Half of Fundraisers Start Careers by Age 27, According to New Data

Title: “Fundraisers, Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and Accomplishments II”

Organization: Fundraising School at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University

Summary: Twenty years after a comprehensive survey of the fundraising profession, an update shows that fundraisers over all are now entering the career at younger ages.

About 1,800 fundraisers, taken from the membership databases of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, were surveyed last year by Eugene Tempel, founding dean emeritus of the Lilly school, and Sarah Nathan, associate director of the Fundraising School. The researchers intend to publish a book detailing their data, but some preliminary findings were released at the annual conference of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in Boston on Sunday:

• Fundraisers said they entered the profession at an average age of 30.6 and a median of 27. In 1996, the average age was 33.5. (No median was reported in the previous survey.)
• On average, men started their first fundraising jobs at age 28, women at 33.
• Seventy-three percent of all fundraisers are women, up from nearly 55 percent in 1996. However, they are much less likely than men to hold academic credentials beyond a bachelor’s degree: Fifty-eight percent of women hold graduate degrees, compared with 71 percent of men.
• A larger proportion of men than women reported making salaries of $120,000 or more: Nearly 33 percent of men made that much versus just under 18 percent of women.
• Turnover may be overhyped, especially for fundraisers who have worked at least 10 years. Over all, women reported staying in their current jobs an average of four years, men just over five years.
• About 70 percent of all fundraisers said they plan to stay with their current organization indefinitely.