Charities need to collaborate to showcase fundraising as a career of choice for bright graduates
Howard Lake | 11 February 2014 | Blogs
News from the Association for Graduate Recruitment (AGR) that there is expected to be a 10% increase in graduate positions across the corporate and public sectors should be the catalyst for non-profit sector employers, and fundraising teams in particular, to think carefully about their offer to graduates.
This increase in opportunities for graduates inevitably means stiffer competition for non-profit organisations to attract talented graduates into their workforce. To some extent that isn’t a new problem; it often feels really hard for charities to compete with the large graduate recruitment budgets and the high salaries private sector companies have in their arsenal. Actually, the offer of meaningful work addressing challenging social problems is more appealing to graduates than a high salary, but as a sector we don’t make our offer clear or tangible enough.
First undergraduate degree in fundraising
In some ways, fundraising teams are in a privileged position. Fundraising is part of the DNA of our sector, and is usually the area of the sector that graduates are the most aware of when they leave university, with many students having represented their university’s RAG society or raised money individually. The first undergraduate degree in fundraising being launched this year at the University of Chichester clearly points to a demand for targeted career development in that area.
Yet that doesn’t mean fundraising is immune to the pressures of finding and developing excellent people in an increasingly competitive graduate market. As things currently stand, we don’t think strategically about bringing graduate talent into fundraising positions in the sector. Like much of the sector fundraising is a discipline in flux, buffeted by an increasing demand on voluntary income and shrinking statutory funding, meaning excellent talent is essential to help organisations secure their future funding in an ever-changing landscape. No longer can we rely on fundraisers falling into the sector – we need to attract, develop and retain great people to drive future success.
Over Charityworks’ first five years of placing trainees in charities we’ve seen a marked increase in the number of organisations placing trainees in fundraising and business development roles. As a result we’ve seen many clear examples of the impact fresh and motivated talent can have in these roles at organisations of all sizes and types.
“Other sectors have long seen investing in graduates as a necessity rather than a luxury”
For example, in 2013 Family Action placed trainee Stacey Samuels into a specific fundraising and development role, where she undertook a strategic review of all income streams as well as an in-depth research assignment on recommendations on income effectiveness. She worked as an internal consultant for the charity, bridging the vital gap between marketing, fundraising and development, and has since been offered a role at the organisation, where she continues to have big impact.
I believe the sector needs to have a more strategic approach to talent at all levels, and the need to use the graduate talent pool in the way public and private sectors have used it for decades is just one example of that. Other sectors have long seen investing in graduates as a necessity rather than a luxury, and have always expected to see an immediate return on that investment. It is time the non-profit sector as a whole starts doing the same.
From our experience, it’s clear that the working in fundraising holds a real appeal for young people thinking about their careers. We need to take advantage of this sentiment and make sure our sector can compete effectively, even when corporate and public sectors raise the stakes.
Rachel Whale is the founder of Charityworks, the UK non-profit sector’s graduate programme, which is now seeking non-profit partners for 2014.
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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.