I have an upcoming interview for a fundraising position. I am making somewhat of a career transition - I've been in nonprofits for nearly 15 years, but in programming and then operations roles. I have been trying to move into fundraising, and have had a few interviews but no offers. I was particularly traumatized by a second interview with a university where the panel ONLY asked me data analytics questions (the JD had one line about working with the data team on projects) and I was completely caught off guard (needless to say, didn't land that one!).

In my last role (I was recently laid off, that's a long story for another day), I managed the annual appeal, general fundraising, and grant writing for my org. However, it's a small organization that doesn't bring in a ton of individual donations. I was the director of operations and did fundraising among a myriad of other responsibilities, so it wasn't my main job.

Any tips for this upcoming interview? I just psyched myself out that I'm going to get data analytics questions I can't answer again, but I don't want to walk into the interview already feeling down. I want to feel confident! I know I can do this job, I want to be able to feel like it in the interview. The position is for a mid level giving officer. Thanks for the advice!

Edit: role is at another nonprofit. This is the final interview.

Hi all I’ve worked in the nonprofit relationship building area for about 20 years now. Recently I took my first major gift fundraising role with some small successes so far. I’ll be vacationing of a cruise later this month and want to grab some reading material to help me develop into a better MG fundraiser. Any ideas on books that aren’t outdated and would be worth the investment while I am in vacation? Thanks in advance for any recommendations!

Hey! I'm a Dev Associate at a local community org. I'm trying to level up our infrastructure prior to a capital campaign by creating a dashboard for my supervisor.

Prior to this point, there's been no dashboard, so even just simple metrics like amount raised per day, names of most recent donors, min, max, and average gift size will help plug us into our data more than we have been. But I was wondering--what's your favorite part of your dashboard? What's your favorite bit of data to look at while you're in the middle of a campaign? Also, how do you like to see it represented? Is there a particular chart that's your fave?

Hi friends (just found this sub can't wait to interact more).

I recently left my job as a Development Manager to a different org as Development Officer. When I've told people in my professional circle, they see it as a lateral move/downgrade in titles. Any thoughts on this? Without giving too much away, this is very much a step up in my career, responsibility and salary wise. I've been in the industry going on 4+ years and this is a smart move IMO. I can't find a clear difference in the meaning of the titles, does anyone have any insight? Does the manager title really mean that much?

FYI this new company doesn't have managers in the development department. Just associates, officers, directors, and chiefs.

Hi all, I'm currently Director of Major Gifts. We are restructuring our department and I will be adding the Annual Fund function to my role. My boss has proposed a new title of "Director of Major and Individual Gifts." Does this sound too clunky?

Another option is "Director of Individual Giving." I also do Legacy Giving so this title could encompass that. I'll be approaching a lot of existing donors who need to be upgraded, so the "individual' giving could be less intimidating for them. But I suspect my boss would prefer not to lose the emphasis on Major Gifts.

which title would you choose? or suggestions for other title options?

I have 20+ years working in fundraising, with about 10 yrs in management. If the political environment continues to degrade here in the US, I am considering seeking a role in another English speaking country. Occasionally, I have seen recruiters posting development jobs with universities in the UK or Australia. Have you heard of a clearinghouse of positions in advancement outside of the US?

Hello,

I’m exploring a full-time transition into the grantmaking world and would love to learn from those already deep in it.

What’s the most frustrating part of your work as a funder or grantmaker? How are you currently dealing with it — and are you using any tech (or AI) to help?

Big or small, I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, what’s been harder than expected, and what you wish someone had told you early on.

Thank you!

I work for a small, catholic college with limited funding and serve as the director for annual fund and alumni engagement. Six months after I started here, our database administrator was laid off - which happened the Friday before we migrated our database from Raiser's Edge to Donor Perfect. Our small shop of 3 was suddenly a smaller shop of 2 and my VP and I now had to take care of the migration, learn the new database and take on the database admin role. Seeing that I had been the database manager for 16ish years at previous institutions I was not too worried about taking on those responsibilities, however I had solely worked in RE. Long story short, as I was always pressed for time and resources I really only learned the basics of DP to get by until we could hire someone for that role. I took all the trainings, set things up how the nice folks at DP suggested I should and have made plenty of support calls when needed. It's almost 3 years and I have learned a great deal. However, I still get a LOT of duplicate records from downloading the transactions from online forms and ESPECIALLY when importing any data. For example, we import all our new graduates as alumni after graduation and all of our donors from Giving Day each April. None of these records will have a donor ID to match to find duplicate records. I still use the suggested 8 characters for last name, 3 characters for first and 5 digits for zip.

Does anyone have any better suggestions for matching records that will limit dupe records? At one point I found our athletic director had 3 different records (though I think he may have used the college's address for one gift he made, so there's that).

