April 17, 2011 | Read Time: 7 minutes
Sandra Adams-Doyle organizes nearly 200 educational events every year for more than 400 fund raisers at the Johns Hopkins University.
Fund raisers can attend a constantly evolving series of workshops, brown-bag lunches, Webinars, and courses on topics like public speaking and campaign accounting. New offerings this year include a “financial literacy” course to acquaint fund raisers with private equity, hedge funds, and other tools used by wealthy donors as well as sessions on storytelling—all designed to help fund raisers get the most from visits with donors.
The number of people assigned to training duties like Ms. Adams-Doyle is on the rise as the slowly recovering economy continues to put fund raisers under pressure to produce.
Rebecca Minsky, who has been studying fund-raising training efforts for Eduventures, a Boston consulting company, says that many nonprofits have cut back on spending to send people to conferences and other external training events.
As a result, she says, nonprofits “need to get creative with professional development. They need to do something to equip their development officers to succeed.” Jon Derek Croteau, a Rochester, N.Y., executive recruiter, says he knows of at least six institutions now creating new positions or advertising for additional staff members who will focus on training fund raisers, in addition to recruiting them and other duties.
And last month representatives from more than 50 colleges, museums, and hospitals gathered at a conference focused on how to improve training for fund raisers and related issues.
More Than Productivity
Improving productivity isn’t the only motivation behind a new focus on fund-raising training. As the job market improves, and organizations seek money for projects that were shelved or delayed during the recession, “we have to be much more competitive” in recruiting and keeping development officers, says Amy E. Bronson.
Ms. Bronson’s own position underscores that point: She is the newly hired director of recruitment and professional training at Boston University, now in the preliminary stage of what is likely to be a $1-billion campaign.
“Staff are really hungry to develop,” she says. “Offering training is a way to keep them engaged.”
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in Memphis, has a “boot camp” for new fund raisers and an invitation-only leadership course for experienced development officers on how to manage other fund raisers.
The boot camp creates a good first impression of the hospital among fund raisers, while the leadership course helps them advance.
Management Skills
Both sessions help keep turnover low among the hospital’s development staff, which numbers more than 1,000 people, says David McKee, St. Jude’s chief operating officer.
“People here see their peers get promoted,” he says. “We had 90 promotions in the past year, or about 10 percent of our staff. People tend to stick around because of this.”
Fund-raising training programs vary greatly, with some focused not just on getting better at soliciting money but also on managing others.
“As in many professions, a fund raiser is promoted because they are good at their job, but not all good fund raisers come with the skills you need to manage others, such as having difficult conversations,” says Betsy Rigby, who oversees fund-raising training offered by Partners HealthCare System, in Boston. “We haven’t built the skill set good managers need.”
At Johns Hopkins, officials have been working with Stanford University on a yearlong pilot program to teach fund raisers how to lead others.
In September six fund raisers from each institution started meeting quarterly, alternating between the two campuses. They have been reading case studies about management challenges, participating in team-building exercises, and working to develop new skills.
Focus on Mission
At many big nonprofits, trainers focus on helping fund raisers understand what the organization is trying to accomplish.
Says Bruce R. McClintock, a New London, N.H., fund-raising consultant: “Oftentimes gift officers don’t really know the side of the institution that deals with mission.” And without that, he says, “you are left trying to sell a campaign. You get into a fund-raising conversation rather than a mission-based conversation.”
To counter that problem, Dartmouth College brings its entire development staff, including those who work outside its New Hampshire locale, onto campus for three-day training sessions every quarter. They visit the university’s medical, business, and other schools and meet campus leaders. New fund raisers go on the same tour that the admissions staff gives to potential students and parents.
At Georgetown University, in Washington, Mark A. Longo, deputy director for development services, organizes sessions for fund raisers who work off campus to immerse them in the life of the institution.
For instance, to teach fund raisers about the university’s Jesuit roots, he held a training in a residence hall on campus where Jesuit priests live. Some of the priests made presentations, and the fund raisers joined them for a meal.
A Business Approach
Some charities reach beyond fund-raising principles to other disciplines to expand the skills of development officers.
For example, United Way Worldwide has created a three-day workshop for fund raisers at its local affiliates that’s based on the practices companies use to develop new products.
The workshop helps fund raisers make the transition from simply asking corporations to hold employee giving drives to approaching individuals for large gifts, according to Ann Fox, United Way’s vice president for individual giving.
“This is not just major-gift training,” says Ms. Fox. “When companies develop a product, they are clear what its function is, then they create features and benefits that help differentiate and sell the product.”
To apply that lesson in a pitch to get a donor to support a plan for improving high-school graduation rates, for example, she says fund raisers learn how to “define features and benefits and to think about who might care enough so they would make a significant investment.”
Sue Cordova, executive director of a local United Way in Leesburg, Fla., says that attending the product-development workshop in November enabled her to land two of the largest gifts her United Way ever received—$10,000 and $15,000—from two people who had never given more than $1,000 or $2,000 before.
“I can directly attribute $25,000 to this program,” Ms. Cordova says of the workshop. “Everything I’ve learned prior to this was how to ask for money. No one ever taught me how to find out how the donor wanted to see their money spent.”
Donors, she adds, “really don’t want to be asked for money. They are done being asked. But they still want to give, and this is a better way: Find out what they want to give to, and provide them with the service they are looking for.”
Coaches and Peers
Other national organizations are also doing more to help their affiliates get fund-raising training. The American Red Cross, for example, is now hiring “major gift advisers” for each of its 10 regional divisions.
So far, the charity has placed three fund raisers in those positions and is seeking seven more.
In southwest Florida, Ann Marie Welty helped the executive director of the Manatee County Chapter raise more than $500,000 in new donations in just four months last year.
The women collaborated to attract $150,000 from a couple who were longtime volunteers and then urged others to match the money.
One reason the Red Cross approach is attractive, experts say, is that people get fund-raising training from someone acting as a peer, rather than a superior, so they can ask questions and even make mistakes without the fear of endangering their jobs.
Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pa., hired a professional coach to provide confidential advice to 10 fund raisers.
Guy Hart, a San Diego fund-raising consultant who previously worked as a management consultant to Fortune 50 companies, led monthly two-hour workshops for the Lehigh University fund raisers and in between workshops held private telephone consultations with each one.
Joe Kender, Lehigh’s vice president for development, says that Mr. Hart has helped the fund raisers visit more donors, bring in more than double the amount they were raising previously, and do more to help one another succeed.
“A lot of companies do one-day seminars, and they are good,” he says. “But they do not bring systematic change.”
Keys to Successful Training
- Promote fund-raising training as a benefitrather than a chore that interferes with other responsibilities.
- Offer some training by invitation only to get the right mix of people.
- Find out what type of training and skills fundraisers want and need.
- Get feedback from fund raisers at every training event, and make frequent adjustments to meet their evolving needs.
- Make training as interactive as possible; offer varying formats that appeal to different learning preferences.
- Involve support staff members in fund-raising training as well as people from other parts of the organization.
- Tell fund raisers’ supervisors about the training they receive, and ask them to share related experiences from their own careers with the fund raisers they manage.
