Fundraising manager (charity)

Fundraising managers are responsible for an organisation's fundraising team and for delivering their fundraising programme. This could include developing corporate partnerships, coordinating direct mail campaigns, organising fundraising events and appeals, and sourcing grant income from trusts, foundations and other statutory bodies.

Work activities

Fundraising activities:

• Researching and approaching trusts, government agencies and other bodies that could potentially make grants to the organisation
• Writing and presenting proposals.
• Managing the grant application process and ensuring that reporting is tracked and meets donors' expectations
• Developing relationships with major donors, identifying new potential major donors and nurturing relationships
• Attending relevant fundraising forums such as Fundraising Institute of Ireland, Irish Charities' Tax Reform Group and other relevant bodies.

Management and financial tasks:

• Preparing annual income and expenditure fundraising budgets for approval
• Recording, monitoring and reporting financial progress
• Administrative duties: updating databases, preparing reports, monitoring income and expenditure.
• Recruiting and managing volunteers for a fundraising project.

Marketing and PR tasks:

• Communicating with the public: online, via the media, through direct mail etc.
• Liaising with copywriter, printer etc to produce fundraising promotional material

Salaries

Successful fundraisers are often some of the better paid people working in the charity sector. However, higher salaries usually only come after a significant number of years’ experience and only in the larger charities.

Skills and qualities

• Communication skills: writing dynamic funding proposals and inspiring people to commit to the cause in question.
• Interpersonal skills: you will be constantly interacting with people, persuading them of the value of your organisation.
• Research skills and attention to detail: sourcing information and statistics, researching trends, assessing costs.
• Creativity: idea generation is important as charities try to ‘piggy back’ on what the public has an interest in.
• Resilience and flexibility: fundraising can be a tough job.