In today’s workplace, a tug and pull is unfolding among four generations: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Each group offers a unique set of values, priorities, and preferences, shaping workplace dynamics. Navigating these differences requires acknowledging the value each generation contributes while fostering an environment where everyone feels heard and respected.

In this session, participants will explore their biases and assumptions about other generations and gain insight into the factors that shape each group’s values and behaviors. This session provides practical strategies for bridging the generational divide. Participants will leave with actionable tips to create a more inclusive, harmonious workplace.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn the unique skill sets that each generation brings for synergetic cooperation.
• Participants will gain perspective and understanding in overcoming generational obstacles in the workplace.
• Participants will be able to define psychographic diversity and the role it plays in bridging the generational divide.

View this session’s slides here.

The post Bridging the Gap: The Generational Divide appeared first on Bloomerang.

Rhanda is representative of the enormous movement and flexibility of fundraisers. Nonprofits are lucky to keep high-performing development professionals like her for 18 months. That means that there are many men and women in our profession who are beginning roles with new employers.

Check out these 10 tips to help you thrive in your new fundraising job

1. Start by having thoughtful conversations with your supervisor that help you establish stretch-but-realistic goals and objectives.

Performance metrics should be both quantitative and qualitative. After productive discussion, put the results in writing. My favorite question for employers is, “A year from now, how would you know you made the right hiring decision?” Keep in mind that no fundraiser is a Superman or Superwoman that can fly in and produce gift income results by themselves. They need a supportive culture of philanthropy flowing throughout the organization that actively engages other staff, board, volunteers, and current donors to strengthen discovery, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship activities.

2. Review progress on these goals and objectives at least quarterly.

Present a progress report in an easy-to-understand format that provides updates on what you have accomplished. Fundraising is the ultimate continuous improvement process. Each solicitation and interaction with donor prospects provides the opportunity to learn and improve.

3. Focus on winning the inside of the nonprofit before focusing on donor prospects and external friends.

If possible, time is well spent meeting with all members of the nonprofit team across all departments. It means so much to put a face on other staff with whom you will be emailing and communicating. This is also essential to deepening your understanding of the nonprofit’s mission, vision, and values.

4. As soon as possible, meet face-to-face with current donors.

There is no agenda to these meetings other than thanking them for their support and understanding their motivations to provide gifts of time, talent, and treasure. If face-to-face meetings aren’t practical, then video-conferencing will suffice.

5. Fall in love with the work of your organization.

More than anything else, philanthropy is driven by passion for the distinctive ways nonprofits touch, improve, and save more lives. Successful fundraisers must feel this emotion in their knowing heads and honest hearts.

6. Develop a personal case for support.

Your organization will have official documents, but put those sentiments into your own words, and as much as possible relate them to your personal experiences and background.

7. Accompany senior staff and board members who enjoy making solicitations and watch them in action.

You might have made solicitations for other causes but, like Rhanda, you could be entering a different sector and need to pick up new nomenclature, appeals, and the return on the philanthropic investment.

8. Network, network, and network.

Seize every opportunity to circulate in the community and meet with nonprofit leaders in similar mission spaces and those serving in different sectors. There are boundless ways that these personal relationships can reinforce your acumen and success.

9. Confirm work-life boundaries.

A fundraiser is often expected to work during the evening and over the weekend to play important roles in special events attended by donor prospects and other friends. There should be give-and-take, with supervisors giving employees flexibility to meet family, medical, and other daily demands on their lives. Research repeatedly shows that allowance for work-life balance means as much as compensation to employees. The overriding benchmark is that there is steady progress toward meeting core goals and objectives.

10. Explore opportunities for growth.

Too many fundraisers are leaving their nonprofits and the profession altogether because they have a feeling of being stuck in one place. Supervisors need to know that you welcome new challenges and ways to advance the success of the organization.

Starting a new fundraising job can be welcomed as beginning with a clean slate — there are no problems holding you back. You can enter all relationships with an open mind and a focus on positive collaboration.

I have no doubt that Rhanda is poised to achieve strong results. She has all the qualifications and is personally passionate about championing SAFE’s timely mission. But she fully recognizes that success will ultimately depend on the organization’s professional and volunteer leadership, and its collective commitment to always go the extra mile in faithfully carrying out donor intent.

Fundraising success requires an entire nonprofit village in which the development professional makes steady strides down a path that is supported by a solid infrastructure and culture pointing the way for moving boldly and steadily forward.

The post Advice for Starting A New Fundraising Job appeared first on Bloomerang.

Have you ever wondered who these ‘expert’ speakers are that you see presenting at nonprofit conferences? How did they get in that position and how, when you’re ready to push yourself out of your comfort zone, can you get there?

It’s not just about testing yourself and doing something different. There is a lot to be gained from becoming a speaker on the conference ‘circuit’. Some of the gigs are paid, allowing you to earn an extra bit of income for you or your own organisation. It’s a really cheap or free way to holiday around the country and world in places you otherwise couldn’t justify visiting. And it’s a great way of building your personal brand or organization’s name: you have a captive audience that you can influence over the course of an hour or more.

But perhaps most importantly, it can allow you to attend some of the world’s best conferences without dipping in to your precious (or non-existent) training budget.

Some conferences are curated, and once you find yourself speaking at other conferences you may begin to get invited elsewhere, and even make a living from it. That’s where I am now, but along the way I’ve learned of pitfalls and problems, as well as a number of ways to increase your chances of being successful.

Here are eight things I wish I’d known:

1. You Are An Expert

Maybe you feel you’re not ready yet or don’t have as much experience as some of the other speakers you’ll see. The truth is you are an expert. You’re an expert in your own experience, your own successes and your own failures. Every speaker suffers from ‘Imposter Syndrome’ from time to time, doubting their own ability and fearful of getting ‘caught. But speak about what you know, speak openly and honestly, and nobody can fault you. We can all learn from you.

2. Decide What You Want To Get Out Of Presenting

As a trainer, consultant and coach I aim to get one new piece of business or my next invitation to speak out of every presentation.

When I worked in a nonprofit my goal was to bring in one new donor. Sometimes, like most speakers, it’s about getting positive feedback and affirmation from a roomful of strangers because we’re so emotionally damaged and desperate. Or is it a free holiday or free access to training? Whatever it is, be clear about the outcomes you’re striving for and make sure it’s embedded in everything you do.

3. Be Realistic About Your Value

When you first start speaking with no track record it’s unlikely you’re going to get paid. Some (unreasonable) conferences won’t even pay your expenses. But that might be the price you pay to fine-tune your craft and build up experience.