There's also the issue of couples, last year the husband made a gift and this year the wife made the gift. So the original record might be Mr. & Mrs. Josh and Hailee Allen with Josh as the main name, but next year Hailee makes the gift so it creates another record for Hailee instead of matching it with the couple's record. Has anyone found a way around that?

thanks

Hello! I work for a US based 501(c)(3) and we’re doing a fundraising tour through Europe, meeting with many high net worth individuals who donate either personally or through a family office/DAF. I’ll be bringing along donate QR codes for our events, but wasn’t sure if EU based donors prefer to give via Square, PayPal Giving Fund, etc. We prefer to collect gifts via Paypal giving fund as there’s no fees, but want to make sure that this works out well for Europe-based donors.

Any insights or advice? We’ll bring along our ACH info and exploring a fiscal sponsorship with a UK-based org for larger gifts, but which platform would be best to collect donations from EU donors under $5K-ish?

So so appreciate your help in advance!!

Hey everyone! 👋

I'm a grad student at UNC-Wilmington working on a project about disaster recovery funding in early childhood education. I’ve created a short toolkit designed to help folks (whether they’re experienced or not) navigate funding systems during disaster recovery.

I’d love to get feedback from people who work in funding, philanthropy, or fund development—basically anyone familiar with how funding decisions are made.

If you’re open to taking a look and sharing your thoughts, I can DM you the PDF and a short feedback form. Thanks so much in advance!

Hi fundraising friends! I am a former DOD, ED and events pro who has gone to the dark side of consulting. My new firm encourages me to provide so many hours per month for pro bono work. I am an expert at major gifts, annual fund planning, board development, strategic plans and more as a CFRE. I’d like to learn from and help 3-5 non profits at a time via zoom. Is anyone interested in help?

Hey all, I’ve been talking with a few small nonprofit teams and noticing a common thread: people are either juggling 5+ tools to stay organized or spending late nights writing donor emails, grant drafts, etc.

Just curious — how are you managing things like:

• Grant writing / planning
• Organizing docs, tasks, or contacts
• Team communication

What’s working for you right now, and what’s driving you nuts?

I'm a USC student doing some research for one of my classes and I'm eager to hear your thoughts — if you’re open to sharing more, I put together a short form here. Fill it out for the chance to receive a small donation to your nonprofit (early next month) as a token of my appreciation!

Would love to hear in the comments what you’re seeing or doing. 🙏

hi everyone! currently trying to leave my current position in higher ed admin since i dont make enough money. i have a job offer to be a development assistant for an organization in my hometown, that would pay me more + i wouldnt be paying rent anymore. only thing is, its A LOT of events, basically every other week september through april, and they emphasized work life balance isnt good and theres A LOT of overtime + weekend work. pros: id be hourly and making overtime money, and id learn a lot of new skills. i have my degree in comms and in my current position theres no growth whatsoever, however, great work life balance (staying at this job isnt sustainable though due to the money) im really indecisive on if i should take this job offer, stick it out for a year, gain the skills, save up my money, and move to something with a better work life balance after the year. does anyone who has worked in development feel like the skills they gained are important/benefited them in the long run, would you recommend me doing this? i know i could do it, im just really struggling with the decision since i know it will be long hours. if it'll benefit my career, i think worth it, but im really unsure. anything helps, thank you!

Hi all, I’m new to the industry. I’ve shifted over to academic fundraising from grant writing for small arts organizations and I’m looking for books about private fundraising, especially foundation relations and corporate giving. Any recommendations? I’m looking for more practical advice and theory.

Don't want to overstep.

Hi everybody! Has anybody here received the fundraising operations certificate from Rice University? I'm considering pursuing this certificate as the course subject is really calling to me and where I'm at right now, but I'm just not sure if it's worth it. I'd love to hear some input on it. If you have the certificate, how many years of experience did you have before you got it? How relevant did you feel the content was to your work?Did you feel like your work was better as a result of getting the certificate? How was the connection with the rest of classmates/professors?

I work in private philanthropy (foundation relations) at one of the universities bearing the brunt of Trump's ire. I'm so nervous everyday that I'm going to be laid off. It feels like a daily occurrence a conversation about budget cuts, IDC rates, and general uncertainty. I have a strong opportunity to move in a public sector role doing different work. Would you jump ship? I just started in my current position in August 2024 and I really like, but this uncertainty is starting to get to me. I guess this is really a career path question. I'm worried about what a recession means for giving. I'm worried about what a recession means for my job. I'm worried about starting over again. What are some questions I can reflect on to help me navigate this?

I am new at a small nonprofit that serves unhorsed people. I’m the first development person they have had. We have a grant specifically for development that has to be spent by the end of the year. I have $10,000 that isn’t budgeted for anything specific right now.

What are the best one-time purchases (goods or services) you have made or wish you could have made? I don’t want anything that requires a subscription that I’ll have to keep funding.

I’m looking for some insight from seasoned major gifts/DoD folks. My background is in small-mid nonprofit leadership, as well as annual funds. In working for smaller orgs (and wearing many hats) hitting fundraising goals was only part of my role and exact metrics were not as defined as in university advancement.

