Should you be a Christian in Fundraising?
Written October 9 2024
Est. 14 minute read
Summary
At CFI, we help Christians discern meaningful, impactful careers tackling pressing problems. We think that working in fundraising has great potential to expand the capacity of an organization through activities like attracting donors, requesting donations, and cultivating organizational relationships.
Because of this, working in fundraising can be a great career path for some people! However, because fundraising roles serve primarily to sustain the current financial capacity of an organization and expand the budget to carry out new projects, it’s vital that individuals seeking to have a positive impact choose an organization that is carrying out high-quality and impactful work.
This in-depth guide explains fundraising roles.
What do we mean by fundraising?
By fundraising, we mean roles that focus on communicating an organization’s work to those with the means and desire to fund it. This can include grantors, foundations, or individuals.
This career path consists primarily of one goal: maintaining and expanding the financial capacity of an organization. Specific kinds of development work include:
Maintaining donor relationships: Development professionals may spend a significant amount of their time reaching out to current donors and maintaining relationships. Because current donors are more likely to continue giving and increasing their gift over time, this is a crucial part of development work.
External outreach: Additionally, development professionals conduct outreach to draw in new donors. They may network with current donors, use wealth screening tools, and cold-call potential donors to test organizational fit.
Soliciting: Through both virtual and in-person communications, development professionals solicit funds. For major donors, this typically entails a series of in-person conversations over several months to share the mission of the organization, explain the current needs and the potential for growth. For other fundraising campaigns, this work may include crafting emails geared for a specific audience – for example, former beneficiaries of an organization.
Brand cultivation: Although perhaps not intuitive, fundraising professionals are often responsible for creating the brand of the organization and ensuring it appeals to donors. While communications and marketing professionals may primarily focus on engaging the audience that will be most impacted or interested in their work, development professionals focus on ensuring the brand is appealing to financial partners. Tasks may include hosting events catered to partners, promoting organizational successes through emails, or training team members to cultivate a culture where all members of the team are considering their financial partners in their work.
Administration: Particularly in entry-level roles, there are often fundraising-specific administrative tasks such as creating receipt letters for donations, updating donor information, and managing the online record of gifts in a donor-management CRM system.
The extent to which you engage with each of these types of development work will likely depend on the size and flavor of your organization as well as your career stage. Some roles in development are more administrative, focusing on documentation of financial gifts and managing donor data; other roles are almost solely relational and may require extensive travel to meet with donors face-to-face. At the highest level, donor relationships will typically be cultivated by the CEO of an organization, or possibly, particularly in larger organizations, a Chief Development Officer.
Different kinds of fundraising
Major donor fundraising
A significant source of funding comes from major donors—high net-worth individuals who make large contributions. Fundraisers typically have multiple meetings with these donors, explaining their organization’s work and ensuring alignment with the donor’s goals. They may also be responsible for identifying potential major donors and reaching out to them.
Corporate fundraising
Corporate fundraising involves soliciting support from private-sector companies, who may make large donations to the charity or provide other support. Corporate fundraising often shares similarities with major donor fundraising in regards to fostering relationships and ensuring that their goals are aligned.
Public fundraising
Public fundraising encompasses various activities aimed at soliciting smaller donations from a larger number of people. There are quite a few methods of public fundraising, such as online marketing through advertising campaigns and newsletters, to in-person fundraising at events or even on streets or doorsteps. Fundraisers may be responsible for developing marketing materials, writing newsletters, organizing and participating in events, or helping to coordinate these activities.
Legacy fundraising
Legacies are gifts left to charities through wills. These are usually large donations left by people who care deeply about a cause—often due to personal experience. Fundraisers guide donors through the process of leaving gifts in wills and create promotional materials for legacy donations.
“It’s also worth noting that some of the tasks outlined above are sometimes also performed by communications professionals. Though these are distinct career paths, there can be overlap—and those interested in fundraising careers may also be interested in communications careers for similar reasons.” (ProbablyGood)
How Promising Is A Career In Fundraising?
When working for an impactful organization, fundraising work can be exceptionally impactful. In most cases, nonprofits are dependent on their fundraising team in order to have the financial capacity to begin and continue their work. Fundraising is often the forgotten first step between having an impactful idea and actualizing it. Here are some examples of how this work can change the trajectory of an organization:
Source high-networth donors
Finding the right audience is the first step to creating a profile of donors. In a more established organization, this may look like recultivating relationships with previous donors that have fallen through the cracks or it may look like having conversations with current donors about soliciting their family and friends. In a brand new organization, this will also include using wealth-screening tools to determine who would be a good candidate with respect to both interest and financial capacity.
Initiate and cultivate relationships with potential partners
Whether through pre-existing connections or when starting from scratch, the next step is getting to know prospective donors. This includes taking people to coffee, setting-up Zoom calls, and attending parties and events. Additional context will be helpful when engaging with potential partners so take your time to research their present financial commitments to other organizations, their religious affiliation, and their present personal circumstances (i.e. someone with financial capacity may still not be in a position to support an organization if they have two kids in college and are already donating to several other organizations, etc).
Solicit for gifts
Once an initial relationship has been established (note this may take several months or even years if communication is scattered) it is time to gauge their interest in funding the organization. Hopefully you already know they have some interest in your organization, either through volunteering or otherwise. Best practice says it is best to never blindside people with financial solicitations.
To avoid scaring away potential funders, you can set up a meeting to discuss financial needs and the vision for the future of the organization, using a tool called a Case for Support. If this conversation goes well, you would then follow-up with a request to schedule another meeting to request a gift. This can be a more casual conversation once they understand the financial needs of the organization and are already inclined to make a gift. This part of being a fundraiser is what most often scares people away from a career in fundraising, but, in our opinion, is one of the ways you have the most potential to make a great impact for a nonprofit. Excellent people skills and a genuine desire to know people and what they are excited to support could make you a great fit for this role.
By successfully securing gifts from partners and showing genuine interest in their lives, you have the potential to greatly expand the capacity of an organization that is radically changing the world.
Follow-up with donors
Another crucial skill to have in this field is follow-up. Donors, like any other relationship, require consistent communication and updates. Good communication can make the difference between maintaining long-term donors and getting a small, one-time gift. Adequately communicating with donors is crucial to the success of donor relationships – especially over time.
Advantages
Can greatly expand an organization’s financial capacity and ability to take on new projects – Fundraisers have the capacity to direct funds towards effective causes. They not only maintain the current budget, but a good fundraiser can greatly expand the budget and can either increase the number of people that are helped or expand the variety of interventions possible (i.e. more diseases could be treated by a global health charity).
Relevant for a variety of organizations and causes – There are opportunities to fundraise within political, religious, global health, animal welfare organizations, and research institutes. This means that there are a wide variety of possible organizations to work for as a fundraiser, and you can find a problem area that is both engaging to you and deeply impactful.
Roles are available for various backgrounds – There is limited training specific to working in fundraising prior to work experience. This means that it's possible to enter from a wide variety of backgrounds! A background in communications, nonprofit management, or marketing may be useful, but the most important thing is that you enjoy engaging with people and can accurately communicate the vision of an organization.
Disadvantages
Working for a for-profit may offer better career capital – Many people coming into fundraising have a career in marketing, business, customer relations, or communications at a corporate institution prior to coming into fundraising. It is much easier to go from a for-profit institution to a nonprofit than the other way around. Working in fundraising for a nonprofit can make it more difficult to transition to the for-profit world, and you will likely begin in a more administrative role as you are trained.
Underappreciated – Although fundraising is crucial to the success of a nonprofit, fundraisers may be seen as not as important because their work is confidential and separate from the programming.
Involves rejection – While the process of asking for gifts is designed to prevent surprises for donors, people will still say no to your requests for funds and some may be offended by your solicitations. Fundraisers need to have thick skin and not take it personally when people do not want to fund their nonprofit. It is often related to their situation or a philosophical disagreement with your organization and is not a personal slight against you.
Is It A Good Fit For You?
It is important that you enjoy the work you are doing, or you are highly unlikely to be impactful or successful. This means considering factors such as your personal motivation, skills, life stage, and personal life commitments, particularly in light of God’s call to care for our families. Probably Good has a great guide for considering your personal fit. With this in mind, could this be a good fit for you?
Would you be a good fundraiser?
You are a great salesperson – Fundraising is sales – if you like sales, you might be great at fundraising. Are you able to easily talk your friends into doing things? Are you confident and convincing? Are you committed to the “product” you’re selling? If these describe you, you could be great at fundraising.
You are interpersonally skilled and enjoy talking to people – This role requires extensive interpersonal communication. If your idea of a dream job includes talking to people consistently and regularly initiating meetings with people, this could be a great fit for you.
You are a great communicator – Not only do you enjoy getting coffee with people and discussing the work of your organization, but you are skilled at conveying these ideas through social media, fundraising campaign emails, and you know how to convey relevant information to the target audience. You know what different audiences are interested in, and you are able to communicate to them separately in a way that makes them more excited to contribute to your organization.
Would you be satisfied in this role?
You genuinely want to know people – One of the guiding principles in fundraising is that people give in the context of relationships where there is trust and transparency. If you enjoy developing genuine relationships based on a shared love of your organization’s mission, you might be a great fit for fundraising.
You don’t mind working behind the scenes – Like many roles that engage with finances, much of your work may be confidential to both the public and within your team. This means that people may not fully understand what you do or may misasses the value you add to the organization.
You don’t mind asking people for money – At the end of the day, working in fundraising means asking people for money. This can be uncomfortable and will involve rejection at some point. While no one loves rejection, if you don’t take it personally, you could really enjoy fundraising.
How can you test the fit?
It can be challenging to weigh not only impact and areas of interest, but also life stage and personal fit. Here are some suggestions to help you “try on” fundraising before you commit to a role:
Get a job or internship in sales – We’ve been told that sales experience is very similar to fundraising. Most fundraising professionals will tell you the worst part of the job is asking for money. A great way to see if you would enjoy asking for money is to get sales experience. Additionally, getting a job in sales will allow you to explore this career while building broader career capital in the corporate world before transitioning into the nonprofit sector.
Explore relevant coursework – Courses in nonprofit management, sales, marketing, or psychology can all prepare you for fundraising careers.
Intern or volunteer for nonprofits that interest you – Fundraising is as satisfying as the project you’re funding, meaning, if you are not excited or motivated by the project you’re raising money for, the work will not be engaging. So find out what causes excite you! A great way to do this is to intern or volunteer for different kinds of nonprofits. This will give you insight about what kinds of issues you’d be eager to fund.
Priorities For An Impactful Career
Pick a good organization
Fundraising is as impactful as the organization you are fundraising for.
So how can you test the impact of an organization? How can you know it does what it says it does, and does it well? This can be challenging because 1) it is often true that the most impactful organizations are the most competitive organizations and may not have many positions in development 2) most nonprofits believe in their mission regardless of the output. However, there are a couple of things you can look for to assess an organization.
First, you should check whether both the organization AND the team you want to work on are addressing a high-priority cause area. There are areas you can work on that will have a significantly greater impact on the world than others, based largely on the ITN Framework. (More on that here).
Not only do you want to ensure that the quality of the project you are working on is important, tractable, and neglected, but also that the execution of that project is such that the organization is having a significant and positive effect on the problem. One way to test for this is that the organization regularly conducts tests and values concrete data (statistics) that guide their decisions rather than basing the success for their organization on a gut feeling or failing to measure it at all.
Now for a brief caveat. The caveat here is that not every meaningful action can be measured, and not every problem God calls us to address is going to appear impactful. Sometimes God calls us to do things that create character in us even if they are unpleasant or don’t seem to impact the world in a significant way (i.e. taking care of ailing parents, raising children, or taking a less impactful job to accommodate the needs of a child or a spouse).
However, many Christians do not feel a clear calling and do not have external obligations. In the absence of other commitments to God, family, and friends, we think that considering the effectiveness of an organization in a cause area that transforms the world is a great strategy to steward God-given talents and time!
So Now What?
Entering the development field
Entering a new field either because you are a fresh grad or because you are changing career paths can be daunting! While some career paths are well-traveled, with development, that is less true. Here are some consistently reliable ways that can assist you as you enter the field of fundraising:
Education – As we’ve mentioned previously, development is closely linked with sales and marketing, so a business degree that emphasizes sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship can be exceptionally beneficial. Additionally, the higher level of a degree you have, the greater your opportunities for advancement. If you want to work in fundraising for a long time, investing in an MBA or a Master’s of Nonprofit Management could accelerate your opportunities and inform you about best business practices. As a fairly flexible field, degrees in communications, education, psychology, and other social sciences can also prepare you to write, engage with, and create partnerships.
Subject specialization – While being a fundraiser does not usually require substantial technical knowledge, a general understanding of what the organization does and why it does it is crucial to be a successful fundraiser. You will also be more successful in an area you are passionate about. For example, if you are interested in global poverty, getting work experience, internships, or volunteer experience at a global poverty NGO could radically improve your odds of getting a development job in that cause area.
Writing, blogs or student publications – As much of development is communicating with donors, having a plethora of communications skills would set you up for success. A great way to demonstrate both an interest in a field and also excellent writing skills is to start a blog or a writing project related to a cause area you care about. This will prepare you to write compelling stories in development work and will also teach you about the cause area.
Other work experience – In addition to a relevant degree, writing samples, and a demonstrated interest in the field, you can enhance your resume with technical skills such as CRM management (examples of CRMs used by nonprofits include SalesForce, Virtuous, Bloomerang or Airtable), event planning, and customer service experiences.
Particularly in a small organization, you will likely be asked to do many tasks that do not obviously fall under your job description. Getting a diverse range of experiences can improve the likelihood you land the job and that you are advanced within the organization once you do.
Summing Up
If you think an impactful career in development could be for you, remember to:
Test the reputability of the organization
Identify a cause area that is greatly impactful and aligned with your interests and strengths
Get experience in sales, marketing, business, or nonprofit management
Choose a relevant major
Prioritize creating good writing samples
Need help discerning your career? Sign up for our free one-on-one impact mentorship here.
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Do you have any career uncertainties? Click here to read our article on three big career uncertainties you can trust God with.