At the same time, don’t sell yourself short. Your hosts are gaining from your presentation so don’t be afraid to ask for your expenses to refunded and your time to be compensated. The worst they can say is no, and then you can weigh up whether it’s really worth your time.

4. Put Your Audience First

It’s not about you…what do your audience want to gain from you? You obviously know what you want to gain from the experience, but if the audience aren’t happy then that’s not going to happen. I’ve heard speakers describe their workshops as ‘shows’ or ‘gigs’. No, we’re not rockstars…but still, if we can give the audience something special and memorable then you’re more likely to succeed.

We’ve all seen speakers that overly sell, that don’t provide the insights we expected, or who are just simply boring. They don’t get good feedback, they don’t get invited back, and they don’t get the audience follow-up they had hoped for. That’s not what you want.

5. Submit Sessions That People Want

If you’re submitting to a conference, think carefully about how you propose your session. Most conferences like a catchy, quirky title that catches attention. And some attendees will choose to attend based only on that title without reading the description (I know! Crazy!). Have a look at previous years’ sessions and see what kind of sessions were chosen and what jumps off the page.

Make your description clear. Talk to the potential reader and help them understand what they’re going to get out of it. They don’t know you, they don’t know your topic…sell it to them.

And don’t forget you can submit more than one session. Cover the bases!

6. Understand The Conference Organizers

Consider the person or committee that are in charge of selecting sessions. They’re going to be going through piles of these things. What makes your session stand out to them? Sometimes it’s who you know. If you can talk directly to someone on the committee they’re usually pretty generous with their advice and tips. Don’t be afraid to ask what topics they’re looking for and what they think might be missing. There are certainly subjects they get inundated with and subjects that they’re crying out for.

Also understand that conferences are looking for a diverse range of speakers and (rightly or wrongly) lean towards charity staff rather than consultants. Can you highlight the areas of your career or bring in a co-speaker that will increase your chances of getting selected?

Don’t be too disappointed if you don’t get selected. I scored 100% – the highest possible score at my favourite conference – and still wasn’t invited back the following year. Am I bitter? Yes…absolutely. Don’t be like me.

7. Learn From Feedback

Most conferences will automatically collect feedback for you and you’ll receive it some time later. If that’s not going to happen then try to follow up with your own feedback survey. They’re painful to read, but you’re an unreliable narrator in your own story and sometimes the only way to learn what worked or didn’t work is from this kind of feedback. Still, don’t take it personally. No matter how amazing you are you’ll always get one person who hates you.

You’re going to be resubmitting this session to other conferences, so the feedback is a chance for you to tweak and improve.

8. Get Advice And Support

It can all be scary and daunting. But you’re definitely capable and conferences and events need more speakers like you. Ask for support or guidance from a speaker you already admire. Volunteer at events or on committees to gain deeper understanding of the process. Practice your session with your co-workers, friends or in places like Toastmasters.

People are good and willing to help you if this is something you want to do. And the whole experience can be sparklingly good for you. The truth is the only thing holding you back is probably you. But remember we live in a world where the ones who succeed aren’t necessarily the best…they’re sometimes just the loudest. The people who put their hands up and put themselves forward are the ones at the front of the room.

This time next year that could be you!

The post Want to Speak at a Nonprofit Conference? 8 Things I Wish I’d Known: appeared first on Bloomerang.

Nonprofit professionals and the organizations that depend on them understand the importance of investing in ongoing professional development. They know that not investing in such education can result in missing a beat or a donation—or lots of them.

That’s because the fundraising world—indeed, the world in general—is changing fast, especially when it comes to communications. And what is fundraising but carefully crafted, targeted communications that move people’s hearts and hands to support causes they believe in?

That’s where ongoing professional development for fundraisers and nonprofit leaders comes in.

Jill Murphy, membership and post operations senior manager at the Society of American Military Engineers, listens to at least one podcast a week—and she’s been in the fundraising sector for more years than she cares to think about. “Never stop learning” is her rallying cry.  

“I constantly do professional development programs. This summer I earned a digital marketing certificate. It was a 10-week course and I learned a ton,” said Murphy, who for seven years was the senior manager of member services for the DMA Nonprofit Federation. As such, she organized hundreds of professional development opportunities both online and in person for nonprofit leadership and fundraisers.

“My feeling is if you’re not keeping up with what’s going on in marketing, then you’re going to be left behind with how quickly new technologies change the way we market as nonprofits,” Murphy said, acknowledging that it’s getting harder and harder to engage with donors and potential donors.

A recent project by NTEN and Cornerstone, “The State of Nonprofit Professional Development,” uncovered that “nonprofit staff want to learn and grow in their jobs and careers and that they seek to pursue professional development even if it’s not an official part of the expectations and evaluations in their jobs.”

Why investing in ongoing professional development is so important 

Lighthouse Counsel President Jeff Jowdy and his staff produce regular career development resources in the form of blog posts and podcasts because he knows how important it is for his clients and other nonprofit professionals to keep up. 

But, as you likely know, it’s not always easy for harried executives and multi-tasking fundraisers to stop what they’re doing and take a course or pursue another time-consuming opportunity. That said, it’s crucial to future success. 

“Things change rapidly in fundraising, and it’s really important for nonprofit leaders to stay on top of trends and strategies, as well as technology advancements, so that they’re doing everything they possibly can to create positive experiences for donors and other supporters,” Jowdy said. “An organization that refuses to grow and adapt won’t stay healthy for long.”

There’s no denying that the fundraising world is competitive; there are a lot of organizations vying for the same donor dollar. Fundraisers who don’t keep up will lose out, and then what happens to their noble causes and the people who depend on their help? 

Here are just a few key ways investing in ongoing professional education can keep you on top of your game.

 By investing in nonprofit professional development, you will: 

1. Keep up with technology.
2. Stay connected to your donor’s motivation.
3. Stave off burnout.
4. Keep pace with your organization’s competitors.
5. Ensure credibility for the nonprofit sector and fundraising profession.
6. Learn to make the best use of your board and keep board members busy and up to date.
7. Effectively manage volunteers.
8. Understand your organization’s financial needs and processes.
9. Stay versatile and aware of the needs and processes in departments throughout your organization.
10. Stay connected to your peers.

Ruby Chadwick, head of global engagement and events for The Resource Alliance, knows that nonprofit professional development opportunities are an important and welcome part of a nonprofit professional’s job. 

