As small organizations grow, they grapple with the ongoing need to raise more and more money as well as manage the infrastructure (databases, volunteers, website, social media, research, communication, reporting, and the like) required to do so. Inevitably, they must consider hiring someone to take charge of the fundraising function. This is a difficult decision. An organization is gambling that the investment of salary—money they often barely have—is going to generate much more money than they are currently raising. The gamble will pay off if the person they hire is effective, the board already accepts its role in fundraising, and the organization has its basic infrastructure in place—that is, a fundraising program that includes accurate goal setting, good data analysis and retrieval, and relatively predictable revenue. However, there is little margin for error. What if the person isn't skilled enough or isn't a good worker? What if everything is in place, but the fundraising program takes longer than planned to bring in the needed funds—how will the organization support itself in the meantime? And—most common—what if the organization doesn't have the infrastructure in place yet and needs to hire someone with the skills to make it happen?

First a definition. The title development director means different things depending on the organization. In some nonprofits, a development director's primary (or sole) responsibility is securing foundation grants; in others, the main responsibility is securing government funding. Here, we're focusing on the responsibilities of a development director who oversees an individual donor fundraising program. That person may have additional responsibility for foundation or corporate fundraising. We are also using development director as the most common title for the job we are describing. Other titles that can have the same, or close to the same meaning abound, including “Director of Advancement” (often used in academic settings), “Director of Community Engagement” (often used in community organizing circles), “Resource Mobilizer” or “Resource Developer” (becoming more common in grassroots organizations that want to be more explicit that fundraising requires mobilizing time, talent, and networks as well as money). Whatever title you choose, don't put coordinating every possible income stream into this job. Often, a development director whose job includes responsibility for grantseeking winds up doing only grant research, proposal writing, and reporting, especially if the person is put in charge of managing government grants.

Before your organization decides to hire a staff person to manage fundraising, clarify the role of the fundraiser or development director, the tasks this person will carry out, and whether hiring a development director will actually solve your problems. Let's consider each of these issues in more detail.

THE ROLE OF A DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

First and foremost, everyone must understand that the person whose primary responsibility is fundraising does not run around bringing in money. Instead, a development director's job is to work with the board and staff to develop fundraising goals; create sensible, easily understood plans to meet the goals; and manage implementation of those plans. This person works with the board (or a subset of the board, such as a fundraising committee) to develop and manage the strategies that will be used, and helps volunteers and other staff figure out their roles in fundraising and stay on task. In addition to creating an effective fundraising system, the development director of an organization with diverse income sources either does or supervises the following activities:

• Maintains accurate and accessible donor and prospect information
• Sends out thank‐you notes
• Writes reports, such as the annual report, and reports to foundations or large donors on specific projects
• Conducts prospect research
• Coordinates all appeals, whether for acquisition or retention, and coordinates all upgrade efforts, such as campaigns
• Helps with special events
• Helps with all social media
• Goes on major donor visits as needed and oversees maintenance of those relationships

The development director may also research the grantmaking programs of foundations and corporations and write grant proposals, if that is a part of the organization's plan, and there may be other fundraising strategies that this person must oversee or implement. In addition, the development director's work should be aligned with that of the person in charge of communications who handles and expedites the enormous volume of information that flows in and out of nonprofits, particularly those that do community organizing or advocacy. Communications and fundraising are related and overlap, but they are not the same. It is important, however, that these two positions are integrated and that the people in them work well together.

The development director primarily works behind the scenes establishing a structure for effective fundraising and ensuring that when staff or volunteers solicit donors, they will have accurate information about the donors, they can be confident that donors will be thanked promptly and names will be spelled properly, that information will be entered into the database accurately, and that the donor will receive regular communication from the organization.

Many board members and paid staff imagine that hiring a development director will save them from further fundraising tasks. “Let's pay someone to do this so we can do the real work” is a common and potentially fatal suggestion. It's an unfair assumption for several reasons. First, remember that fundraising is real work that should be integrated into the day‐to‐day functioning of your program and organizing efforts. An organization doesn't just raise money to do the work: how it raises money is part of the work. Second, while having paid fundraising staff obviously lessens the load of other staff and may relieve the board of some tasks, everyone's consciousness of fundraising and involvement in it must stay the same or increase for the expanded fundraising program to be successful. A good development director will help board members and fellow staff members work more effectively and strategically.

