Don’t Tell The Donor

Is Your Staff Running To Their Next Gig?

By “A Fundraiser …”

Recruiting, training, and retaining top notch fundraising staff is perhaps the single biggest challenge facing nonprofits today.

You can’t control postal rate increases or the impact of bad economic times on your donor’s ability to give. As a fundraiser, you might even be hopeless to control the quality of programming content or the effectiveness of your organization at serving its mission.

The good news is that you probably have more control over staffing challenges than most other variables and there are some incredible new resources available to nonprofit leaders to help recruit, train, and retain. The bad news is that far too few people seem to be using the available resources.

Most successful leaders know that the hiring process is critically important for preventing “bad apples” from even getting hired in the first place. Unfortunately, you can be the most selective interviewer on the planet, but if you don’t have quality prospective employees to choose from you aren’t going to build a quality team.

I know some smart Development Directors who go to fundraising conferences for the sole purpose of identifying future prospects they want to have on their team. They don’t care if the fundraiser is even looking for a new job. In fact, it doesn’t even matter if the Development Directors even have a current job to offer.

Successful leaders need to build a mental dream team of all levels of fundraisers they want working on their team and then actively cultivate those relationships. Write that down. The best jobs are the result of ambitious and aggressive future bosses who steal employees away from their current job. Good fundraising jobs go to fundraisers who know people.

If you need to advertise your job posting in a fundraising publication or an industry email listserve – you are either trying to fill a crappy position OR you don’t know prospects well enough to offer them the job. Either way, you are probably won’t recruit good fundraisers. Remember that.

When it comes to training existing staff, the world is a different place today than it was even five years ago.

Industry conferences have devoted significant time in recent years to the topic of staff training and leadership development. Professional development courses and nonprofit management graduate programs have expanded. Blogs and Web sites dedicated to nonprofit career empowerment have proliferated in recent years. Networking groups have been formed in cities across the country, not to mention the countless nonprofit leadership training books that have been published.

Unfortunately, as we all know, nonprofits don’t pay top dollar. While fundraisers often do enjoy higher relative salaries than their co-workers at the same nonprofits, it’s still only a fraction of what these skills could command in the corporate sector. As a result, staff retention can’t be achieved with money alone. Fundraisers need ambitious goals, realistic challenges, inspiring leaders, and supportive work environments… and as long as I’m dreaming… a decent amount of appreciation and thanks also helps.

Finally, despite all the best work in the world – some fundraisers will quit. They will go and get better jobs. They will be forced to relocate and need to turn in their fundraising badge. They could simply quit and then apply for the exact same fundraising job at another nonprofit because of the extra vacation time gained in between jobs.

But your staff may quit. And when they do, the amount of pre-planning and thought was in put into a transition plan is a true defining trait of expert fundraisers. Is there a rapid start to the beginning of the next selection process? Have formal responsibilities been documented and share with co-workers? Are those co-workers going to be expected to pick up all the pieces or will there be temporary help hired? How are vendors and key stakerholders going to be told of the news?

Being unprepared for staff transitions and allowing knowledgeable fundraisers to leave staff without properly passing on vital information can cripple an organization for years. Okay, maybe “cripple” is too harsh a word … but poor staff transitions can reek havoc on budget growth plans for several years even they are gone.

So, the next time you are create a to-do list and find all the usual critical day-to-day items such as: preparing Board reports, thanking donors, planning special events, writing solicitation copy for appeal letters, and reconciling with the finance department numbers… make sure you find time to add recruiting, training, and retaining your best fundraising staff.

Because is the true measure from which you will be judged. 

*Editor’s Note: Don’t Tell The Donor is one of the hottest blogs in the sector. It’s written anonymously because the author is well known in the sector and he/she/its bosses wouldn’t be pleased. Be assured, The NonProfit Times knows the author’s identity, at least enough to write the check. You’re going to have to trust us.