“It’s amazing to see people coming together year after year, happy to reconnect and to make new connections,” Chadwick said. “Learning is about a free exchange of ideas among colleagues. It’s about communication and about commiserating, at times,” she said. “Even in a virtual environment, professional education sessions allow us to hear from our colleagues and to learn from them every bit as much as from the official speakers.”

Amy Eisenstein, CEO and co-founder of the Capital Campaign Toolkit, and Adrian Sargeant, co-director at the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, conducted a study titled “Major Gift Fundraising: Unlocking the Potential for Your Nonprofit*.” 

Looking at the findings, they bemoaned the fact that many nonprofits balk at investing in staff development because they fear folks will just learn and leave, “wasting” the money the organization put into their professional development.

But that thinking is simply outdated and short-sighted. Keep reading to see why. 

Nonprofit professional development will take you out of your comfort zone—and that’s a good thing. 

AfriKids, a U.K. organization that fights for the rights of the world’s children, sent staff members to a recent International Fundraising Congress in the Netherlands. As a result, they funneled their learnings into a matching gift campaign and raised more than five times the campaign’s projected fundraising goal. 

What the AfriKids fundraisers learned about donor stewardship and messaging, especially for a matching gift opportunity, completely changed their approach and resulted in a major fundraising win.

The campaign raised a total of roughly $735,000—about $682,000 of which was matched by the government. The total at the end of the campaign was $1.4 million, five times more than what they were hoping to raise. They used the money to stress the value of education to communities and improve teacher training in primary schools across Northern Ghana. In all, the training had a positive impact on 18,000 children and 350 teachers.

Professional development isn’t just for beginners. Leaders need to learn too. 

Lighthouse Council’s Jowdy said ongoing professional development for leaders is important as well, although their learning needs to be less in the weeds and more about the big picture.

“It all trickles down from there,” he said. “A leader who has lost his desire to learn and remain relevant will lead teams right over the edge of mediocrity. And in today’s environment, mediocrity is just not acceptable.”

Professional development helps you build donor trust. 

According to Giving USA, American individuals, bequests, foundations, and corporations gave an estimated $449.64 billion to U.S. charities in 2019, which was one of the highest years ever for charitable giving. The professionalization of fundraising was just one factor that helped build donor trust, which led to an increase in donations.

Issues like transparency and accountability, impeccable stewardship, and, most compelling of late, equity and diversity are the cornerstones on which the foundation of the best and most successful nonprofits are built. Donors are watching, and they’re expecting their contributions to be put to the very best use—and in the way you communicated you would use the donations when soliciting them in the first place. 

One way to assure them you will do so is by hiring and continuing to employ professional and knowledgeable fundraisers. This gives donors peace of mind and deepens the overall trust of the giving public in the organizations they support and the nonprofit sector in general.

Investing in ongoing nonprofit professional development is a win-win that keeps the individual professional on the cutting edge. This keeps organizations working efficiently and effectively—and raising more money—and helps to elevate the nonprofit sector and build trust in the eyes of the people who support it.

Look into CharityHow, a unique continuing education resource.

CharityHowTo provides training of both the instantly-actionable type and overall strategies for long-term success for nonprofit leaders and fundraisers, no matter their organization’s size, budget, or mission. 

We produce both free and premium live and on-demand webinars that give our nonprofit community hundreds of opportunities each month to learn from the best-of-the-best nonprofit experts from around the world. They provide relevant, tactical advice around 29 of the most pressing nonprofit topics and show how you can turn those learnings into real results. 

Consider investing in a CharityHowTo membership as part of your goal to support ongoing professional development. For more information, visit charityhowto.com.

 *Note: This project was partially sponsored by Bloomerang.

The post Why Ongoing Professional Development Is Essential For The Nonprofit Community appeared first on Bloomerang.

If you’re reading this post, it’s probably because you want resources that will help you improve your leadership skills and grow in your career. 

If that’s the case, I want you to ask yourself two questions: 

• Are you taking the lead in developing your leadership skills? 
• Are you planning for how you want to grow in your career and figuring out the steps you can take to get to where you want to go? 

It’s OK if you’re not sure how to move forward. After all, gone are the days of having a well-defined career ladder where you get promoted every few years. Today’s workplace is constantly changing and adapting to the times. It can be hard to focus on where to go in the future when you’re strapped for time in the present because you’re busy managing your teams and your donors, figuring out remote work, and meeting expectations from your board.  

However, because the traditional career path has changed, more than ever the responsibility for designing a fulfilling career falls on you, the individual employee. 

In this post, I’ll share how you can reclaim control of your own nonprofit leadership development and career growth.

Become your own CEO.

The first step to developing your leadership skills and investing in your career growth is to put yourself in the driver’s seat. That means you need to start thinking about yourself as the CEO and chief strategist of your career. 

How can you do that? Start by reflecting on who or what is setting the destination for your current career trajectory and growth. If you’re like some executives, you might expect your boss or your board to provide that direction for you. 

Here’s why you need to rethink that strategy: For starters, leaving your career planning in the hands of someone else, however good their intentions are, will put you on a path dictated by values and priorities that may not match your own. Worse yet, the person you’re entrusting your career to may have no path or plan for your development.

If you’ve “outsourced” your growth to someone else, there’s a good chance you’ll eventually feel stuck or unfulfilled, and that can affect your results and the impact you want to have. You may even find yourself in a role you outgrew years ago. 

Is it OK to want to work for a great boss who’s an inspired leader and who also wants the best for you and your career? Of course it is! 

Is it wise to put the responsibility for setting your career path and helping you develop your leadership skills on another person? Probably not. 

So, what do you do if you want to be the CEO of your own career?

Take stock of where you are today. 

Like with any strategic initiative, you should start by taking stock of where you are today by asking thoughtful questions to help you understand what is and isn’t working.

Here are just a few questions to get you started:    

• Where am I investing the most energy and am I satisfied with the results?
• What do I feel like I’m missing out on or wish I had more of in my career?
• What’s at the core of my biggest frustration at work? 
• What contributions do I want to be known for?
• How well are my values reflected in my career? If you need help figuring that out, think about an outsider studying your calendar and looking at your priorities. What conclusion would they draw about your values?
• How well are my values reflected in how I work with my team and in my other relationships?

Start with one or two questions that stand out to you or that might invite a candid assessment of the current state of your career. Then, do what the best leaders do. 

The best and most inspired leaders aren’t the best because they have all the right answers. They’re the best at what they do because they make it a habit to ask good questions without assuming they already know the answers. Then, when they have the answers, they act on what they know they need to do next. 

