Working for a nonprofit is a noble pursuit that gives you a sense of purpose. You will feel fulfilled knowing that you provide a service to the community. If you are persuasive, diplomatic, and social, a fundraising career may be a great fit for you.
What Is a Development Department?
No nonprofit organization can run without consistent fundraising, typically referred to as “development.” A Development Department is in charge of soliciting donations from a variety of benefactors. Their work impacts all nonprofit employees, so they are required to communicate effectively with other departments. They employ nonprofit accounting solutions to ensure that they are meeting legal requirements for collecting donations. They also track donation data and present it to the public in an annual report.
What Are the Development Department’s Responsibilities?
If you would like to work in development, there are a few areas in which you could build a career. If you have excellent writing skills and a degree in writing or a related field, you could become a Grant Writer. You would write detailed and convincing proposals to compete with other nonprofits for particular grants. Nonprofits also need writers to provide a copy for fundraising emails and letters.
Those with a degree related to media or communications can find work running a nonprofit’s social media pages. They can also plan fundraising events. This includes calculating how much your organization will need from sponsors to hold the event. You would also have to plan all of the logistics of the event itself.
The Development Department also organizes several fundraising campaigns at once. All nonprofits have an annual fundraising campaign that often requires months of planning. If the organization needs funding for a one-time project, the development office holds a “capital campaign.” They also speak to donors about leaving money to the nonprofit in their wills.