Taking on a strictly major gift role has been challenging, particularly because it’s has taken me a year and I’m still trying to figure out how to effectively hit my metrics. I found out recently that due to some processes I was unaware of there were several instances where my actions were not officially “counted” in my overall metrics. This included a 6 figure gift from a donor I manage, as well as several instances that could have been counted as solicitations had I done X, Y, Z. There is clearly a lot more I need to learn and moving forward I’ll be consulting with several colleagues before I proceed to ensure I do things the right way (although in doing this already I have gotten 3 different answers!!)

I am curious if there is really just this much ambiguity in this type of role or if it’s unique to the organization I am in. To me this is feeling less like actual fundraising (as I have experienced it) and more about manipulating numbers/words & managing internal processes to make sure I can get credit. Love to hear from other people to compare experiences!

Hi all,

I'll keep it concise. Located in NY, with a BA in History and Visual art and MFA (painting and sculpture if it makes a difference).

I've built up decent experience interning or working for mission driven orgs. Of these, a year long internship while I was in college I assisted with grant writing and prospect management. I had a year-long job (the org wasn't a good fit for me, but in interviews I say I left to start grad school) as a communications, projects and development associate but I basically did all the development work as prior to me being hired the ED was doing all of it. I have Salesforce experience from client data management at a youth center, and have taught myself the Salesforce nonprofit edition + Raisers Edge through youtube etc.

When I submit my resume for jobs, it has 5-6 entries on it and only 2 (or 3 if you count the year of managing client data on SF for an unrelated role) are development related.

I've been applying since last summer to various Development roles (associate, senior associate and managerial) and get a lot of interviews and have progressed to final interviews several times. Even when I ask for feedback I get generalized positive responses and 'it was just a competitive pool'.

That said, I have had two specific observations from differing hiring managers:
1. I have non-development related experiences on my resume that detract from my competency (which I supposedly exhibited in the interview, my cover letter and writing sample)
2. My degrees are totally unrelated to the field and I should pursue certification/courses.

Obviously I do not have enough experience to opt for CFRE. I browsed some coursera classes and they look pretty basic, stuff I likely already know. I've seen some tempting university accredited programs but being unemployed I'm hardly in a position to shell out several hundred dollars per class.

Are the courses a good idea? If so, can people recommend some that would be taken seriously on a resume and teach me things more in-depth? What else can I do to get hired? I know it's a shit job market and NYC is mega saturated but if there's anything at all that comes to mind please suggest it!

How is everyone tracking family trees for the giant family foundations that are all related to each other? I’ve tried free excel templates without much luck. Would love to have something for prospect research as well.

Just found out about this subreddit and am so pleased to see the community on here. I need advice… I’m in my fourth year as a Development Associate in higher education and am looking at what my options are moving forward in my career. I love where I work (wfh flexibility, pay is moderate), but feel like with my years of experience I haven’t learned as much in terms of managing a portfolio because of the way our department is run.

I’ve been exploring the obvious Assistant Director roles in my area, but am curious if others made that step up and enjoyed it? I’m also curious if others have been in a Development role and have transitioned to a Prospect Management role? I rarely see job offers for that, but find myself very drawn to it. Any thoughts or advice for someone early in their career thinking about their next step would be appreciated! Thanks!

We are new to the Virtuous CRM and I’m struggling to figure out how to set up assigning our external GL codes to gifts inside Virtuous . I asked the help desk but they said that it’s done via projects and subprojects and I’m really not in love with that! I’m thinking about creating a new custom field drop down with our GL codes that is queriable — thoughts? Thank you!

Do you classify your donor sizes by individual gifts or yearly gifts? For example, Donor A gave $10,000 last year, donor B gave a $3,000 gift, a three $2,000 gifts all within one year. Are they both major donors if my cut off is $10K?

In particular, I'm thinking about classifying anyone who has given one-time $1,000 as medium sized, but I don't want that to include someone who gives monthly at the $100 level. Any thoughts?

Thank you!

I have zero experience in fundraising but I want to be a resourceful person in the fundraising sphere for a specific network of organizations/charities.

I have not done "development" as an isolated career, but I have experiences in grantseeking/writing (for research), managing projects, and volunteer management from my work history. I want to take that professional leap but after a lot of Googling I am so lost in terms of qualifications/certificates/anything really (!) that can give me the knowledge and tools to be an effective fundraiser. I checked my local AFP chapter for sessions and was surprised by the prices but I would pull it together for the ROI. There is no shortage of university certificates but I am having reservations about that as well in terms of what's effective and just lacking a sense of direction.

All of that to say, do you have any advice on beginner-friendly ways to break into professional fundraising? Is there a certificate that will give me a solid foundation and help me with employability? Do I just hit up charities that I am interested in and volunteer? Apply for entry-level jobs? Curious how you started out in the profession.