Help Someone Else Succeed

I have come to believe that those who contribute the most to the leadership in our profession, as well as achieve the greatest success raising funds for their organizations, are those people who were mentored and inspired by other development professionals.

When we conduct a search to recruit new talent to fill a chief development-officer position, we always ask our candidates to describe the individual, or individuals, who most inspired them early in their careers. Invariably, we find that candidates who were fortunate enough to learn the secrets of fundraising from a talented development professional have achieved higher levels of success in the field than those who never had the privilege of learning from another “great.”