Fund-Raising Jobs Appear to Be Sprouting, but the Thaw May Not Last

The job market for fund raisers seems to be picking up, but it may never be as hot as it was before the recession. In the past two years, fund raisers have faced layoffs, pay cuts, and hiring freezes—even at the nation’s wealthiest institutions.

But now more organizations are hiring. At the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, online job postings for hospital fund raisers grew by more than 40 percent last month, after declining by as much as 70 percent at times in 2008 and 2009. And from January to late March, the Association of Fundraising Professionals reported 859 new jobs in its listings, up from 572 a year ago.

“Last spring there was nothing, but I really believe things are picking up,” says Zachary A. Smith, a recruiter in the development office at the University of California at Irvine. Although his institution is in a hiring freeze, he has noticed a rise in other institutions offering fund-raising jobs, and he expects it to grow in coming months.

“The job market is coming back,” agrees Marian A. DeBerry, director of executive search at Campbell & Company, a Chicago consulting firm that helps organizations recruit senior fund raisers.

Mixed Experiences

But other experts are less optimistic. “I do not see any uptick in hiring,” says Bruce Flessner, a Minneapolis fund-raising consultant who advises colleges and universities across the country. He adds: “The best I can say is that the job market is not getting any worse.”

Yet it is getting worse for some fund raisers. The Indiana University Foundation, in Bloomington, for example, last month announced that it will lay off 18 of its 201 fund raisers. The reductions are part of a second round of cuts to reduce the foundation’s $26-million budget by $2.4-million in salary and other expenses for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Until now, the foundation had been able to avoid layoffs, even when it slashed its budget by 10 percent this year.

Altered Job Market

Whatever their degree of confidence that jobs are coming back, recruiters and others say that the job market, especially for seasoned fund raisers, has been fundamentally altered.

Three to five years ago, “there was a hiring frenzy, a race to get bodies in seats,” notes Jon Derek Croteau, a fund-raising recruiter at Witt/Kieffer, a search firm that works nationally to seek executives for colleges and medical centers.

Now, he says, “organizations have become much more deliberate about hiring the right people.” They “really have to make the case” to justify new development jobs—and the salaries that come with them, he says.

When they do add a key fund-raising position, some organizations are cramming more responsibilities into the job description than any one person can reasonably handle, says Ms. DeBerry of Campbell & Company.

“You have a small organization who needs a strong development director,” she says. “They want someone who can do major gifts, the annual fund, set up systems, do events, and staff the president. They are short staffed and trying to get people to do more.”

In addition to new hires, recruiters are concerned about fund raisers who survived layoffs but are now working longer hours under increased stress with fewer resources.

“You have organizations hunkering down and cutting back, and people are getting more frustrated,” says Mr. Croteau of Witt/Kieffer. Opportunities for fund raisers to get training and pursue other forms of professional development, he says, “have really suffered in this recession.”

As a result, the burnout and lack of on-the-job support felt by many fund raisers could unleash a new wave of high turnover once the economy improves, he says. During the hard-charging hiring years, when some large organizations could bring in dozens of new development officers in a year’s time, Mr. Croteau says, organizations got very good at identifying and recruiting qualified fund raisers.

What they did not get as good at—and what may have suffered the most in these hard times—is their ability to keep talented development officers, he says.

The best fund-raising leaders, says Mr. Croteau, “know they have to do retention just as much as recruitment.” They should be treating their high-achieving fund raisers as carefully as they would treat generous donors, he says. But “this profession has not done a good job of talent management.”