Ready for more leadership conversations? Download our free leadership guide at LeadershipDivision.com.

The post The Key To Being A More Effective Nonprofit Leader And Growing In Your Career appeared first on Bloomerang.

Would working out of the office vs. working help nonprofit organizations in the long term?

The pandemic jet-fueled significant shifts in the world’s work-life pattern. Yet had COVID-19 hit twenty years earlier, the effect would have been far more devastating. 

It just so happened that relatively new technologies were in place and waiting, prepared to cushion the blow. From the smartphone, Zoom calls, and the home delivery of goods and services, changes in the virtual world stepped up to change the real one.

From movie stars to office management, remote working has quickly become the norm. It turned a morning commute into the morning stroll to the home office, via the shower and the coffee pot.

As vaccine programs roll out around the world, nonprofits are tentatively awaiting the return of “normal.” Now is the right time to ask if one of the pandemic’s major impacts on daily life could be here to stay.

Saving from staying home

Going by the average, a standard office lease for a nonprofit in the USA will be around $5,000 per person per year. This figure will vary widely depending on locality and personal circumstances, but either way, the square footage of the office accounts for a mammoth chunk of a nonprofit’s overhead. After the cancellation of so many in-person fundraising events, the prospect of clawing back some of this outlay couldn’t have come at a better time.

If the option to work from home is viable, should we take it?

Pros:

• Stress levels are thought to be reduced.
• Studies indicate home workers have a greater sense of job satisfaction.
• Your labor pool is bigger; you can hire from further afield.
• You’ll have significant savings on utilities, rent, and expense accounts.
• Research suggests those working from home also take fewer sick days.
• It’ll be easier for smaller nonprofits to survive on a budget.
• The hours spent on commuting are saved.

Cons:

• Without observers, the pull of the smartphone or Netflix means employees are open to distraction.
• There’s no routine.
• The nonprofit’s sense of center may be lost.
• Managing your team from a distance requires a whole new set of skills.
• There’s no ability to bond with colleagues and enjoy the comradeship via a shared office space. If you rely on team spirit and esprit de corps, then it’s hard to see how that can be held together over Zoom calls. 
• There’s a higher investment in home technology, with IT support becoming crucial.

In September 2020, Enterprise Technology Research (ETR) contacted over a thousand CIOs (Chief Information Officers) from a broad range of countries and industries.  

Generally there was a positive expectation for the economy in 2021, something which has been largely proven right despite new restrictions in place in Europe and Asia.

They reported that working from home had led their businesses to focus on the technology to make this transition possible. 

Those in the technology sector are predicting other sectors like the nonprofit one will see 34% of the workforce working remotely permanently. This is compared with just 10% pre-pandemic.

Their findings concluded that this was in large part due to CEOs and boards reporting higher productivity as their staff worked through the pandemic from their laptops. 

Just under 50% stated that productivity had grown whilst remote working, with certain sectors doing better than others.

The benefits of this shift may be greater for some organizations, so what you do could be a primary influence concerning long-term nonprofit remote work. 

Here are five important factors to consider when adding up the pros and cons of nonprofit remote work.

• Is your online presence ready to pick up the slack?
• How does your board feel about decentralization?
• How do your staff and volunteers feel about it?
• How much would you save?
• How could nonprofit remote work impact your mission?

Lastly, is there is a third way? Consider the hybrid option.

It’s possible to make the office remote as well as the staff. Consider creating a day or afternoon in the week when the workforce of your nonprofit can get together somewhere else to conduct meetings and touch base. You may not need a permanent office space for this, and you could also focus on it being more of a team-building exercise. You may be able to share an office space for these purposes, pooling your resources with other nonprofits or local businesses to save money and use time more effectively. 

The changes to how the world works are real, but either way all of us in large or small nonprofits will continue to work together, even if it’s across a laptop screen rather than the desk cubicle. Terry from Accounting will still be able to tell his bad Dad jokes, only now through a Zoom call rather than across the desk! 

The post Nonprofit Remote Work: Is Staying at Home Here to Stay? appeared first on Bloomerang.

“Being the good” doesn’t mean that you’re a perpetual volunteer stuck in the same position forever. As a professional in the nonprofit sector, you can absolutely still work to be the best you can be, developing your personal and professional skills and advancing your career along the way. In fact, many individuals just like yourself are actively looking for new opportunities to enhance their skills and become better versions of themselves.

Here at the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance, we’ve dedicated ourselves to professional development in the nonprofit sector. We have helped over 11,000 people become Certified Nonprofit Professionals and more than 15,000 other leaders in the sector to advance specific skills with virtual training resources. With this experience, we’ve compiled a few key suggestions for nonprofit professionals looking to advance their careers in the sector:

• Actively look for new learning opportunities.
• Discuss on-the-job opportunities with managers.
• Explore potential new responsibilities in the office.

Ready to dive deeper into these three skills for furthering your nonprofit career? Let’s get started.

1. Actively Look for New Learning Opportunities

If you’re waiting for a learning opportunity to jump out and hit you in the face, you’ll likely be waiting for a long time. Too many professionals express interest in learning new skills, but never take action to really find and embrace new training opportunities.

This is a mistake!

Investing in your own training not only helps your personal career, but it can also help advance the mission you’re so passionate about as well. When you invest in your own training, you may see benefits like: 

• Higher job satisfaction. When you enjoy your job, you’ll be less likely to leave and find a new position somewhere else. This simple act saves your organization a lot of funds that would’ve otherwise been spent on replacing you. You hold a lot of value for the organization and they want to keep you around for the long haul.
• Stronger donor relationships. When you learn more about effective communication with your supporters, you’ll be the source of more effective and efficient relationship-building at the organization. This can help you steward supporters for larger contributions and a higher lifetime value for your mission.
• Better fundraising ROI. When you focus your attention on better fundraising, you’ll be able to lead the way in your organization raising more and using your funds more efficiently. This increases ROI, helping you accomplish your goals and get that much closer to achieving your mission.

The benefits of learning more information specific to the nonprofit sector speak for themselves. But the question so many people ask is how to actually learn new skills so that those benefits become possible.

It used to be that you needed to enroll at a local school or spend hours in the library to learn new skills. Now, however, in the age of the internet, we have new learning opportunities emerging everywhere we look! Instead of having to search for sparse sources of information, we’re now left with the opposite issue—sifting through ample resources to find the most trustworthy and impactful information.

