The Fundraising Talent Puddle
Commenting on Tom’s Ingredients of Retention Success post, Mazarine Treyz of Wildwoman Fundraising poses the intriguing question of whether retention of donors may possibly be related to an organization’s ability to retain its professional fundraisers.
Mazarine asks…
” In other words, have we ever stopped to think, ‘Huh, how long do our fundraising professionals stay? Could we train them more, help them feel more joy in their jobs, more valued as employees, so they in turn retain our donors better by staying in their jobs longer?”
“Look, I am a fundraising empowerment champion. Because I believe (and Penelope Burk backs me up on this) that when we treat our fundraising professionals well, and help them stay, then we retain more donors.
“If you look at job postings these days, it’s all at-will and the jobs of 4 people are wrapped up into one person. So we have to change how we structure jobs, and how we hire people.
“if you look at nonprofits and how long they typically keep fundraising professionals, the stats are abysmal. It’s 18-24 months, in general. So we have to change how we retain people.”
Although The Agitator has no empirical proof on this point, I suspect Mazarine is absolutely correct. A skilled and experienced fundraiser with a donor-centric focus is far more likely to demand her/his organization provide continuity of message, great donor service, proper recognition and the other essential donor experiences.
Which brings me to a MAJOR, MAJOR PROBLEM in our sector — the pitifully small number of truly experienced fundraising and communications professionals in our sector.
In the past decade the sheer number of nonprofits has grown by 42%. Yet, the number of fundraisers with suitable skill and experience has failed to keep pace.
At a time when meeting the sector’s needs requires a vast talent pool, we are faced with little more than a talent puddle.
This week Production Solutions and Fundraising Success Magazine released their 2013 State of Employment for Nonprofit Organizations.
The study’s findings should be taken both as an alarm and as a call to action. Of the 250 organizations surveyed:
- 79.9 % face budget constraints that prevent them from hiring the experienced talent needed to complete their fundraising team;
- 54% simply can’t find qualified candidates;
- 47.9% can’t offer competitive salaries.
Most shocking of all — 66.5% offer no formal fundraising training programs.
Fortunately, 40% of the respondents have begun thinking outside the box — breaking down silos, restructuring, outsourcing — in an effort to solve their staffing problems. [Download the Infographic here.]
- 62.6% are now outsourcing work to outside contractors;
- 70% offer flexible time solutions;
- 50% offer telecommuting opportunities.
At best these are temporary, band-aid ‘fixes’, not solutions.
One potential and lasting solution begins with admitting that there are too many organizations chasing too little talent. The path out of this dilemma lies in letting weak groups wither and die (which they will) while, at the same time, demanding that major funders and leaders in the nonprofit sector focus appropriate, high priority attention and vastly more resources on fundraising capacity building.
Far too many CEOs and boards are willing to pay whatever it takes to attract a whiz-bang program officer or a slick branding agency, while ignoring the essential requirement of a highly skilled, well-paid fundraising engine room.
A mindset like that largely ignores the need to grow, reward and hold on to fundraising talent. As a result, CEOs and Boards will continue getting exactly what they deserve — a future doomed to failure.
In the words John Gardner, Tom’s and my old boss and the founder of Common Cause:
Roger
P.S. If you want to learn more about fundraisers, bosses and boards I urge you to read Simone Joyaux’s trenchant summary of current research in the field … plus The Agitator’s January, 2013 take on this subject, titled Before You Quit, Rate Your CEO.
9 responses to “The Fundraising Talent Puddle”
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Wow Tom, thanks so much for taking my comment and talking more about this issue!
If we could only help nonprofits see that they should train people on the job, maybe they wouldn’t have a talent puddle!
Which begs the question, why don’t nonprofit EDs or CEOs get hired for their fundraising skills? I feel that if EDs and CEOs had some development director experience in their background, they might understand more about training someone up to be a good fundraiser.
If a nonprofit doesn’t have the money to hire someone more advanced, then grow your own! That person will be grateful that you’re willing to invest in them, and give them a ladder to succeed on. Imagine that you can’t offer them money, but you can offer them a flexible work schedule, reimbursement for any fundraising courses they want to take, more vacation, and a clear path to a better title, from Development Associate to Development Officer in one year.
