Becoming a fundraiser

Have I ever told you how I became a fundraiser?

I’m hesitant to share because I don’t often find myself interesting enough…

But I think in this case, there were a few reasons why my first fundraising job became a career lasting decades. And I hope that’s useful to you.

My first nonprofit job was in the box office of Arena Stage, one of the country’s oldest and most respected theaters. In a couple of years, I was managing a staff there of 25.

When I moved to Connecticut, I needed a job, pronto. And I found one at another regional theater, Hartford Stage. But this time, I was going to work in fundraising. The closest I’d come to that was dealing with kind and unkind board members and celebrities at the box office window.

But I saw it as a great learning opportunity.

Then, a couple of months later, the development director left.

There I was. Brand new and the only fundraising staff person.

It was the best thing ever

And that’s why I hope you’ll find this useful.

Here’s what we did. I worked with the marketing director, who had the managing director’s trust. That helped a lot.

Together, we began calling our peers across the country. (No internet.) We asked a lot of questions. And we asked for samples of their communications and how their donors responded. I can still remember the big binders I collected with this fantastic information!

Most of our focus was on fundraising in the broad sense. We had a great board and leaned on them for much of the major donor fundraising. (I didn’t know anyone yet, or how to handle an in-person ask.)

And we hired, for a little while, a couple of consultants. Their history was mainly political fundraising. But that meant they had a good grasp on metrics for direct mail fundraising. What to track, how to track it, why it mattered…

You guessed it, another binder. Those metrics were the model for how I tracked information for years to come.

We tried things. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they didn’t. But we learned from all of them. With the boss willing to grant us room to experiment, we learned a lot.

And we built a real annual giving program around direct mail. We encouraged local designers to give us a little help. A good mailing and printing vendor. And we tracked what worked and what didn’t. (No CRM yet… until we found one called Artsoft. Any arts fundraisers old enough to remember that?)

Mostly, it worked.

My takeaways for you:

Gain the trust of the decision-makers in your organization.

Without that, you’ll constantly be fighting useless internal battles. (Like who “owns” the email list…)

Often, that means demonstrating your skills and laying out your plans. So be prepared.

Experiment… but be smart about it

Yes, of course, try things. But build on what you already know. What worked last time? (What was the response rate? How much did it raise? Why?)

Be willing to try new ideas but do it intentionally. What do you think will happen with this new idea? How will you measure success?

Learn and learn more

I began learning how to write fundraising copy from Jerry Huntsinger. (No, he has no idea who I am.) But in those days pre-internet, Jerry offered a monthly newsletter about writing fundraising copy.

Be willing to engage a good consultant if you feel their expertise is what you need. Then make the most of the experience.

And fail… it’s a great teacher

If you’re learning, you will fail. That appeal we thought was so funny and so entertaining that everyone would give? Yeah, not so much.

Just be sure you squeeze all the learning out of the experience you can. Then move on. Try and try again.

Make peer connections – especially with other fundraisers

Now that we have such wide access online, use it. Get to know people who do what you do. Create personal connections… (I miss fundraising Twitter… I can’t tell you how many wonderful people I met there!) Try LinkedIn, but not to build your connections… read and respond to what’s shared there.

Ask questions. Share learnings. Take advantage of the great information just sitting out there for you!

Make these relationships worthwhile for everyone involved by giving as much as you take.

Teach new and non-fundraisers

One of the best ways to learn is to teach someone else. So once you learn enough to know what you’re doing, and the data reflects that success, teach others.

New staffer (fundraising or not)? Spend some time with them. Most people who aren’t fundraisers are scared of the idea of fundraising. But if they understand what you do, that’s better for them and you… and the whole organization.

Becoming a fundraiser is a life-long process

You may be in demand, at the top of your field… but you’ll never know it all. After decades, I know I don’t. Every day is a new chance to learn more. (That’s where those fundraiser relationships you’ve cultivated come in!)

You’re not perfect, but no one else is, either. And you shouldn’t be expected to be. Fundraising is all about relationships and building them. And perfect people – if they existed – might not be the ones to learn from. They’ve never failed, right?

So as Samuel Beckett said:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Photo by Andy Kennedy on Unsplash