To start your search, you need to understand the different options available to you. Some of the best options at your fingertips include: 

• Online courses. Online courses are professionally structured and guided opportunities that simultaneously provide flexibility and convenience for students. The Nonprofit Leadership Alliance guide on the subject explains that you have an option to choose between open-source and paid courses. While open-source can be tempting due to the inexpensive price, they often only offer a limited amount of information before requiring payment or they simply lack high-quality content. According to the guide, subscription-based course services often provide the most value for professionals.
• Books. You don’t need to spend hours searching the library for the best books to learn about specific topics anymore. Now, you can read reviews online, search library catalogs, and sometimes even have the book shipped directly to your home. Consider the skills you want to develop before searching for a new book because there are a seemingly infinite number of books available covering any number of topics. Narrowing your search from the beginning will help you pick the book that will most help you achieve your goals.
• Journals and blogs. If you’re looking for an opportunity to keep up with the newest trends, you might consider subscribing to various journals or blogs for reading material in the nonprofit sector. Be sure to check on the source to be sure it’s trusted or peer-reviewed before you subscribe to these materials.

The learning materials you choose have a lot to do with the learning style that most appeals to you. For instance, some people learn better when they have a guided and structured course. However, others prefer a more independent learning style such as those offered by a book or journal.

Consider how much structure you need in your own education before investing in various professional development resources.

2. Discuss On-the-Job Opportunities with Managers

While it may seem like a paradox, when many people consider their professional development opportunities, they fail to consult the one place where the skills will be most applicable: work.

If you have a manager at the nonprofit where you work, open a discussion about your opportunities for improvement and ask for any resources or recommendations the organization can offer. Often, if you’re finding that you have a weakness in a particular skill set, someone else has also encountered the same challenge, meaning someone else has probably already asked for help too.

Your organization might have a learning resource system of its own that you can use to grow. The first step is simply to ask. Coaching, while often associated with a negative connotation, can actually be incredibly useful for nonprofit professionals who know what it is that they want to learn.

The other advantage to asking for help within your organization is that you can see how the skills apply to your daily position right off the bat. 

While there are a whole host of skills out there that you might ask for coaching on from your own organization, some common options include: 

• Public speaking. From cutting out filler words to maintaining eye contact, your manager can give specific tips after various presentations for a period of time.
• Communication. Ask for help when it comes to communicating with supporters or collaborating with coworkers, then get feedback about specifics to improve.
• Decision-making. Discuss the mindset behind various decisions made by the leaders at your organization so that you can emulate their process in your own choices.

When you embark on a training relationship with someone else at your organization, it’s important to find a metric for tracking your progress moving forward. This will help you show that you’ve improved when it comes time for reviews, promotions, and raises. This Astron Solutions guide explains that a tool to track growth and progress is necessary for effective performance management systems. If you don’t have one of these tools built into a software solution at your organization, you can simply compile your own metric for tracking and share it with your manager.

You might be saying, “This all sounds great, but I’m in charge at my organization, so I’m the most experienced and can’t grow like others.” That’s a dangerous mindset to fall in. We all have room to grow and there is always something more to learn. If you are the manager or executive member of your team, find someone else on the team who seems to have mastered the skill you’re working to develop. Then, humble yourself to ask them for tips, feedback, and accountability as you work to develop yourself.

3. Explore Potential New Responsibilities in the Office

Tips and advice are a great place to start when it comes to learning specific skills and getting advice to improve within your current position. However, if you want to develop a certain skill, but can’t see how it applies to your current position, you might ask to explore different responsibilities as well.

There’s nothing like hands-on learning to enhance your current skill sets!

Nonprofits have many short-term initiatives that provide new opportunities that you can get your feet wet with. For instance, you might ask to help plan a virtual event, researching with guides like this one to learn more about the concepts behind effective planning strategies. Then, practice those concepts by working directly with your event planner to set up the technology, choose speakers, and strategize to raise funds.

Short-term opportunities like these make for great ways to try something without making a full commitment to add to your daily responsibilities. After all, you’d hate to be stuck doing something you don’t like if you just wanted to test it out to get some experience under your belt. Then, if you find you enjoy the opportunity, you can ask to continue your development by maintaining those responsibilities in the future.

Furthering your nonprofit career with professional development requires you to learn new information and skills, then find a way to incorporate those skills at your organization. Your professional development doesn’t only help your personal ambitions, but also helps your organization become more efficient and effective in the long run.

Don’t underestimate the power and importance of continuing education in the nonprofit sector! Use the tips in this guide to continue developing your skills as a nonprofit professional.

The post Furthering Your Nonprofit Career: 3 Tips for Development appeared first on Bloomerang.

I know that this is going to cause a lot of discussion, and I think it’s a healthy conversation to have. Is requiring a bachelor’s degree to be a professional fundraiser for a nonprofit organization a means of discriminating against under-represented people in the profession? Let’s dig in.

Rarely do nonprofit fundraisers have degrees in nonprofit fundraising.

Even today, with a much more highly evolved professional infrastructure than ever before—that includes associations in general fundraising, different kinds of missions in fundraising, grant writing, prospect research, planned giving, direct mail and more—there are no bachelor’s degrees that specifically train people in nonprofit fundraising.

Yes, there are a small handful of bachelor’s programs for nonprofit management, but most academic programs and courses specifically on fundraising are found at the master’s degree level. That said, the premier fundraising certification organization, CFRE (Certified Fund Raising Executive), gives a nod to degree-less fundraisers by not requiring the degree — although it weighs it with more than 10% of its entry educational requirement.

In 30 years+ of nonprofit fundraising experience, including leadership positions at several universities, I don’t know that I could identify a predominant bachelor’s degree major among my colleague fundraisers. Many had degrees in communications, some were educated in business, and there was a variety of others from the sciences, liberal arts, and even a couple of engineers. As a result, nearly everybody who was a fundraiser had to learn on the job, or through professional associations. Today, there’s also a broad variety of informal, online educational opportunities.

This means that almost nobody comes out of college with experience in fundraising. Those who do pick it up through university phonathons or other volunteer fundraising opportunities for campus organizations — not through their assigned coursework.

We always did it that way.

So if there are no bachelor’s degrees in fundraising, and everybody who has one has to learn on the job and in non-academic programs, then why do most jobs for fundraising require a bachelor’s degree?

