Firing Your Development Director? Join the Club

I remember when, decades ago, a community foundation in the Northeast decided to study the outcome of a grants initiative to build fundraising capacity at local nonprofits. Many of those grants were targeted to seed the funding of a development director under the assumption that the position would pay for itself many times over in subsequent years. The outcomes, long term, were not good. In fact, many of those hired under the special grants soon left and the organizations’ budgets were as depressed as ever (as were the executives of said organizations).

At the time, many believed that the problem was in the idea that you could insert a fundraising position into a nonprofit and that that step in and of itself would result in better fundraising. And why not? It is logical to believe that an organization with a powerful mission but no one to organize a fundraising program would benefit from foundation seed funding to create such a position.