The appointment of the first fundraiser in a (usually) small arts organisation is a big decision for the Trustees and chief executive. Investing in another salary, plus the resources required to enable the post-holder to be successful, is a significant commitment – and a long-term one.
Recognition of the desire – or need – to generate more income represents a critical stage in organisational development. It is a time of new opportunity, but also a moment when certain aspects of organisational culture, previously insignificant, can come to the fore. The charity must be ready for the changes and challenges: do Trustees and staff know what fundraising entails, in terms of their own involvement? Is the organisation comfortable with fundraising and the scrutiny that can ensue, from prospects? Alongside the drive to generate new income, do all fully understand it will take a couple of years to see a return on investment?
The recruitment process itself may not be simple: if Trustees and the Chief Executive have little or no experience of fundraising, they may not really know what they should look for. Sometimes they hedge their bets by creating a fixed-term post – given the long lead-times in fundraising, this is counter-productive. It could be very helpful to recruit a senior fundraiser to the board, both to advise Trustees and mentor the new fundraiser.
S/he will have a challenging job when they arrive! They will have to be a generalist: comfortable with fundraising from the public and private sectors, the latter including trusts, foundations and Livery Companies; individuals, potentially at varying levels; and businesses. They will probably need event management know-how as well. They must have strategic experience in planning and budgeting, to be able to devise a realistic and costed approach, together with analytical skills to enable assessment of what will work best for the organisation – in other words, prioritise what can be lucrative in the short term, whilst simultaneously building up longer term opportunities. They will need tact and confidence to “speak truth to power”, if well intentioned Trustees without fundraising knowledge try to set the agenda, deploying the fundraiser’s time and energy for limited return.
Equally, Trustees and staff must understand that recruiting a fundraiser does not mean they can distance themselves from fundraising and leave it all to their new colleague. Supporters need to gain confidence in the organisation and its mission at all levels – and Trustees, Executive, artists and other staff are all crucial to that process.
One of the biggest challenges for all concerned is managing expectations. Often, Trustees, the Chief Executive – and other staff – who have not previously been involved in fundraising believe that the new fundraiser will be instantly successful. The long lead-times in fundraising mean this rarely happens, hence the risk of unwittingly starting a cycle of “serial first fundraisers”, who only last a year or so, due to the unrealistic expectations vested in them, or possibly because the organisation is not yet quite ready to fundraise. If say, the third fundraiser makes progress where their predecessor/s did not seem to, this is quite possibly because the work of the first two is finally bearing fruit, rather than the newest fundraiser being better.
Laying the foundations, and “friend-raising”, are necessary and time-consuming precursors to receiving grants and donations. The fundraising work stream can sometimes generate uneasy relationships: staff may resent the new fundraiser, because s/he is inevitably privy to information they believe confidential, including about budgets, salaries and/or forward planning; because they, necessarily, will have regular access to Trustees; and because results are not instantaneous.
So setting targets is also tricky. Some Trustees will state that the operating deficit is the fundraising target. The two are not synonymous and, alongside the investment in fundraising, leadership need a realistic assessment of how much the organisation can actually raise, which may in turn lead to the need to examine and adapt the business model.
So organisations need to be brave: share the five-year plan with the fundraiser, resource and support them, then hold your nerve for a couple of years! But if all pull together, fundraising effort will be rewarded.