A career in nonprofit development work can be immensely gratifying. Where else can someone fundraise for a noble cause while expanding a diverse and valuable skill set? In fact, development staff are often the backbone of successful nonprofit organizations, and the demand for seasoned development professionals remains consistently high. But what is actually required to thrive in a fundraising career? Let’s take a closer look at the eight key elements that effective fundraising professionals must understand to succeed.
“Fundraising that is sustainable, even expandable, isn’t really about money. It’s about building partnerships between your organization and its donors, partnerships that are built upon mutually beneficial goals.”
Larry C. Johnson, Author
Relationship Building Is Foundational in Fundraising
Yes, the word “Is” should be capitalized in this subheading. According to standard American English title case rules for blog headings and subheadings, all major words—including verbs like “Is”—are capitalized. This ensures consistency and professionalism in your formatting.
The fundamental building blocks of a career in nonprofit development include relationship-building, making connections and nurturing lasting ties with donors. Whether they’re planning fundraising events, writing grants, thanking donors or growing a planned giving program, development professionals must prioritize and cultivate relationships to yield significant dividends. The goal is to achieve sustainable fundraising by retaining existing donors rather than continually seeking new ones.
Constant Communication and Outreach Are Crucial
Fundraising requires continuous, consistent outreach that includes requesting meetings, confirming details, sharing program impact, securing sponsorships and thanking donors. The time spent communicating is considerable because it’s necessary to turn prospects into donors and long-term supporters. Communication can occur through various methods, including in-person interactions, phone calls, text messages, emails, video conferences and events. Any charitable organization that solicits philanthropic support must have a development team that builds rapport with donors through consistent, meaningful interactions that foster long-term engagement and investment.
Networking Is Key
Just as in many other aspects of work and life, who one knows is equally important as what one knows. A robust network opens doors for introductions, creates opportunities for conversations, removes barriers and facilitates in-kind donations.
Someone new to the field can build a network by leveraging their contacts and leading the board, staff and volunteers to identify and leverage theirs as well. A strong prospecting strategy helps nonprofit development professionals identify, qualify and segment high-impact prospective donors. Prospect research provides information on existing and potential donors, including philanthropic histories, wealth indicators and charitable motivations. Development teams use this method to evaluate a prospect’s charitable capacity and their affinity for a specific cause or organization.
Gratitude Is a Must in Nonprofit Development
While most development professionals are balancing a heavy workload with limited resources, thanking donors must be at the top of the to-do list. This simple gesture of gratitude is critical to donor retention because it demonstrates that the nonprofit values them and their contributions. Some donor recognition examples include things like:
- An automatic donor acknowledgement email that includes the organization’s full legal name, EIN and the date the gift was received.
- A handwritten thank-you note that follows the automatic email. This deeply meaningful gesture is likely to be appreciated more than an impersonal email or direct mail piece, which donors often discard. Savvy development professionals avoid overly formal language and instead use a more personal, conversational tone in their thank-yous.
- Consistent donor contribution acknowledgement across the organization’s social media channels. Development teams highlight individuals or groups or share a general post of gratitude if they don’t want to name anyone specifically. Additionally, they often tag sponsors to ensure donors receive appropriate recognition and use relevant hashtags on social features such as Facebook Stories or Instagram Reels to reach a larger audience. Team members may also request photos or quotes (along with consent to post) for social media.
- Annual gratitude reports acknowledge donors by highlighting their contributions in a widely disseminated report that documents budgeting, services and impact. Development professionals often group donors by donation range or list them alphabetically.
However, they convey their gratitude, nonprofit development professionals should address their donor by their preferred name and highlight any specific initiative or project the gift supports.
Donors Aren’t ATMs
Donors want to feel valued as partners and to know their contributions are making a meaningful impact. Development professionals who take the time to seek advice demonstrate that they value donors for more than their financial contributions and often find a wealth of resources in return. Listening and asking for advice, suggestions and insights are other ways for development professionals to show donors they are appreciated.
Organizational Strategic Planning Drives Fundraising
A nonprofit organization’s strategic plan should serve as the foundation for its fundraising strategy. A strategic plan outlines an organization’s future goals, identifies the steps needed to achieve them, and provides everyone (board members, employees, community members, donors and constituents) with an inspiring overview of the nonprofit’s mission and vision over the next three to five years.
Successful strategic planning can help nonprofit development professionals prioritize funding needs by identifying which projects and programs require funding, why and how they will be funded, and by ensuring alignment of annual budgets across all departments and board members, ultimately benefiting the organization’s mission and vision. The strategic planning process can also help strengthen organizational operations and systems by identifying areas where investing in better tools and processes can yield significant benefits. Development teams with access to effective donor management systems can streamline donor information and fundraising reporting processes, saving time and money and enabling them to focus less on managing data in outdated software and more on fundraising.
Organizational Needs and Wants Clarification
To succeed in a fundraising career, every fundraising professional should have access to an approved list of the organization’s needs (essential goods and services required for mission delivery) and wants (enhancements and enrichments to improve services and donor engagement) for each program and department. The ‘needs’ list might include operational funding for salaries, rent, utilities, insurance and outreach efforts, as well as special supplies and equipment. A ‘wants’ list includes items the organization wishes to provide for a specific program or service that aren’t critical to operations; they are not typically found in the organization’s strategic plan. A comprehensive needs-and-wants list provides talking points when speaking with donors who want to see how their contributions will make a difference. Having a specific need or want that a donor can fund will make it much easier to close a gift.
Proven Organizational Impact
People want to fund an organization’s impact, not its existence. It’s essential to understand and communicate the impact of an organization, program or project to secure the funding needed for its sustainability. Development professionals must provide donors with clear objectives and goals, as well as frequent, data-backed reports that demonstrate the impact of their contributions.
Development teams can implement internal systems to track their organization’s impact. These processes should include baseline data and methods for ongoing measurement and evaluation. A development professional should be clear on who will conduct the evaluations, how often they will be performed and how team members can access the reports.
Having a career in nonprofit development means cultivating relationships with donors to help them visualize their legacies and realize goals that have a significant positive impact. If you’re committed to making a real difference in the world, a fundraising career can be an incredibly inspiring and deeply meaningful way to achieve your goal.
UT Austin’s Center for Professional Education offers an online, self-paced Fundraising Certificate Program within the Nonprofit Management area of study to help you on your journey.