Female Fund Raisers Fare Better in Some Parts of the Nonprofit World, Chronicle Study Finds

Women are more likely to reach the top fund-raising spot at the nation’s biggest social-service groups, international organizations, and health charities, while men dominate the senior-most development jobs at colleges and religious organizations, according to a new study by The Chronicle.

For example, of the 119 chief development jobs at the colleges and universities surveyed, 73 were held by men. Men also were more likely to run the fund-raising efforts of Jewish federations (holding nine out of 12 jobs in that category) and religious organizations (eight out of 11 jobs).

At college and university advancement offices, “moving up the ranks requires a definite commitment to continuing education and acquiring your Ph.D.,” says Paulette V. Maehara, president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in Arlington, Va. “And many women have their career paths interrupted by child bearing. Now, those are all choices a person makes, but that can be an impediment for women.”

The survey of chief development officers was conducted using the organizations included in the 2009 Philanthropy 400, The Chronicle’s ranking of the charities that raise the most from private sources. A total of 374 groups provided information about their top fund raiser; in three cases, the job is shared, and each person was counted as an individual, bringing the pool to 377 fund raisers.

Openness to Diversity

Women dominated at the social-service charities surveyed (holding 15 of the 22 total chief-development-officer jobs in that category). Females were also more likely than males to run the fund-raising operations at international organizations (29 out of 46 positions), health groups (17 out of 24 total jobs), community foundations (14 out of 24 jobs), and museums and libraries (10 out of 14). (Minorities in The Chronicle’s survey were most likely to be found in the top fund-raising jobs at community foundations and international groups.)

Claudia Looney, senior vice president for development at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, says she is not surprised that women predominate at social-service organizations, because many women get their start in fund raising by volunteering for such groups.

At hospitals and medical centers surveyed by The Chronicle, women hold a slight majority (18 out of 34 chief-development jobs). Ms. Looney says this might be because of how diligently such institutions track their staffs’ demographics.

At hospitals, she says, “we do measure our work-force diversity on a quarterly basis. And I think when you measure something and you’re held accountable for what it looks like, you tend to be more sensitized to that when you’re hiring people.” (However, The Chronicle also found that only two of those 34 jobs at hospitals are held by minorities.)

“We tend to see more women and minorities at organizations, as opposed to institutions,” says Steven T. Ast, an executive recruiter in Stamford, Conn., who specializes in filling top fund-raising jobs. “We tend to lump them all together; they’re all out there raising money. But there’s a real difference in the kinds of people who work for institutions versus the kinds of people who work for organizations.”

Institutions, he says, would include colleges and hospitals, which have a ready-made group of constituents. They are “anyplace that has a campus, a place where you can take a donor,” he says. Organizations, he says, would include social-service, health, or youth groups that may have a central headquarters but whose real vitality lies in their far-flung affiliates. Such groups, he says, have a less easily definable constituency, make a more emotional case for support, and, he says, are “much more open to diversity.”

Looking Ahead

However, other recruiters aren’t so convinced that the gap will continue to persist between the two types of groups Mr. Ast describes, placing more faith in the power of a generational shift to change the landscape.

“There will be more diversity based on who’s in the pool now,” says Marian Alexander DeBerry, director of talent management at Campbell & Company, a consultancy in Chicago that conducts 65 percent of its recruiting searches in fund raising. “We’ll see more women in those top jobs at universities, especially in public universities. We’re starting to see it now.”

But some organizations are also more attuned to seeking minority applicants and hiring them when their pool of donors or clients is more diverse, says Ms. DeBerry.

“Our experience has been that candidates of color will have an easier time being hired the more diversity exists within the organization,” she says. “It’s a perpetuating cycle.”