What You Should Do Before Building a Fundraising Team

Many nonprofits are seeking to diversify their incomes by hiring their first fundraiser or building a development team. The situation may be urgent for some, as state funding erodes or grant makers shift priorities. Others may need extra cash from donations to help launch a capital campaign or offer a new service.

But hiring fundraisers won’t automatically lead to more money, experts say. Whether your nonprofit is looking to start a brand new team or is rebuilding one that’s been hampered by vacancies, experts say you should focus on improving aspects of your organization’s operations and culture before you begin hiring.

The Chronicle asked for advice from people who have helped charities build development programs or hire their first fundraisers. Here are their key guidelines:

Understand that fundraising depends on more than just a development team.

For a fundraising program to work, an organization needs to do three things in addition to building a development team and budgeting for it, says Richard Walker, a senior consultant with Orr Associates:

• Build a strong case for support. Everyone at your organization should be able to explain why your nonprofit deserves contributions. If Trustees, executive leaders, program staff, key donors, and others close to the organization should work to create a unified message.

• Involve staff throughout the organization. Virtually all employees and trustees should aid fundraising efforts in some way. Program staff might share stories with fundraisers and communications employees to use in appeals. Those in executive positions should be raising money directly. “I always tell executive directors, CEOs, presidents, whatever their title is: ‘You are the fundraiser-in-chief,’” Mr. Walker says. “You’re the one that donors want to see and want to hear from.” Volunteers and supporters outside of the organization can also make connections with donors, he says.

• Compile a donor pool. Your organization should have a list of existing contributors, including foundations, companies, and individuals.

Mr. Walker says problems arise when nonprofits believe that hiring fundraisers is all they have to do: “A fundraising team is really only a small part of a successful development program. For many of these organizations, it’s a huge culture shift.”

Manage expectations.

If your organization lacks any or all of those three elements, leaders need to give new fundraisers time to make improvements in those areas before setting strict fundraising goals, Mr. Walker says.

If you’re only hiring one person, you need to be especially sensitive to his or her constraints, says Christopher Cannon, president of strategic services at the Zuri Group, a nonprofit consulting firm. The new employee might need to juggle several responsibilities on top of soliciting donors. like managing and updating a donor database or writing and editing appeals.

Mr. Walker’s expectations are simple. In a development director’s first year, a nonprofit should expect to lose money on that person. In the second year, the director will likely raise enough to cover his or her salary, benefits, and other expenses. By year three, the organization should see donations exceed what it spends on fundraisers and continue to grow from there.

Make sure people understand fundraisers’ expectations.

Everyone on staff — not just the executive director — needs to know what the expectations are for the new fundraiser or team, says Mr. Walker. People outside of leadership may place undue pressure on fundraisers if they don’t know what the team’s goals are — especially if those goals are modest.

Debra Ballinger Bernstein is director of advancement at Kids’ Country, an $8.4 million nonprofit in Danville, Calif., that provides after-school programs to middle-school children. She agrees that managing expectations is important. In her seven-plus seven months with Kids’ Country — which previously had no full-time fundraisers — she has concentrated on rebranding the organization and building its donor database.

She says she hasn’t raised much money yet, but the group’s leaders understand that she’s focusing right now on increasing public awareness of the charity and identifying potential supporters.

“I would never take a job where they said, ‘We need to raise $500,000 a year,’ when your brand is fuzzy and unclear,” says Ms. Bernstein, who has built fundraising teams at several nonprofits over her career.

She says her main goals for her first year with Kids’ Country are to launch an annual fund drive and start the quiet phase of a capital campaign for a performance and educational center.

Know how much you want to raise and how much you can invest.

That information will determine what kind of candidates you can hire, Mr. Walker says.

The salary for an entry-level fundraising position is around $45,000 a year, and someone with three to five years of experience can expect to earn $60,000 to $75,000, says Patricia Hampton, vice president and marketing partner at consulting firm Nonprofit HR — with the caveats that pay can vary by geographic region and depend further on which certifications the fundraiser has.

Ms. Hampton says organizations should consider paying an outside firm to conduct a market analysis to determine what similar organizations pay their fundraisers. Nonprofits can also call around to similar groups to check whether the salary they offer is commensurate, she says.

Let the director of development run the show.

When building a fundraising team, organizations should start by hiring a development director, Mr. Walker says. Once that person is selected, he or she should be leading efforts to make additional hires.

To determine what kinds of positions you should add, he says, do an analysis of your support, looking first at current donors then at lapsed and prospective contributors. Current donors — say, those who have given in the past two years — are the most important to review, because they might be easiest to persuade to give again.

“If I were a new director of development, that’s the kind of analysis I would do from day one,” Mr. Walker says.

Additional hires should be driven by the analysis. For instance, if your organization has a lot of companies among its donors, focus on hiring someone who can handle corporate relationships.

Groups also need to be cognizant of how much similar nonprofits raise, Mr. Cannon says. This will help them assess how many people they need to hire.

Ms. Bernstein says she’s been pleased that Kids’ Country has allowed her to hire the staff she needs. So far, she’s added a full-time communications associate, brought on a capital-campaign consultant, and hired contractors who help write and edit communications. A design firm is also leading the organization’s rebranding efforts and website upgrade.

“I am really happy with how much the organization has invested in this to date,” she says.

Putting money into development is essential, she adds. “It doesn’t mean it has to be a million-dollar development operation, but you do have to invest and ensure that department has the tools to do that work well.”