Working in the non-profit sector is often driven by a desire to do something meaningful in your career and none could be so valuable than the role of fundraiser itself. Without these critical people, charities would be seriously underfunded and unable to operate as successfully as they do.

Plenty of people assume fundraising is about standing outside a supermarket with a bucket to drop cash into, but contrary to this, there are actually a multitude of different fundraising jobs and different types of fundraising. We explore the broad range of fundraising roles along with their overall job description and what skills are great to have to succeed in these roles.

What is fundraising?

Essentially fundraising is about getting people to give money to charities and their causes.

This usually involves asking in some form or another, whether through digital methods, sending out physical marketing materials like letter writing or through face to face fundraising.

Since most charitable organisations don’t receive support from the government, these donations are vital for survival.

Fundraising for charity involves a few different types of donation too.

As aforementioned you can have the money-in-the-bucket style fundraising, but there are a few other types of donations too!:

Event campaign giving – where a charity have events each year that are specifically designed to spike donations in one hit. Red Nose Day, Children in Need or Macmillan Coffee morning are examples of success stories. Event campaign giving tends to work really well for donors who like to give one off donations rather than signing up to pay regularly. Direct mail and online fundraising also pair well with this type of donation.
Regular giving – This is where donors give a small amount each month on-going. Charities often work towards these types of donors because they’ll know what their income will be and they can plan ahead accordingly
Legacy giving – Also called planned giving. This is where donors leave a gift to the charities in their will which could be in the form of money or property, but also life insurance payments or retirement payments
Corporate giving – This is where large organisations donate either once or as a regular gift. This is often to boost their reputation and culture, but can also be in lieu of paying extra tax
Payroll giving – Another workplace style of donation, this is where companies encourage their employees to a chosen charity donate prior to tax, maximising their donation worth
Matching gifts – When a company matches the donations made by employees
Endowment giving / Trust giving – When a charity is gifted something as an investment rather than monetary. This could include land, stocks and shares or property
Major gift giving – These are usually exceptionally large sums of money given once in any fiscal year usually by corporations or wealthy philanthropists

Read about why people don’t give to charity

How do fundraisers raise money?

Fundraisers always need to be proactive in generating income for their charity.

This means approaching individual people, corporations and philanthropists in a number of different ways and creating relationships. Fundraisers also might put on events that help bring causes to the forefront of attention.

This takes an expert blend of marketing and sales, whilst maintaining friendly professionalism.

Communication skills, being trustworthy, salesmanship, resilience and empathy are all skills that help in any fundraising role

Learn more about the top 13 qualities of a successful fundraiser here

Different types of fundraiser

So what are the different types of fundraiser in the non-profit world and how do they relate to specific types of donor?

Here’s a general list of fundraising jobs, although it’s worth remembering than quite often, charity jobs are a case of everyone pitching in, especially in smaller charities. That means roles often layer over one another.

Alternatively, you might be a general fundraiser that does a little bit of everything!

Community fundraising

This fundraising career path is about working alongside local community. Often it means organising groups of volunteers, individuals or local businesses to join a campaign.

It also involves managing enjoyable events like fun runs, community picnics or mini-festivals and then marketing them and crowd funding to the people who live in that region.

This type of fundraiser focuses on how best to collect and increase donations to support the people within that community.

Unsurprisingly, community fundraising is all about building positive relationships with people within one location.

Useful skills to have for this role are being organised, managing relationships, volunteer management and creativity. Anyone with an events management or project manager background would do well in this role.

Corporate fundraising

The role of a corporate fundraiser is to identify businesses to work with and create a cooperative where they support a non-profit.

The benefits to the charity are the additional income, while the corporation gets the association with the charity and potential advice and support.

Part of the corporate fundraiser job is to ensure the supporting business is kept well up to date with any news and information about where their money is going.

A good business head works well for this role, excellent presentation skills and of course the ability to sell formally with a good financial brain.