In part, the answer lies in “professionalism.” Fundraising is seen as a white-collar activity, and regardless of the nature of the work, white-collar activities require bachelor’s degrees. The idea is, or was, that people with bachelor’s degrees had a higher level of personal sophistication, had better communication skills and conducted themselves in an appropriate manner so that they could better relate to donors with significant means. Given that the earliest nonprofit volunteers and philanthropists came from the monied upper classes, and at the time, bachelor’s degrees were only available to people at the highest levels, there was some sense to this.

There’s a cultural bias.

In my opinion, a big factor in the perpetuation of the bachelor’s degree requirement is cultural. People with bachelor’s degrees, particularly those who come from traditional programs where they lived on campus or had a campus experience, feel much more comfortable hiring other people like themselves.

This isn’t new. Some might even call it human. While there are attempts to eliminate the bias of hiring people like oneself when it comes to racial and ethnic characteristics, few people question the educational bias. At a time when it’s clear that there are racial and ethnic barriers to education, the education bias becomes a surrogate for the same discrimination.

Education isn’t what it used to be.

We face an interesting dynamic today. Democracy has come to education. The bachelor’s degree is available from more places at more price points than ever before. At the same time, there is an increasing number of children who are denied the quality of education that would enable them to enter a bachelor’s degree program.

On top of that, the nation’s financial commitment to higher education has waned. What financial aid there is has shifted from grants to loans, and states have significantly reduced their contribution to higher education. Let’s pile on more. With online education, a student may get the knowledge, but not the connections or social experience that was the promise of bachelor’s programs of years ago.

In short, even if you can get it, a bachelor’s degree isn’t what it used to be. Yet for so many jobs, including charitable gift fundraising, it remains a requirement.

What’s the practical reality?

Over my career, I’ve seen some great examples of non-degreed fundraisers at work. While employed by a prominent state university, two of our most successful fundraisers were without bachelor’s degrees. Ironically, both worked in professional schools that gave highly advanced graduate degrees. One advanced to serve in an important leadership position in the university’s fundraising program. Yet despite her success, there was a little taste to treating her more than an anomaly. I don’t know how she got her fundraising job to begin with, but however it was, it wasn’t going to be repeated.

The bachelor’s degree requirement is particularly troubling when you consider that the real measure of fundraising success is in the number of dollars you bring in and the donors you engage. In that respect, it’s very much like sales, and in sales, it’s all about results. For some reason, in fundraising, you have to pass the degree threshold first. I’ve known a lot of fundraisers who do not produce results but are highly educated and “qualified” for the job.

So, how can this be fixed?

Don’t require it.

First and foremost, unless there is a particularly special reason for holding a bachelor’s degree or higher in a typical fundraising position, remove the requirement. This is especially important for new people coming into the profession. As we discussed above, degreed or not anyone going into the profession is going to have to learn about fundraising on-the-job — because almost nobody gets in an educational environment.

Look for success indicators.

Of course, if you have somebody in front of you who has a successful track record in raising money and engaging donors, go for it. In today’s environment, that person is likely to have a college degree because the pipeline requires it. To broaden the pool of otherwise qualified candidates, ask yourself “what are indicators of potential success that people who do not have a fundraising background can bring to the table?”

For example, how do they build relationships? Have they formally or informally been involved in sales or revenue generation for an organization? How is their writing? Can they stand up in front of people and talk? Do they connect with our mission in a personal way?

As we know, not every type of fundraising requires somebody to stand up in front of an audience or to write brilliant prose. It’s important to understand exactly what is needed in the position, whether it’s an event coordinator, a direct mail fundraiser, a grant proposal writer, a prospect researcher, or an individual gift solicitation specialist, among other sub-professions that you’re looking to fill.

Why isn’t mission more important?

What is their dedication to your mission? Any of us will admit that somebody must have at least an affinity for the mission that they are raising money for, and better yet, a real passion for it. Would you rather hire somebody who has a bachelor’s degree but is lukewarm about your mission, or somebody who loves it with all their heart but never had the chance for a degree? Since you might end up training either of them in the fundamentals of fundraising, I’d pick the person with heart.

We limit the pool to those who can afford to work a fundraising job.

Bachelor’s degrees don’t come free. We know this, but fail to recognize the impact that high debt load can have on the availability of entry-level nonprofit fundraisers. Unfortunately, many graduates won’t look at working for a nonprofit in any capacity because they need to pay back substantial college loans. Although fundraising is one of the higher paid jobs in any nonprofit organization, this usually only applies to people with experience.

Most entry-level fundraising positions, if you can find them, don’t pay enough to allow a recent college graduate to make any headway against their indebtedness. The pool gets much bigger when you include people who would not have this problem.

Fundraisers need to connect with people.

Most of the wealthy people in your community have bachelor’s degrees, so other similar individuals will be better able to form connections and solicit gifts, right? Wrong. A large number of people who are solicited by charitable gift fundraisers don’t have college degrees at all. As Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko pointed out in their book series starting with “The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy,” a substantial number of Americans do well financially without college degrees.

In my own experience, even at a university, we would get quite a few gifts from non-degreed individuals. Following the pattern set out by Russ Alan Prince and Karen Maru File in their book “The Seven Faces of Philanthropy: A New Approach to Cultivating Major Donors,” we received many gifts from communitarians, typically, “self-made” business people who saw their own success reflected in their community. Your degree-less fundraisers will be able to connect with these individuals just as well as any traditionally educated professional might.

Focus on life experience.

One of the biggest pushbacks for not requiring bachelor’s degrees for fundraising positions is the suggestion that we are “dumbing down” the fundraising profession. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, not requiring a degree is a recognition that collegiate bachelor’s degrees are not necessarily producing the kinds of people who can be successful in a nonprofit charitable giving environment. So what does? Life experience. 

People who come to fundraising as second careers provide a great opportunity for nonprofits, degree or not. I know a lot of people who have been out of the labor market for years because of family commitments of other circumstances, with and without degrees. I can’t tell the difference when it comes to their ability to do a fundraising job. There’s a lot to be said for life experience in relating to donors—significantly more than a degree on its own.

What should be required?

Ethics. There is a lot of misunderstanding about nonprofit fundraising. The few media portrayals show fundraisers as glorified, high-end party planners who take most of the money raised for themselves (for example, this Law & Order episode featuring Julia Roberts), or the all-too-regular newspaper headline of nonprofit theft.

Judging anyone’s ethics is extremely difficult, but in my opinion, high ethical standards are one of the most important attributes of a successful fundraiser. Some colleges require ethics courses, and, by my observation, a lot of students barely scraped by. Conversely, I can count dozens of non-degreed people I know who live up to the highest ethical standards. Therefore, a bachelor’s degree is in no way an indicator of a propensity to follow the AFP Code of Ethics.

