Maintaining Fund-Raising Skills While on Family Leave

Q. Recently I left my career in development to be a full-time mother. What can I do to keep my skills sharp during the five-year period I expect to be home raising children? Is it possible to secure my status as a certified fund-raising executive if I’m not currently working? I am not interested in consulting, but I volunteer for a small museum that needs fund-raising help, and I already hold a master’s degree in nonprofit administration. Five years is a long lapse, and I hate to start at the bottom again.

A. Your instincts are correct: The best things that you can do while you’re taking an extended absence from working is to keep a toe in by sharpening your skills and volunteering, says Morgean Hirt, executive director of CFRE International, the Alexandria, Va., organization that bestows the professional credential of certified fund-raising executive. As for the question of whether you can become certified if you’re not currently employed, the answer depends on a number of different factors, says Ms. Hirt. The Certified Fund Raising Executive application process works on a point system. The certification board takes a look at the last five years of your professional life and awards points based on the hours you have spent professionally fund raising, and the amount of continuing education you have accumulated. The good news is that if you’ve just left your job in development within the past few months, you may have accumulated enough hours in fund raising and continuing-education credits over the past five years to overcome the amount of time that you’ve been absent from the work force to date — but you should act quickly to get your application in. (Learn more about how the points system works here.)

After you get your certification, which is valid for three years, you should look into getting an “inactive” status designation, which is designed for people who stop working for an extended period. The “inactive” status waives the working requirement the next time you apply, but you will still have to rack up your continuing-education credits.

Of course, the bad news is that if you didn’t have five years of paid fund-raising experience under your belt before you left your job, you won’t be able to qualify for certification until you return and accumulate those working hours. The best bet is to get in touch with CFRE International and ask for guidance. Call (703) 370 5555 or e-mail info@cfre.org.

Beyond certification, you should consider a couple of other steps, says Marilyn Benuska, director of individual giving at the Museum of Science and Industry, in Chicago. “Take a look at your own experience, and see where you have gaps,” she urges — and then sign up for a seminar or a conference to plug those gaps. Not only will you learn, but you’ll also meet people and keep your name floating around, which is just as valuable as the education, she says. You might also consider setting up a few informational interviews with nonprofit organizations in your area, just to learn about topics that you might not know much about. (Planned giving continues to be a hot area with a shortage of qualified job candidates, she says, and it is probably worth learning more about what it takes to arrange such donations.)

Just be careful not to take on more than you can handle while you’re home with family, says Ms. Benuska. “As development professionals, we’re always managing expectations of ourselves, and you’ll want to take advantage of that instinct. Make sure that you have not set your expectations to the point where you’ll be disappointed if you don’t have the time to do it all.” You may also want to check out The Best Friend’s Guide to Maternity Leave, by Betty Holcomb (Perseus Books, 2001, $23).

Q. Do nonprofit groups ever employ people who handle their advertising, or are such jobs usually handled by people outside the organizations? I recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, and I am looking for a job at a charity that would be similar to an account manager in the for-profit field.

A. Nonprofit organizations are certainly looking for people with marketing and advertising backgrounds, says Katharine Day Bremer, who serves on the boards of both the American Marketing Association Foundation and the Georgia Center for Nonprofits.

“Increasingly, nonprofit organizations are looking at the marketing discipline as a path to better communicating with their audience and thus enlisting them in helping them with the mission,” she says. “Communications are a critical part of what nonprofit organizations need to do, and thus someone with a marketing degree should find many opportunities within the nonprofit sector.”

Just as it is in the for-profit world, she says, some nonprofit groups hire their own advertising or marketing professionals, and some hire outside agencies to handle their communications needs — it varies from organization to organization.

The best way to track down marketing jobs in a nonprofit setting is to meet as many people as you can in the field, advises Ms. Bremer. One opportunity to do that is coming up: The American Marketing Association holds its first marketing conference aimed at nonprofit organizations next month. The meeting is slated for July 8 through 10 at the Wyndham Chicago. The registration fee ranges from $560 to $755, depending on whether you’re a member of the association. If you become a member, you can also connect with one of the group’s chapters in your local area. (There are 82 scattered around the country, click here http://www.ama.org/index.php?& for a directory.) The American Marketing Association offers a discounted membership for recent college graduates for $75 a year.

Q. I have spent more than 20 years in the hospitality industry, much of that organizing and executing special events. A large part of my work involves cultivating relationships within the corporate and social worlds. I believe that this experience would be very useful to a nonprofit organization but am having trouble finding work because of my “lack of experience” in development. What can I do to persuade a charity to take a chance on me?

A. You’re right — your experience in events organization should be very useful to a charity. So, first take a look at your résumé, says Paula Carabelli, director of the recruiter Spencer Stuart, in Irvine, Calif., which works with nonprofit clients. She suggests that you make sure that you “translate” your experience in the hospitality industry into experience that would be relevant to a nonprofit organization. By using terms such as “cultivation of relationship” and “stewardship,” for example, you make the relevance of your experience very clear to a hiring manager, and you show that you are familiar enough with the industry to use the correct terminology. (To learn the lingo and the language, Ms. Carabelli suggests attending professional conferences and reading publications that cover the nonprofit field. She advises including a cover letter that explains why your skills are relevant, and why you want to make the change.

Also, make sure that you’re applying to charities that hire their own staff to handle their events — some organizations hire outside companies to do those tasks, or use volunteers to handle events, says Betsy Pierre, president of Pierre Productions and Promotions, a Monticello, Minn., company that manages events for nonprofit organizations. To find organizations that hire staff members to handle events, she says, check in with your local chapter of the American Society of Association Executives; members of that organization are less likely to rely on volunteers to orchestrate their events.

Q. How do I register my organization for nonprofit status?

A. It takes two steps to register a charity: File with the Internal Revenue Service to get your federal income-tax exemption, and register with your state.

First you’ll want to spend some time with the 60-page document Publication 557, otherwise known as “Tax Exempt Status for Your Organization.” (This requires Adobe Acrobat reader to open. You can download Adobe’s PDF reader here). You’ll find other tax information for charitable groups elsewhere on the IRS Web site. For more information, take a peek at the Foundation Center’s compilation of Web resources on this topic.

It’s hard to say what you will need to do on a state level, since every state has different requirements. Check with your state charity officials to find out what is required of you. You’ll find a contact list for state charity officials at the National Association of State Charities Association Web site. While you’re there, check out the “Charitable Org 101” section. It gives you a brief summary of the basics you’ll need in place before you start filing official papers, including establishing a board of directors and creating an operational plan.

Got questions about job hunting, recruiting, or managing in the nonprofit world? Send them to hotline@philanthropy.com and look for answers each month.