High demand for fundraising career change 4

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 24 Jun 2011

The Institute of Fundraising has had to put people on a waiting list for a course designed to prepare private and public sector employees for a transition into a fundraising career.

The Career Change Programme, developed by the Institute, promises attendees it will help them match their skills from the corporate and public sector to the charity world, and teach them about the place of fundraising within charity organisations. It is pitched towards senior management level professionals.

Thirty people attended the Institute's first such event, with another one scheduled for October forced to put eager would-be fundraisers on a waiting list.

The interest from outside the sector in a fundraising career comes as some charities report finding qualified fundraisers. A report released early this month by the Foundation for Social Improvement reported that more than half of small charities found fundraisers one of the hardest types of staff to recruit.

Directory: Foundation for Social Improvement | Institute of Fundraising

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Geoff Sloan
28 Jun 2011

Anyone familiar with the roles appearing in the sector's recruitment pages currently will recognise that fundraisers are on high demand. If some industry or civil service escapees want to move into the sector to satisfy a need that's great. If they treat it like just another job (ie something you do for the paycheque) then maybe that's an attitude we've invited by the way some organisations have thrown the baby out with the bathwater in the quest for 'professionalism', so often at the expense of passion (and compassion). My own switch into the sector certainly wasn't a good 'career move', but it was a gave me the chance to make a difference to something other than just the bottom line. Shame if the bottom line is all these new would be fundraisers are recruited to have impact on.

[Reply]

Nigel Edward-Few
CEO
30 Jun 2011
Response to [Geoff Sloan]

I can honestly say that I am privileged to have a team that is 100% passionate and without exception, not in it for the money.

[Reply]

Nigel Edward-Few
CEO
27 Jun 2011

I hope that alongside any training designed to enable people to transition into the charity sector, that there will be encouragement to such individuals to honestly examine why they now want to join the sector; to face a reality check.

I am fed up with the third sector being seen as a soft option or just as a career choice. I too often meet people with no passion, but who just move from one charity to another in order to climb the career ladder.

We are not about selling widgets or commodities in this sector. If the only reason that people are considering it now is because they have lost, or are about to lose, their jobs in industry or the public sector, that is not a good enough reason to join the third sector.

Yes, professional skills are critical and those who have worked in industry or the public sector can bring those skills to the third sector.

Having started in the sector 40 years ago, I then did time in industry and commerce and then brought what I had learnt back to the sector in 1991. However, during the intervening 18 years while in industry and commerce, I never stopped working in the sector, but just did so as a volunteer for those years.

Let us understand that skills can be acquired or taught. But what is far more important to work successfully in this sector is passion for a cause, an empathy for our work and basic ability.

[Reply]

Keith Collins
Systems Director
Purple Vision
24 Jun 2011

This is certainly a hot topic at the moment.

As part of our Purple Proteges programme we recently held an event aimed at aspiring new fundraisers giving them insight into one of the most popular technology tools used by fundraisers

[Reply]

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