The whole “We don’t have the money to hire someone good” combined with “there’s not enough talented people” seems to be organizations not wanting to invest in their people and think of creative ways to compensate them, rather than an actual shortage of people willing to do the work.
But what do you think?
Mazarine
Too true! I made this point last year on 101 Fundraising http://101fundraising.org/2012/08/why-tell-a-story-when-you-can-tell-the-truth/
If we as fundraisers were more passionate, we’d transmit and generate more passion and sustain relationships…
Thank you for this post. I agree completely that talented fundraising professionals are integral to the success of an organization and the health of the industry. It’s why I volunteer with AFP.
I believe that we each have an opportunity to impact the fundraising talent pool- we can mentor young professionals. I’ve benefited from the time and guidance of those further along in their careers and work to pay it forward whenever I can. If we work together we’ll be in a better place tomorrow than we are today.
There are capable individuals at the ready to transfer their skills honed in the “for profit” sector to non profits whose mission and purpose align with that individual’s interest in the cause or problem to be solved. Many of us have grey hair and may have made considerably more money in our prior endeavors. We wonder if nonprofits make assumptions about our monetary requirements and pass, think that we don’t have enough “gas in our tank” due to age, or are seeking the individual with prior experience specifically in their wheelhouse. It the latter is the case, then organizations are recycling talent who must seek greener pastures to grow due to your excellent point of a lack of professional development programs in the sector.
Outstanding post guys! Way to go Mazarine, truly insightful!
If you think the turnover rates are bad for the fundraising professionals please dig into the turnover rates for administrative staff working with databases! I would imagine it is 50 to 100% higher!
We have converted data for so many organizations where the person responsible for the database changed 5-8 times in the last 5 years . . .
This is a huge problem for small to medium size NPO’s and nobody seems to be aware of it. Perhaps your outstanding forum will help!
Amen! This paragraph really struck me:
“Far too many CEOs and boards are willing to pay whatever it takes to attract a whiz-bang program officer or a slick branding agency, while ignoring the essential requirement of a highly skilled, well-paid fundraising engine room.”
Just as we have to value our organizations in order to successfully attract funding, we have to value our people. How many organizations have I seen over the years respond to budget deficits by cutting their development and marketing people?
And how often is support money available for those fancy outside experts, but not to support operations – that is to say, the salaries of the people who can really make your organization succeed?
Thanks, Mazarine, and thanks Agitators.
I attended a session at the Michigan Non Profit Association conference earlier this week where it was reported that the average tenure for a development professional is 11 months. That means that most don’t make it through a full year of development activities before leaving or being told “it’s not working out”.
I so agree. Truly, boards don’t know what skills they are needing, nor do they know how to find the resources to help them find the right person. I’ve seen so many times when an effective CEOs leaves, the board flails and they end up hiring the wrong person, lose tons of money and donors, refuse to raise money themselves, yet still don’t know why they are failing. The effective CEOs try to help the board see what they need, try to suggest transition plans, but since this is only a side gig, boards don’t think about it as much as we do, and the cycle persists.
I would suggest that the whole structure of nonprofits needs to change to better support our donors and our missions. I don’t have the answer, but we all clearly see the problems. How can fundraisers help build coalitions (We are great at building relationships and bringing people together, right?) of people and organizations to solve this problem? We are experimenting in our State, but we have a long way to go.
This is a great discussion but when you look internationally the talent “puddle” is a talent “drop in the ocean”.
We recently published the THINK World Fundraising Markets Report looking at the state of fundraising around the world. In not one country did we find that there were enough fundraisers to meet demand, not one and that includes the mature markets such as Australia, USA, Canada, Netherlands and UK! In some countries the shortage, particularly for senior experienced staff, is so acute that charities are recruiting foreign nationals and INGOs bring in senior fundraisers.
In tandem there is a shortage of dedicated, experienced not for profit suppliers in most countries. I would say that this lack of talent is one of the biggest factors holding back fundraising growth around the world.