In recent months it has felt like working for a charity – especially as a fundraiser – risks being added to that terrible list of professions people love to hate: joining the ranks of politicians, bankers or parking attendants. Are fundraisers facing a situation where we’re embarrassed to introduce ourselves at parties?
After more than 12 years working in the third sector, I am still happy to say loudly and proudly that I’m a fundraiser. I’m in no doubt at all that the controversies and scrutiny we’re facing throw up important and legitimate questions that we must answer but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that as far as professions go, we are among the most diverse, creative and effective out there.
My own path into fundraising certainly proves the diversity point. My career has included time as a bartender, headteacher, professor, programme manager in South Africa and a Avian Flu response manager around the globe.
So having worked in schools, slums and the slick HQ of the United Nations in New York, what is it that brought me to fundraising?
When I see a problem – and it was working as a PhD student in South African townships that first exposed me to real poverty – I want to solve it. The truth is that I’m a very practical person, and witnessing poverty, like what I saw in the South African townships as a student, made me want to find solutions that I contribute to.
I’d seen ActionAid’s excellent work in South Africa, funded through child sponsorship, so it wasn’t a surprise that I eventually found myself applying for a job as head of child sponsorship for that charity.
Like many of the best careers, being a fundraiser doesn’t necessarily require starting at the bottom and working your way up. I joined ActionAid and was responsible for a core element of their fundraising strategy with no direct experience of fundraising at all.
For me, that’s been a strength. One of the things I think I’ve achieved at Plan UK, where I’m now director of public engagement, is using the breadth of my experience to link individual giving, major partnership fundraising, communications, advocacy and campaigns work to increase our income, profile and influence. All of that with one over-arching goal: to create real change.
Fundraising isn’t about hitting targets, it’s about finding solutions for those people around the world that are facing the brunt of poverty, inequality and injustice every day. For me, fundraising is, and always will be, at the very heart of that solution.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by the Institute of Fundraising, sponsor of the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network’s fundraising hub.
