Future Fundraising launches entry-level fundraising training programme
Howard Lake | 9 November 2006 | News
Face-to-face fundraising company Future Fundraising has launched “the first entry-level training programme and qualification for fundraisers”. The Fundraising Academy aims to offer a “new route” into fundraising for people who have little or no relevant charity experience. Its target audience will include those face-to-face fundraisers who are looking for a full-time career in the voluntary sector.
At the Academy’s launch last night in central London, Rupert Tappin managing director of professional fundraising organisation Future Fundraising, explained: “We keep finding that a significant number of charities experience difficulty in recruiting suitably experienced or qualified people to take up fundraising positions at the entry-level.
“Yet fundraising is alone among the professions in not have a serious entry-level training programme and qualification.
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“I’ve been working in fundraising for eight years and I’ve never been able to understand why all the training and qualifications are aimed at people who are already doing the job but there is nothing for those who’ve never done it but want to.”
The Fundraising Academy will consist of 14 weekly modules covering areas such as of corporate, statutory and trust fundraising, strategy skills, customer service and database and IT skills. Each module will be devised and taught by an established charity practitioner in the relevant area.
Gill Astarita, ceo of Volunteer Reading Help and a former fundraising director at Action for Blind People, will head the working party developing the training programme.
I’ve found it really hard as a small charity to recruit entry-level fundraisers in the £20,000 to £25,000 salary bracket, Astarita said. There are plenty of people around looking for middle level jobs, but it’s really hard to find someone looking for their first job in fundraising who can also show that they have some skills and aptitude for the job. Unfortunately they just aren’t being trained at that level.
“Without an entry-level fundraising qualification to prove that a junior fundraiser has the necessary skill, you just have to take a bit of a risk, and for small charities, that risk can sometimes be too great.”
The Fundraising Academy is being launched by Fundraising Recruitment, a sister company to Future Fundraising.
When recruiting fundraisers, charities usually recruit from people already working in fundraising, commercial sector workers with transferable skills, and in situ volunteers who already have experience.
The Fundraising Academy will therefore be aiming to appeal to four groups of people:
• people at the beginning of their work career who want to get a job in the voluntary sector, but who need to work full-time and cannot afford to volunteer
• people wishing to transfer into the sector from the commercial side
• face-to-face and door-to-door fundraisers wishing to step up and work directly for a charity
• people starting out their careers in fundraising who are looking to broaden their skills base.
“Many people become street fundraisers because they see this as a first step towards a career in the voluntary sector, but once they are working for an F2F agency, there is nothing to help them make the leap to the charity side,” Tappin said.
Speaking at the launch, Howard Lake of UK Fundraising said that the fundraising sector needed a regular influx of “new blood”. He said: “That new blood is there in the network of young, committed face-to-face fundraisers. That group of fundraisers is a real opportunity for this sector.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.