Professional development is skills and knowledge gained for personal development and career advancement. There are a range of approaches including consultation, coaching, training, study, mentoring and reflective supervision.
The Institute for Fundraising has called on the government and opposition parties to commit to promoting fundraising in their upcoming election manifestos through a three-point action plan.
Friends of the Earth is operating without a permanent director or head of fundraising more than a year and a half after the departure of its previous director of fundraising, Ruth Ruderham.
Lots of things have changed for Fundraising magazine this year, but our longstanding commitment celebrating excellence in the sector is not one of them. The Fundraising magazine awards are back for 2010.
So we learn that the typical director of fundraising in the top 100 charities by income is a 45-year-old man. But 47 per cent of fundraising directors in the top 100 are women. That doesn't mean, however, there is gender parity in civil society organisations.
An e-mentoring scheme designed for civil society organisations is set to be launched across the European Union.
This month, Civil Society Fundraising releases the findings of the first survey of directors of fundraising in the top 100 charities by income. In what will be an annual, tracking study we discover who exactly is in charge of filling the purses at the UK’s largest charities. Vibeka Mair reports from behind the directors’ chair.
Two top fundraising directors have left long careers in charities to work in agencies.
Three fundraisers are leading the way in the inaugural Clore Social Leadership Programme, a new £1.5m initiative led by Dame Mary Marsh to identify and develop emerging talent in the third sector. Rowena Lewis, head of fundraising and development at the Fawcett Society, Faith Reynolds, development manger at Toynbee Hall and Caroline Beaumont, deputy head of corporate development at Action for Children will join 11 other fellows next year for a personalised leadership development programme including mentoring, coaching, peer learning, research projects, residential training and working in challenging contexts.
The shark-infested waters of consultancy can be daunting to navigate, says Helena Sharpstone There were so many things I wanted to be when I grew up. I changed my mind almost daily as I considered prison officer, restaurateur, barrister, belly dancer (yes, really) and lifeguard. I don’t ever remember saying I wanted to be a consultant. I’m not sure I would have known what one was. Yet that is what so many of us end up choosing to do, whether it be management, marketing, fundraising or in my case, learning and development.
Conference plenaries should not be based on tales of risky endeavour or attempts to inspire, they should challenge and motivate, says Ian Macquillin.
A former development director with Scope has become the chief executive of two grantmaking charities – Community Foundation for Merseyside and Community Foundation for Lancashire – in a new partnership which will see the foundations share a finance and grants team, but retain separate fundraising departments. The scheme has been set up so the ten-year-old Community Foundation for Merseyside can support the newly-formed Lancashire Foundation in its development
Eric Grounds has been mentoring Uta Hope (pictured), director of development at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, London, for more than a year. They were introduced by a mutual friend and meet every two months over lunch. Hope has been a fundraiser since 1994 and has worked in the UK and Canada for a range of different sized charities including the British Red Cross, the Royal British Legion, Elizabeth Finn Care and the World Monument Fund.
As someone who does the conference rounds a lot, I too am constantly frustrated and let down at the lack of charity representation, particularly from 'small shops'. I read a great piece in the latest edition of Canadian Fundraising & Philanthropy's e-newsletter about Canadian fundraising stars missing from conference stage. Hot on the heels of an earlier post of mine endeavouring to make conferences really useful, this caught my eye.
A new European training consultancy has been set up by Professor Adrian Sargeant of Indiana University and Tangible Response’s Stephen Pidgeon. The venture will see the industry stalwarts travel Europe teaching the Institute of Fundraising’s Certificate in Excellence to fundraisers. Pidgeon (pictured right), who will go part-time at Tangible Response while remaining chairman of the agency, said that the pair plan “to influence the development of fundraising over the next ten years”. Both Pidgeon and Sargeant are accredited by the Institute, but the venture is not affiliated with the umbrella body.
Last Wednesday, while the world hung on the Chancellor's every word, I was closeted with four others considering something of real significance- the Professional Fundraising Awards. In the past I have been a bit sceptical about the value of awards for doing one’s job – people in charities work because the job needs desperately to be done, not for prizes – so maybe I felt a bit of a fraud when I accepted the invitation. But I was intrigued. And OK, yes, flattered to be asked.
The sector remains heavily enamoured of innovation. But as the code of practice on payment of fundraisers is drawn up, are fundraisers ready to put their money where their mouth is?
Raccoons and a paralysing fear of failing What the hell have raccoons got to do with a fear of failing? Well, nothing. At least on face value. But I wanted to write about both today and there is a link. Let me explain. You see, I’ve blogged a lot over the past year about what’s different/ the same about working in the Canadian charity sector and other parts of the world I’ve worked in.
It might be easy to think of consultants as people who are raking it in.In fact I earn less than most of the heads of fundraising I work with; it's as much a lifestyle choice as anything else.I think anyone who works in a for-profit company in this sector will be keenly aware that ultimately it's usually the client's donors who pay for our services. So we had better be good and add real value.
For some, fundraising conferences mean horrible sandwiches and really bad (almost airline like bad) coffee... In fact, I blogged about this back in August when I talked aboutThe power of learning. But seriously, I am so passionate about this I wanted to blog (rant!) about it again.
At Mencap our fundraising team are recognised for their hard work and dedication but one team is often overlooked. Those who don't work in fundraising can be excused for not mentioning the database and fulfilment teams, but there is no excuse for us fundraisers taking them for granted. Each type of fundraising requires specific skills and experience, but the database team need to have an understanding of how all fundraising teams use and interact with the database.
Having been fundraising for nearly 25 years, mostly in Higher Education (HE) you would expect me to answer "yes" to the question "is HE a charitable cause?" So what is the compelling message that is enabling fundraising to have big impacts in HE? Last year the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge each raised more than £100 million, and for many universities, gifts of £1 million or more are becoming sufficiently frequent that they are no longer big news.
Independent Age is to restructure its fundraising and communications teams following an organisationwide strategic review, which has resulted in the development of new services.
Female directors of fundraising earn about £10,000 less per annum than their male counterparts, a recent survey by PF has found.
Five third sector organisations will have staff trained up in computer and communication skills as part of a new programme launched by telephone giant BT yesterday.
Cranfield School of Management is offering two MBA scholarships to voluntary sector managers. The scholarships are worth £28,000 each and are open to managers working in an European voluntary organisation involved in issues of poverty, disability or social exclusion.
International NGOs need to step in to help central European charities struggling to move beyond the most basic fundraising practice. This is the message from Resource Alliance, a charity aimed at growing fundraising capacity around the world, which found that central European third sector organisations have neither the resources nor the training to develop their fundraising techniques and grow their income streams.
PF has teamed up with nfpSynergy and Professor Adrian Sargeant of Indiana University in America to find out what type of research would be most valuable to fundraisers in order to help them work more effectively and raise more money.
The professional standards for fundraisers and the way they manage volunteers are being reviewed in order to make them more relevant to the needs of practising fundraisers.
Fundraisers and charities unsure of the skills they need in order to raise money effectively can now turn to the new National Occupational Standards for guidance following their publication in April.
Sector practitioners are to teach the next generation of fundraisers the skills of the profession in the first entry-level training programme for fundraising.
