Fundraiser Education

How many fundraisers does your team have? One? Ten? Fifty? Mine has more than 1,700. Yep, you heard me right. The catch is, they don’t all work for the development director. There are fundraisers, relationship builders and donor stewards hidden all over the place. When done right, every member of your staff could be a fundraiser. But it takes work. So, let’s get to it. Here are five steps to unlocking hidden fundraisers in your organization.

Face it, if you're involved in any way with the fundraising community, the topic of engagement is almost always on your mind. That's where next week's Engage conference in Philadelphia can help.

Fundraisers may hear the word "no" quite often in their line of business, but it takes a "yes" person to be a truly effective fundraiser. Jeff Schreifels, senior partner at Veritus Group, says he's "encountered two distinct types of people that have both made an impression on us and served as predictors of their success in fundraising."

The future of fundraising belongs to those organizations that refuse to stagnate, that opt for evolution over revolution, and are willing to embrace the shift. A shift in the fundraising paradigm that fine-tunes your efforts and your attitudes.

It's never too early to plan for the year-end fundraising season. With that in mind, Ellen Cobb Church, CEO of Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co., provided five things fundraisers should already be doing to make sure they retain donors and improve income at year-end 2014 in her column "Looking Ahead to Year-End 2014":

As fundraisers, we can get caught up with the strategic planning for our programs and achieving our quarterly goals — so much so that we neglect any intentional effort to manage our own careers. We still grow and get recognition, but it may be more haphazard because we couldn’t find enough time to develop a plan for our own career. If you’re stuck in that whirlpool, here are some non-time-consuming ways to manage your career and, therefore, impact your future.

If you are eager to build on your Association of Fundraising Professionals International Conference on Fundraising experience, or if you were unable to attend and travel to Philadelphia in two weeks is viable, let me encourage you to take advantage of another learning opportunity. FundRaising Success' Engage Conference is April 10. This is a small, interactive, case-study approach to fundraising with a direct-response focus. Last year's inaugural event was one of the best I have ever attended — check it out today!

At the DMA Nonprofit Federation's 2011 New York Nonprofit Conference, veteran fundraising consultant Tom Gaffny provided 10 timeless keys to fundraising success that he's crafted over the past two decades during his session, "The 10 Commandments: 10 Ageless, Irrefutable, Non-Negotiable Keys to Optimizing Your Fundraising Success."

If you are associated with a nonprofit, you are a fundraiser. Nonprofits secure funding through a variety of methods, but what funding boils down to is that people believe the organization is filling some need that isn’t being addressed by other methods or organizations. Every single person, from a once-a-year volunteer to an entry-level employee to the board chair, has a responsibility to help raise funds to allow the organization to continue to serve its mission.

Obtaining, maintaining and sustaining in our profession is not easy. At the end of the day, the only one you can truly lean on is you. I agree with William Shakespeare. Trust yourself, go with your gut and seek to thrive, not just survive!