The Institute of Fundraising’s new five-year learning strategy aims to make career-long learning synonymous with Institute membership, and to elevate fundraising to an aspirational profession. Tania Mason reports.

The Institute of Fundraising has announced that within a few years time, a commitment to continuing professional development (CPD) will be a condition of membership.

Professional fundraisers who join the Institute will be required to prepare annual plans setting out their learning ambitions, what they want to achieve by the year-end, and their success criteria. A new CPD section on the Institute website will contain templates to help fundraisers record their targets and achievements, both in terms of their own professional development and how this has translated into raising more funds for their organisation.

The tools will be available soon, and the Institute will be encouraging members to use them, but within three to five years’ time the organisation won’t have you as a member unless you agree to engage with this process.

It’s a bold move, but as Paul Marvell, the Institute’s director of learning, explains: “It’s never been more important for fundraisers to be at the top of their game. The environment is tougher than it’s ever been and is only going to get tougher with the public service cutbacks after the change of government. Charities that have relied on government grants and contracts in the past will have an increasing need for voluntary funds.”

Marvell was hired into the new role of director of learning in May last year, with a brief to develop a “co-ordinated approach to learning within the Institute, including overseeing the continuing evolution and commercialisation of all learning products and services”. Last autumn he surveyed members on his vision and proposals for career-long learning, and says feedback was wholly positive.

“This has now become the number one priority for the Institute over the next five years,” he says.