THE TASKS OF THE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

Regardless of what title you chose, you need to be clear that beyond coordinating bringing in the money an organization needs in order to carry out its programs from year to year, this position also includes most of the following activities:

• Fostering a culture of fundraising in which fundraising is part of everything the organization does, instead of remaining in its own silo
• Creating plans for annual fundraising efforts and special fundraising campaigns (such as capital campaigns) as needed
• Evaluating fundraising strategies as part of a process to set future goals and plans
• Directing marketing and public relations or working with the communications director in these areas
• Working with the executive director and appropriate board member to develop and then maintain a successful onboarding process for new board members
• Providing fundraising training for board, staff, and volunteers
• Looking two or more years ahead to the organization's financial needs and assessing what will need to be in place for the fundraising capacity to keep pace or even get in front of those needs
• Developing the organization's capability to create other income streams, especially planned giving programs.

SOLVING YOUR PROBLEMS

Before you hire anyone, analyze your situation to see whether your problems actually lie in fundraising or whether it just looks as though they do. All problems in an organization eventually show up in their finances, and often they arise there first. However, fundraising challenges may only be symptoms of other problems, in which case hiring someone to fundraise will not solve the problems and may in fact make them worse.

To begin this analysis, answer the following questions:

• Is your board or some other group of volunteers active in fundraising?
• Does almost every board member participate in fundraising in some way, whether organizing special events, opening doors for you to other people, asking for money face‐to‐face, or helping in more behind‐the‐scenes but still useful ways?
• Does it sometimes seem that the board spends more time planning for fundraising than actually raising money?
• Do board members and other volunteers involved in fundraising seem to suffer from a lack of knowledge of what to do rather than a lack of enthusiasm?
• Does the staff with fundraising responsibilities feel torn about setting priorities for use of their time?
• Is your budget more than $500,000 or do you need to raise more than $200,000 from sources other than government or foundations?

If your organization answers yes to three or more of these questions, you should seriously consider hiring a development director. To be able to say yes to three or more of these questions is a positive statement about the organization. It means you have a solid foundation and now need paid help to take best advantage of what has been built. A good development director would stoke and focus the fundraising energies of the board, plan and then evaluate strategies, train others in fundraising tasks, and enable program staff to do their program work while helping all staff figure out how fundraising fits in with what they do. If, on the other hand, you need a better and more involved board, then you may want to strengthen your board and provide some practical training for its members before you hire a development director.

If what you need is help with data entry, compiling financial reports, responding to email, depositing checks, processing credit cards, sending thank‐you notes, and the like, then you should consider hiring support staff, such as an administrator or office manager. If you need help writing grant proposals and reports, consider hiring a freelance writer on a project‐by‐project basis.

If you want someone to help you plan and carry out a time‐limited fundraising project, such as a large event or a major gifts campaign, consider hiring an events planner or a consultant.

PAYING THE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

Imagine this scenario: an organization is debating whether to hire a development director. It has little money for such a position, and it worries about both finding the right person and meeting a salary. As if in answer to a prayer, a handsome stranger shows up and offers to raise $250,000 (the organization's budget) for a 20% commission. He will take his commission only from money he raises, he explains, so if he raises nothing, the organization pays nothing; for whatever he does raise, he will be paid 20% of the total. He predicts he can raise the full budget, plus his commission, in four months; if successful, he will earn $50,000, then the organization can re‐up his contract if they want, or he will go on his merry way.

There are several reasons that no organization should accept such a deal (whether the stranger is handsome or not). First, no one else in the organization is paid on commission. People are paid a salary in recognition that their work is part of a process; they may be very good at their jobs without showing a lot of immediate progress toward ending racism, advancing Middle East peace, or whatever the organization is working on.

Second, a commission tends to distort salaries. In this case, this fundraiser would be earning the same salary in four months that the executive director makes in six months.

Third, this person will not bring his own list of contacts, nor do you want him to, because you won't want him taking your donor list to his next job. He will be working with the organization's donors. Further, his whole livelihood depends on donors saying yes to his requests. Even a totally honest fundraiser working under these conditions would be tempted to distort information, seeing his income in the eyes of each prospect. In addition, this fundraiser may be willing to settle for a smaller gift given quickly rather than take the time to carry out proper cultivation for the size of gift a donor is capable of making.