Sales executives and business development managers would do well in this type of fundraiser job. Corporate fundraisers must be comfortable talking to those high up in business such as directors or CEOs.

Face to face fundraising

Sometimes called individual giving fundraising or direct fundraising, face to face fundraising is always in person (or sometimes on the telephone).

Door to door fundraising, street fundraising and private site fundraising all fall under this category and involve approaching individuals on the streets or on their doorsteps to raise awareness of their cause.

The F2F fundraiser needs to be confident, sociable and resilient because their job requires them to talk to hundreds of people every week! There’s also a need to watch behaviour so it stays aligned with the code of fundraising practice

Read about the code of fundraising practice here

Previous sales experience, or any customer service based role is really handy for the face to face fundraiser.

Events fundraising

Lots of charities invest time, energy and money into organising annual events. It’s here they find a great opportunity to build up reputation and an annual income for charity.

Events fundraisers specialise in organising events from concept, venue, logistics, marketing, ticket sales and through generating sponsorships. Sometimes if the events are big, there will be extra revenue through renting advertising space or site stalls.

Fundraising events come in all shapes and sizes from street parties and gala dinners, right up to nationally recognised events like the London marathon.

Organisation skills, multi-tasking, building relationships, knowledge of how to use social media and email marketing all work well here. It’s also important to manage budgets and several teams at once.

Legacy Fundraising

As discussed above, legacy or planned giving is about leaving gifts in a will after death.

A legacy fundraiser needs to have high empathy and sensitivity when dealing with these type of donors, working towards making the suggestion about donating to their charity when they die.

Knowing and understanding regulations, legality and administration surrounding legacy giving is crucial to this role. The legacy fundraiser must have the ability to negotiate patiently and manage relationships positively.

People that have worked in paralegal or serious sales roles might suit this role well.

Major Donor Fundraising

People in the top wealth bracket often want to make larger donations which contribute hugely to a charities overall income.

Major donor fundraisers are all about relationship building and creating ongoing trust with those who could potentially become a major donor.

They must be exceptional communicators, comfortable with liaising with high performing individuals including celebrities, socialites and aristocrats. They must develop a deep understanding of what motivates a major donor and work towards their goals by matching them to the right charitable organisation.

Research is a key word here as well as innovative thinking about how to create contact successfully. Socialising and networking within circles who influence is a large part of the major donor fundraiser role.

Having a mathematical mind able to handle and present data helps, but overall a sense of transparency that gains likeability and trust.

Endowment and trust fundraising

As aforementioned endowment donations and trust funds are all about investment.

Endowment fundraising is generally to acquire a ‘solid’ long term gift (perpetuity) that cannot be spent, but still benefits the charity (such as property or assets).

Trust fundraising means to ask for support from specific legal foundations or ‘trusts’ that have money put aside and grant funds to charities. The charity either obtains funds directly from that money, or via an investment the trust has made that generates income.

Trust fundraisers normally solicit income through formal written application, competing with several other non-profit organisations.

For that reason, this type of fundraiser must be able to research potential sources and create funding proposals that align with the mission of the trust or foundation.

Excellent communication about how the charity expects to spend the money means someone with both a financial head with marketing experience helps.

Relationship building skills will invariably help endowment fundraisers and trust fundraisers achieve highly.

These are just a few examples of the many different types of fundraising jobs available.

To succeed in fundraising, it's essential to have a combination of skills, including strong communication, relationship-building, and strategic thinking. Even the very best fundraisers struggle with the job sometimes because it’s a tough gig!

Now that digital technology has become embedded within the charity sector, fundraisers should be creative so as to develop new ideas for donation sources.

Above all, fundraising professionals must be passionate about the mission of the organisation and have a deep commitment to making a positive impact on the world.

At Charity Link, we train our face to face fundraisers to the highest standards, whilst making sure we take good care of their wellbeing at work. If you’d like to know more about a career in fundraising with us, hop over to our work with us page to learn more…

Work with us

What different types of fundraising jobs are there?

What is fundraising?

How do fundraisers raise money?