Minority Fund Raisers Should Be Viewed as Partners

To the Editor:

The task force set up by the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel and the National Society of Fund Raising Executives (“Venture Capitalists Are Changing the Capital-Campaign Rules, Fund Raisers Told,” April 6) to focus on attracting people of color to the fund-raising profession would do well to begin its work by listening and learning before designing and launching a range of strategies to attract minorities into fund-raising consulting jobs, including new internship, mentor, and recruiting programs.

Listening and learning would be appropriate, as I have found as I conclude a three-year national research and leadership-development project on fund raising in and for the African-American community — research that has benefited from my career of more than three decades in this profession.

In my research, I have confirmed from N.S.F.R.E. data that the number of African Americans who are members of the society continues to be astoundingly small (1.9 percent of 22,000 members in 1999).

There is a wealth of strength, knowledge, vibrancy, and resiliency in the ranks of African-American fund-raising professionals, as well as in the institutions and organizations that they serve. Although these colleagues often work against great odds, African-American fund raisers understand and rely on their personal, professional, and community-based assets and strengths. In spite of a myriad of challenges, they have become extremely skillful in terms of seeking out and creating alliances with like-minded partners along the continuum of the philanthropic process.

Our assets and strengths will become increasingly valuable as the demographic changes under way in this country result in people of color assuming new prominence as the donors and volunteers of the future. N.S.F.R.E. and A.A.F.R.C. should neither ignore nor diminish the importance of our assets and strengths in their quest to diversify their own ranks.

The task force and the organizations it represents should view African-American (and other minority) fund raisers as potential partners — people who usually have as much to teach as to be taught.

Alice Green Burnette
Principal
Advancement Solutions
Palm Coast, Fla.