realization, request

[rekling]

I think (dorkily enough) that I want to be the Executive Director of a non-profit someday. Maybe I don't, but right now, I think I do.

Unfortunately, I don't really know what other kinds of experience I'll need to accumulate in order to achieve that goal (other than my obvious need to practice fundraising/development work).

Comments

[kestrel127]

Fundraising, event planning (a part of fundraising), accounting, budgets (OH BUDGETS), giving presentations (exec directors have to present to the board of directors fairly frequently), networking, grantwriting, HR, press. You need to know a little bit about every aspect of an organization to run it.

And then you need to go out and find people who are passionate about it and get them to donate to it. Granted, your development staff should do this for you, but if it's a smaller organization, you might be lucky if you have three people on staff for devo. You have to be there ALL THE TIME and then you probably have to go to offsite meetings with board members or potential donors. You end up being the face for an organization.

I also think this. And then I wonder if I'm crazy.

[rekling]

We can be crazy together

[kestrel127]

There's definitely a skill to fundraising, otherwise it'd just be panhandling. I think the hardest part of fundraising is getting them to agree to a meeting with you. They know you want money, they know you probably want it from them, they don't know if they want to give it to you. That initial meet is the decider in a lot of ways. After that, you know how much you want to ask for, they know how much they want to give, but you've still gotta build up to that ask (usually through a series of lunches and invitations to events).

Also, 8 hours a week on fundraising? I'm assuming you must be at least 75% earned income, because otherwise that's just insane.

[oonh]

In which case you may want to talk to one or both of my parents -- both of whom have spent a bulk of their professional lives doing exactly that.