To sum it up… The last time I checked, I wasn’t required to show my bachelor’s diploma when I showed up to discuss the charitable gift with a donor. No foundation asked me to include my diploma with the associated paperwork for a grant. The events committee didn’t need to see my degree when we planned the gala. They all judged me on my ability to build ethical and appropriate relationships to do a fundraising job. My employer judged me on my ability to fund the mission. It’s time that fundraising gets to what really counts so we can best serve the people who depend on our nonprofits — and leave the rest behind.

The post Should A Degree Be Required To Hold A Fundraising Job? appeared first on Bloomerang.

I’ve spent my entire career in fundraising and learned many lessons the hard way. Here’s 31 things I wish I had known when I was just starting out in my fundraising career: 

1. You will never make everyone happy all the time. You may be too much for some people. That’s okay – those aren’t your people. Accept this and don’t let detractors, email unsubscribes, or lapsed donors get you down. This is part of the job.         
2. To get through, one email (or phone call or voice mail) WILL NOT DO. It will take MANY messages to get through (as many as seven to ten, or more even) so don’t give up! Donors do not read all of your email messages.      
3. Your passion for the cause is infectious so don’t be shy about sharing your enthusiasm. Embrace it and be yourself (everyone else is taken).
4. The interesting life you lead is precisely what makes you fascinating to your donors so take time off to go have adventures and do what gives you joy. 
5. Not every donor will want to have a deeper relationship with you and that’s okay. Find the ones who do and don’t waste time lamenting those who don’t.  
6. Your donor database is only as good as what you put into it so keep good records.
7. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Realize we never climb to the top of fundraising mountain and shout down to the people below, “I made it, I’m here!” You might raise $500,000 one day but you are going to have to wake up tomorrow to raise more money.  
8. Realize there may come a time when you need to push back if a donor has an unrealistic request or demand. Accept this and realize not only will you survive it, but your donor may respect you more for having boundaries.  
9. Join colleague or mentors on as many donor meetings as you possibly can.  
10. Celebrate your successes and those of your colleagues.  
11. Find yourself a fundraising mentor. Realize that many people may say no if you ask them directly to mentor you because they may worry it would be too big a time commitment. You can cultivate great mentors with a “formal” arrangement – these could be professionals you admire that you call from time to time for advice.  
12. Don’t forget to be a mentor yourself! 
13. When you fail, and you will, ask yourself what can I learn from this? As painful as our mistakes are, they can be our greatest teachers if we stop to reflect on what we learned from them. Skip over that and you may doom yourself to repeat the same mistake again.  
14. Nurture yourself. Fundraising is not for the faint of heart, it’s for the full of heart. Take care of your body, mind and spirit. Whether it’s positive affirmations or tracking your accomplishments, make sure you’re feeding yourself the good stuff. If you don’t take care of yourself who will?   
15. Surround yourself with good people in your professional and personal life.  
16. Engage beyond your own nonprofit walls by donating, volunteering and serving on the board to causes you are passionate about. These experiences can be infinitely fulfilling, teach you invaluable skills and build important relationships that can lead to your next career opportunity.    
17. The best medicine to prepare for a donor ask or recover from a rough day is reminding yourself why you got into this work in the first place.
18. Role play donor solicitations to prepare. Even the best fundraisers rehearse and reenact role plays.  
19. Your curiosity about your donors is an asset. Use it to learn more about them before your visit and ask great questions during your time together. 
20. It’s not about you, it’s about your donor.  People think they need to share their own organizational story to win over a prospective donor, but the truth is people like talking about themselves. To be successful focus on listening. By having a conversation where you do less of the talking and instead try look for ways you can help or offer resources to the person you are talking to, you build the relationship and add value.
21. Practice public speaking.
22. Know that recruiting, managing and leading a board is the hardest part of running a nonprofit.  
23. It’s lonely at the top. You can feel very companionless as an Executive Director so find a Facebook group of other ED’s so you have a support network.  
24. Every moment with a donor is a chance to do really great discovery. Always be prepared with good discovery questions. Download this cheat sheet of great ones if you need ideas!
25. You are always the face of the organization, even after hours.  
26. If you network with intention it isn’t idle chit-chat. Done correctly it’s important relationship building.  
27. Fundraising is a learned skill and investing in professional development reaps financial rewards.  According to research by Adrian Sargeant each additional form of training is associated with an increase of $37,000 in income. Even on a shoestring budget you can find educational opportunities to advance your fundraising knowledge, such as Bloomerang’s weekly free webinars. 
28. Be prepared to make the ask at ANY time.  
29. There is no magic formula to how many visits before an ask. 
30. Listening is the most important job of all. 
31. Continually search for barriers you may be putting in front of donors trying to give. Is it a clunky path to your donation form? Is it not thanking them properly or reporting back to them on how their gift made an impact?   

What things would you add to the list, dear fundraiser? Drop your comments below!  

Looking for tools to virtually steward and cultivate your donors? 

Watch Rachel’s webinar replay “How to Steward & Cultivate Major Donors in a Virtual World” or download a copy of Rachel’s “Virtual Guide to Donor Cultivation.”

The post 31 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started My Fundraising Career appeared first on Bloomerang.

As generators of key revenue for nonprofits, fundraisers typically feel job security. There’s always more than enough work to be done, and the sense of juggling the work of what could be spread among two or three professionals may be overwhelming, but soothing in that your role feels critical.

However, the pandemic has upended the economy, and business is not as usual. What do laid-off fundraisers do if they find themselves furloughed, or their position permanently eliminated?

It happened to me earlier this year, after nearly 20 years in the profession, having fundraised through crises before (Post-9/11, the 2008 recession). To be honest, it was a complete shock and I had a little more than a week’s notice to prepare for no longer receiving a regular salary. Mere weeks after that, I learned my and several other development positions in the organization would be permanently eliminated, which also meant the end of critical benefits such as health insurance.

So where should laid-off fundraisers start when you receive this challenging news?

1. Assess finances: Immediately, take stock of your personal income and expenses. Are you eligible for unemployment benefits? If so, you may also be eligible for Medicaid health coverage (in the U.S., www.healthcare.gov will help you assess this and route you through the process for your state).

Next, review your monthly expenses. What must be paid, and what might be postponed or cut back? For example, many credit card lenders have allowed for a few months’ suspension of payments to allow those furloughed or laid off time to regroup. Take a close look at all those recurring charges on your credit cards or debited from your bank account and determine if you can live without some of them for a short period of time (though you may find after cutting back, you may not resume some of them).