Fourth, what will the donors think if and when they find out that 20% of their gift went outright to this person? Few things make donors angrier than learning that a significant part of a gift was used for inappropriate fundraising expenses.

Fifth, as we stressed earlier, one person should not be in charge of actually raising money for an entire campaign or organization. Even if he is both honest and successful, the group will be $250,000 richer, to be sure, but no wiser in regard to fundraising. Plus, if he holds the majority of or all relationships with donors, when he leaves the organization, some of those donors may not continue giving.

Finally, the person coordinating the fundraising should absolutely believe in the cause and be a part of the team of people putting the fundraising program together. A “gun for hire” is unlikely to have a deep belief in the mission of the organization.

For these reasons, paying on commission is highly frowned on in fundraising. All the trade associations for fundraisers, including the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the National Association of Hospital Developers, and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, have issued statements advising organizations against commission‐based fundraising. The only recognized exception to this policy is with canvassing (see Chapter Nineteen), where people are often paid a base salary and a commission. However, the nature of canvassing means the canvassers are rarely soliciting major gifts. Even so, the commission‐based nature of canvassing is a gray area in fundraising because it encompasses some of the problems presented here.

Rather than being based on commission, the development director's salary should be set in relation to other staff salaries. If you have a collective salary structure, then that person's salary would be the same as everyone else's. If there are pay differentials, then the development director's salary would be less than the executive director's but more than the office manager's. In a hierarchical structure, the development director is a management staff person, usually reporting directly to the executive director, and an exempt employee not entitled to overtime.

Organizations often think they have to pay a high salary to attract a capable development person. This is not true. A good person for your organization is someone who, first and foremost, believes in your work and wants to be part of it. They will express their belief through fundraising, just as others express their belief by providing direct service, organizing, or developing policies. If someone believes strongly in your work and has fundraising skills but can't afford to work at the salary you are offering, you may need to reevaluate everyone's salaries. Chances are you are losing out on good staff people for other positions as well.

HOW TO FIND A CAPABLE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

Once you have decided that you need a development director, the first step in hiring one is to create a fair and accurate job description. Many job descriptions fail to attract candidates because the job has been structured to encompass too many responsibilities. Avoid the temptation of adding components to the job that are unrelated to fundraising or communications. It is fair to ask the development director to edit and oversee the publication of the newsletter; it is unwise to ask that person to be the accountant as well.

The job description can be two or three pages long, but you will also need to create a job announcement to use in nonprofit publications and job banks. Interested people can ask for the full description. Think about what skills are essential, as opposed to those that are desirable but not imperative. Because writing will be a large part of almost any fundraiser's job, ask applicants to send a writing sample. In addition to posting a job announcement on your own website, advertise on websites and in publications geared to nonprofits, and list the job with local and statewide nonprofit job banks. Send the announcement to other nonprofits and ask them to forward it to people they think would be interested. Call directors and development directors you know and tell them the job is available. Don't rely solely on email and social media to put the word out.

Don't get bogged down in trying to find someone with all the “right” qualifications and experience. If you find such a person, of course hire them immediately. But if you don't find such a person, look for other sorts of qualifications that are evidence of experience related to fundraising, such as running a small business, teaching, or managing personnel. Any job that required that a person be a self‐starter and a hard worker, entailed working with diverse groups of people, and needed good organizational skills is a promising background for fundraising.

Look closely at volunteer experience and encourage applicants to describe their work as volunteers. Many people know more than they realize about fundraising from having volunteered. People with little or no volunteer experience are not good candidates because they will have little idea of how to work with volunteers.

In addition to broadening your criteria in hiring someone, it might be easier to imagine a capable but untrained person in the job if you are willing to hire a consultant for a few hours a month for the first few months to help your new staff person get a running start on the job, or to consider sending the new development director to some of the many classes and courses that are offered on fundraising. Even though they take a lot of work to implement, the theories and how‐tos of fundraising are not particularly difficult to understand. Finding someone who is underqualified but bright, committed, and eager to do a good job is almost as good as finding an experienced person with the same attributes.