January 14, 2002 | Read Time: 1 minute
Q. Can you suggest any resources for nonprofit professionals who would like to transition out of fund raising and into another career or field?
A. We haven’t been able to dig up any books or other resources specifically aimed at fund raisers who hope to leave the field. However, we can tell you about some of the most common career paths for former development personnel.
Many become executive directors, says Walter Sczudlo, vice president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in Alexandria, Va. They also tend to move into jobs that require solid presentation skills, he says, such as public-relations or community-relations jobs. “A chief development officer at a university might go into alumni relations, for example,” he says.
In addition, some move from raising funds to managing them, in either nonprofit or for-profit fields. (See this story from our Career Network archives, “Fund Raisers Find For-Profit Jobs Give Them the Best of Both Worlds.”) But Mr. Sczudlo says these career moves are generally the exception rather than the rule. “I’ve been a little bit surprised how little financial training fund raisers have,” he says.
Mr. Sczudlo points any fund raisers who are looking for a career change to the bookstore section of the American Society of Association Executives’ Web site (http://www.asaenet.org/bookstore/). It lists a number of books that can offer practical assistance to fund raisers and other managers seeking to explore their options.
