Changing From Social Work to Fund Raising

Q. I’m trying to make a transition from social work to fund raising, but am finding it very difficult. Any suggestions?

A. As with all career transitions, it’s crucial for you to figure out exactly how your past work experience is relevant to the job you now seek, and be prepared to explain how your past can prove useful to a new employer.

Some nonprofit fund raisers who once made the career switch you are considering say they have found ways to articulate the links between the two fields. Mary Jo Monahan, vice president of resource development at Family Service Centers, in Clearwater, Fla., sees a clear analogy between the community mental-health casework she did for 20 years and her current task of raising funds for a social-services organization.

“My clients had needs, and I found resources for them,” she says. “Now, my agency has needs, and I’m connecting up these needs with the resources of the community.” She proposes that philanthropists, too, are fulfilling their own set of needs through their acts of charity. Although her charity’s primary mission is to serve families, Ms. Monahan says, “Our second and equally important mission is to be a vehicle for the community’s generosity.”

Although the two fields may have much in common, social work and fund raising make very different demands on an employee’s personality and sense of self, says Joe Valentine, executive director of the Morris Stulsaft Foundation, in San Francisco, and a former social worker who headed several United Way organizations. “If you’re a casework person, for example, you’re geared toward creating one-on-one relationships, becoming very concerned with each client you’re working with,” he says. “You may not be as comfortable interacting with groups or asking for money.”

One way to discover if you can handle these situations, which are requirements of the fund-raising field, Mr. Valentine says, is through role-playing in the context of a training program, such as those offered by Indiana University’s Center for Philanthropy.

In addition to understanding and articulating the common ground between social work and fund raising, you must also find ways to demonstrate your willingness to learn new skills and take on new challenges.

Ann Ruff, vice president of development at CommonBond Community, a nonprofit housing provider in St. Paul, notes that her willingness to learn was the most crucial factor in her transition from social work to development. About 12 years ago, while working for a charity that ran training programs for child-care workers, Ms. Ruff offered to help keep the very small development department afloat while the board searched for a new chief fund raiser. By dint of hard work and persistence — supplemented by training in grant-proposal writing and other skills — she slowly convinced her bosses to give her the position permanently. Although the group’s managers had hoped to install someone with fund-raising experience, she says, they were won over by Ms. Ruff’s ability to learn. Also, she says, “I was loyal and committed to the organization, and that was something they weren’t necessarily finding off the street.”

Even if you don’t have an opportunity like Ms. Ruff’s to make the switch from one career to another within the same organization, there are other ways to demonstrate your willingness to learn. One place to start may be with the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which offers an array of professional advancement and certification programs as well as an annual international conference (the next one’s in Toronto, March 23 through 26). As with all career switches, your best bet for landing a job may be by developing a network of contacts through such an organization.