Fundraising Academy opens next month
Howard Lake | 16 April 2007 | News
The UK’s first entry-level course for new fundraisers opens its doors next month. Its Foundation in Fundraising Certificate (FFC) course has been designed for anyone who wants to get into the charity sector.
The first 40 students at the Fundraising Academy, part of Rupert Tappin’s Future Fundraising, will take 15 modules covering every aspect of fundraising when they begin their studies on 30 May. It will culminate in a summer school in mid-August, featuring practical workshops and career-development training.
Each module is being taught by a leading fundraising practitioner from charities such as Barnardo’s, the British Red Cross and Volunteer Reading Help, whose chief executive, Gill Astarita, led the development of the FFC.
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“We all know people who want to get jobs with charities and have asked us what’s the best way to go about it,” said Tappin, who also runs the charity recruitment agency Fundraising Recruitment.
I set up the Fundraising Academy last year because many charities just couldn’t find the right junior people. They had no trouble recruiting senior and middle level fundraisers, but entry-level jobs were going unfilled because there was no training that provided the skills and knowledge that were needed for these positions.”
The Fundraising Academy’s website goes live on 27 April and anyone intending to register for the first intake will have three weeks to complete an online application. In the meantime, interested parties can call the Fundraising Academy’s candidate recruitment hotline on 0845 094 5923 for more information.
Charlotte Goodman, assistant director of fundraising (marketing) at Barnardo’s, said: “I know a couple of people who I have already recommended the course to. This is such a great way to break into fundraising.”
Apart from the £200 cost of the compulsory summer school, the FFC will be free to all those wanting to find a job in the charity sector.
“Instead of having the students pay themselves, we will be marketing them as they start the course to all the major charity recruitment agencies, in addition to charities directly. Our focus will be on trying to find the students jobs throughout the course, not just once they have graduated,” Tappin told UK Fundraising.
He added: “We will also be holding a graduation fair at the LSE in August to which charities will be invited to view the candidates and their work – a sort of milk round.”
Discussions are underway between the Fundraising Academy and the Institute of Fundraising about the FFC potentially counting as a route to the first module of the IoF’s Certificate in Fundraising Management.
Tappin said: “We worked hard in setting this up to ensure that we have had buy-in at every stage from charities and the Institute of Fundraising and I think it is clear that the Fundraising Academy is an initiative by the sector for the sector.”
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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.