In the dynamic landscape of philanthropy, where the success of fundraising efforts can significantly impact the trajectory of an organization, the role of major gift fundraisers is extremely important for sustainable growth and impact. The art of identifying, attracting, and retaining top-tier major gift fundraisers is not merely a challenge but is imperative for nonprofit leaders. Let’s explore the key strategies for assembling a all-star major gift fundraising team.
Attracting Candidates
Firstly, attracting quality candidates is simplified when you have robust network of fundraising contacts. Leverage your connections or tap into your university’s network. Utilize platforms like LinkedIn, targeting individuals with titles just below the position you’re hiring for, making the higher title enticing. For example, if you are hiring for a director of development, look for candidates on LinkedIn with associate director titles.
Search Committee
Establishing a search committee is crucial. Beyond your development department, involve key internal partners relevant to the role. For instance, if hiring a fundraiser for the engineering college, engage an esteemed engineering faculty member. This fosters collaboration and enthusiasm from key internal contacts from outside of your division. That faculty member will be more than willing to partner on future fundraising projects since he or she was on the hiring committee!
Essential Candidate Characteristics
During candidate interviews, we suggest aligning with Patrick Lencioni’s principles from “The Ideal Team Player.” Lencioni suggests only hiring candidates with the three characteristics of humility, hunger, and smarts. Let’s dive into each characteristics and the interview questions you can ask to find them in candidates.
The first characteristic is humility. Great team players don’t have big egos or concerns about status. They don’t take all the credit for big gift that is booked. