Volunteer Your Way to Experience on the Way to a Fund-Raising Career
By Roni F. Noland The Boston Globe September 9, 2007
Q.I am looking for suggestions on how to transition successfully from my current career in consultative sales to one in fund-raising. I have joined several associations and attended local conferences, but I am finding that even though there is a demand, most employers will not hire me without direct fund-raising experience. What else can I do?
A.You and I know that many of the skills you developed in consultative sales can transfer to fund-raising. As a salesperson, you know how to be persuasive, close a sale, focus on the bottom line, meet sales quotas, research and target customers, etc. As a fund-raiser, you would need to be results-oriented, have excellent communication skills, be persuasive, cultivate donors, and meet or exceed your fund-raising goals. The two descriptions may sound similar to us. But, to a hiring manager, they may sound totally different.
Employers are more comfortable hiring people who have held the very same or a similar job in a similar type of organization. You are attempting to change not only from sales to fund-raising but also to transition from the for-profit to the nonprofit world - a major change. Employers still view you as an "outsider." It's up to you to show that you can, as they say, "walk the walk and talk the talk." How can you do that when you can't get hired for your first job in the field?
You are caught in the "Catch-22" of needing experience to get experience. One way to gain fund-raising experience is by volunteering.
Just make sure that whatever volunteer opportunity you decide to pursue:
1. You commit to doing it;
2. You are successful at it;
3. You play a significant or a leadership role if possible;
4. You can point to a positive quantifiable outcome at the end - that you can add to your resume and talk about during an interview.
There are a variety of settings in which fund-raising occurs, and a number of activities involved in fund-raising, such as research, donor cultivation, direct mail, annual giving, capital campaigns, planned giving, and event planning. The more closely your volunteer work matches what you think your ideal fund-raising job would be, the better. If you have some idea of the general type of employer - education, healthcare, philanthropy, nonprofit, political, charitable, community, grassroots - you would like to target as your ideal employer, I suggest you try to volunteer in a similar type of organization.