Once you have a picture of any temporary income opportunities (whether unemployment or part-time/side hustles) and your revised expenses, then review the shape of your savings. How many months can this help meet the gap? Additionally, in the U.S. thanks to the CARES Act, you may take a distribution from your retirement account without paying the 10% penalty (but you’ll still pay income tax). Build a plan for the months ahead, and continue to review it as you go to adjust as needed to meet your goals.

2. Allow time to experience emotions: The loss of a job is exactly that … a loss, and this brings many emotions. Allow yourself the time and space to grieve, be angry, even be relieved at no longer dealing with aspects of your position which annoyed you. Reach out to friends or family for support to chat (voice, video, or safely distanced in person). Consider journaling your thoughts during this transitional time for reflection.

3. Ponder your next step: Personally, I took a few weeks between receiving the news of my coming layoff and its actual effective date to decide what I wanted next. I knew once I shared that news, my networks would ask what I was considering and how they could help. I had to decide: did I wish to continue in philanthropic development? What kind of role was I seeking? Did I want to continue living in my city? Having the answers to these questions made seeking opportunities easier to discern.

4. Network, network, network: Once you’ve set your goals and plans, it’s time to share these widely and ask for help. Fundraisers (and now laid-off fundraisers) are used to asking for help to benefit others, so it can be uncomfortable at first to ask for help for yourself. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get! As when seeking a job change while still employed, you never know where a connection will lead. In fact, it’s a little less of a nervous process as you don’t have an employer to worry about … even if you are simply furloughed, you have the right to seek other work if your employer hasn’t given you specific return expectations.

5. Try to find joy in the journey: While an experience no one hopes for, there is much opportunity for personal growth on the other side of losing your job. It provides an opportunity for reflection on where you’d like your life to go. It may give you additional time with your family or friends (or pets!)  that you’ve been wanting. It may propel you towards an even better career situation in the long run. While the process of searching for a new position can be time-consuming, try to find sources of enjoyment to distract yourself from the wait. Maybe it’s reading books that have piled up on your shelf, maybe it’s focusing more on eating well and being physically active. Maybe it’s just being sure you get a good night’s sleep more often! Find the small victories, and celebrate them.

Someday, you’ll look back on this time and see how it shaped your career and your life. A furlough or layoff can be challenging, but it also provides a new layer in the storytelling of you.

What other tips for laid-off fundraisers would you share?

The post Now What? 5 Tips for Furloughed or Laid-Off Fundraisers appeared first on Bloomerang.

It’s happened again.

You’re only three weeks into your dream development director job when you discover that you’re expected to be some sort of miracle worker — with little to no support.

You’ve learned that…

• you’re the fifth development director in three years
• the organization you’re working for is running nine events a year with no end in sight
• your organization has let their database contract lapse and is keeping donor data in an excel spreadsheet
• when your organization’s charismatic ED left a year ago, he took all the major donors with them
• the last issue of your *quarterly* donor newsletter went out in 2016
• you have no budget for fundraising

And it goes without question the organizational culture sucks.

As a fundraising professional, perhaps you’ve been on a never-ending quest to find the right nonprofit in hopes that you can together grow leaps and bounds. With your knowledge and talent leading the way.

Then, like magic, you spot a unicorn. You find that elusive dream job that you know is the perfect fit of mission and skill set, and you breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that your search might be over. You’ve done your research and downloaded the organization’s 990. You’ve reviewed their website and even made an online donation to evaluate the experience. So far, so good.

Naturally, you’re elated when you land that interview.

But wait a minute. Could this be too good to be true? As a candidate, don’t you wish that you had a list of questions to help you weed out the organizations looking for yet another miracle worker? Is this yet another nonprofit looking to wash their hands of the *dirty* business of fundraising and dump it all on your shoulders – without a budget or support? How can you ensure that you won’t get fooled again?

We all know that hindsight is 20/20, but that’s not much help once you’ve found yourself stuck (again). But what if you were equipped with the kind of invaluable foresight that gave you the best possible chance of figuring out if a nonprofit is ready and willing to embrace fundraising?

Foresight to the rescue!

Pick and choose from the following questions depending on the position that you’re interviewing for:

Interview questions for development director candidates

• What’s your organization’s donor retention rate?

If they don’t know it, that’s your first red flag as to whether this nonprofit values their donors or views them as nothing more than ATM machines. If they don’t value their donors, chances are good they don’t value their staff, either.

• Has your organization run your data through AFP’s Fundraising Effectiveness Project to assess not just retention but also the growth of new donors/gifts, reactivation rate, and assessment of donors who upgraded/remained the same/downgraded?
• What kind of budget does your organization allocate for fundraising? And will I play a role in determining the future budget?

If they tell you they have no budget or they’re going solely digital because it’s *free,* run for the hills. This red flag is on fire!

• How much time am I permitted to spend outside the office stewarding donors? What is my budget to steward donors (outside of mail)?
• Does your organization currently have a fundraising plan? 
• Is there a current Strategic Plan with actionable items and deadlines to reach goals?
• What donor database are you using and who is responsible for data entry? Are you documenting your database protocols?
• How are goals set for this position and what measures of success (KPIs) are in place beyond dollars raised?
• Tell me about any events the organization currently has in place. What is the net ROI including staff, board, and volunteer hours? (I wanted to insert a falling off the floor laughing out loud gif here but refrained.)

Click here to download for the full list. Hopefully, it will save a lot of smart, qualified fundraisers (including you!) from becoming trapped in yet another losing situation where a prospective organization has neither a strong organizational culture nor any understanding whatsoever of what fundraising actually entails. Based on your experience, what questions would you add?

Many thanks to Joan Garry, whose post, Interview Questions for Development Directors, helped to inspire this list. No organization wants to hire its fifth development director in three years. But if that’s what they’re doing, they might want to take a look and ask themselves if they were all bad hires, or if they simply aren’t truly committed to fundraising.

I am grateful for the invaluable assistance of the following smart and savvy nonprofit professionals who contributed to this post: Mike Duerksen, Lisa Sargent, Ephraim Gophin, Preeti Gill, Steve Fröhlich, Jesse Park, Helen Brown, Aimee Vance, David Levine, Colin J. Skehan, and many others who requested to remain anonymous.

As part of Bloomerang’s Content Donation Program, $100 was donated to EmbraceRace.

The post Interview Questions For Development Director Candidates To Ask appeared first on Bloomerang.