Comments on: Should A Degree Be Required To Hold A Fundraising Job?

By: S Penney

S Penney — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 12:02:25 +0000

AAUW the American Association of University Women has put forth a bylaws resolution to drop the requirement that anybody who becomes a member must have a degree. It is a move toward equity and being true to their mission which is to advocate for and support women and girls whether or not they have degrees.

There are many past generations of people who never earned college degrees but had a tremendous amount of life experience as well as experience gained from hard work. So on the one hand I am very supportive of this, on another in my experience donors do ask if you have a degree and where you got your degree if you’re working in a higher education environment. Some want to know if you’re an alum of their alma mater and or if you’re not where you graduated from.

I’m not suggesting this means that we shouldn’t hire people who don’t have degrees, but I believe we need to prepare them to work with such donors. More important we would need to help donors understand that we have a commitment to hire people who don’t necessarily have degrees but do possess the many other skills and attributes that you describe.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 19:32:22 +0000

Wonderful article. As a non-degreed development professional (2 years of college, but no degree and it would have been in math had I finished), I am well aware of how often I’ve been automatically removed from consideration for a position because the organization’s online application process has the bachelor’s degree requirement. The past two positions I’ve had came about through referrals; otherwise I wouldn’t have been considered. The degree requirement also smacks of ageism: if you have years of experience but no degree, chances are you’re “old.”

By: David Burgess

David Burgess — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 17:47:42 +0000

Great article Matt! In the UK the #NonGraduatesWelcome campaign (http://nongraduateswelcome.co.uk/) has been working to try and get this requirement removed from all fundraising job descriptions. It’s definitely had some success but still more work needs to be done! We’ve still not heard a convincing argument for why graduates make better fundraisers, or why a degree should be an essential requirement. The most common reasons we’ve heard for why it’s there are 1) “it was there the last time we advertised for this role. We copied and pasted and didn’t really think about it”. 2) “graduates are the only ones who can write well enough to be fundraisers” (a genuine response we received recently). 3) “Doing a degree means they will have a number of other soft skills, such as research skills, logical thinking and dedication to a cause”. Which might be true. Except none of these things are unique to graduates, and there is no guarantee that all graduates across all courses at all universities will develop the same secondary skills. On the flip side we are blessed with lots of brilliant fundraisers whose route into the profession didn’t pass through university. The sooner nonprofits drop this lazy and discriminatory requirement and instead focus on the skills, knowledge and experience actually needed to be a successful fundraiser, the better off we’ll all be!