIGHT
More so than other roles, a lot of jobs will be labeled similarly (e.g., Development Associate) but the actual content of the role can vary fairly dramatically across roles and responsibilities (e.g., event planning, donor research/management, communications, etc.). When applying, make sure to read the specific responsibilities of that role and match your cover letter to highlight your relevant skills for that specific role. Also一it is very important to call out your personal passion for the mission of the organization. Even if you don’t have a lot of experience with it, you are going to be spending all day raising money for the cause, so you should be able to make a compelling case for why you care about it.
HOW TO BUILD FUNDRAISING EXPERIENCE
If you are looking for opportunities to build experience or figure out if it is for you, there are a few ways to do it. Most schools pay students to call alumni and ask for money一it’s usually fairly straightforward to get hired on to that team. Most colleges also have a set of students who represent their class and work to plan fundraising initiatives throughout college and especially post-grad. Volunteering to be an alumni representative will be especially helpful to build connections in development at your own school that you can leverage to build your network.
If you want to support other nonprofits in your community, many organizations have fundraising internships available. If you don’t have time for that, you can participate in phone-a-thons, or raise money for one of their annual events. If you are really looking for a quick action item, you can choose any nonprofit that you love and organize your own fundraising event. If you are able to raise some money for that organization, you can feel good about yourself AND demonstrate that you have the skill-set to handle a role like that full-time.
Exit opportunities
BUILDING A CAREER IN FUNDRAISING
After two years as an associate, you’ll have a good sense of what you like and don’t like in the role. If you are performing well, there are lots of opportunities to get promoted within an organization or to pivot to another organization at a higher level. If you enjoy some elements of the work but not others, you can often figure out a role that works quite well for you and pays well for the social sector. In fact, there is a thriving culture of ‘fundraising professionals’ who collaborate to hone their craft and often shift across organizations and missions.
BUILDING THE SKILLS AND THEN PIVOTING
Understanding how to raise money is an essential skill if you want to be a social change leader. Typically, after a couple of years on the development team, you’ll have a very good sense of how money is raised, how it is spent, and how to navigate this system. If it isn’t for you, then you’ve built a very valuable skill set and there are lots of options to pivot, even into for-profit sales roles. If you are in a smaller organization, there could be opportunities to shift into a communications, evaluation, or program role. You could consider getting a master's degree in something you are passionate about as well. Of course, you also can make a pivot to a totally different organization or industry with the right amount of hustle and interest.
Next three steps
Get some fundraising experience. Whether it is a formal internship or just participating in a phone-a-thon, doing some fundraising is critical to make sure you enjoy the work and to establish some baseline credentials.
Decide where to focus your energy. There are 70,00 nonprofits with budgets over $1M and almost all of them have development teams. It’ll be important to focus your energy on what matters most to you - do you want to live in a particular city? Work on a particular type of issue? Work for a particular type of institution, large or small? By choosing an anchor point, it’ll be much easier to get your hands around the right people to talk to and job boards to look at.
Execute. Get your resume in shape and try to set a steady cadence of networking and applying for jobs. Most roles hire only a month or two before they want the role to start, so focus mostly on networking rather than just applying for jobs until Senior spring.
Last updated: July 2021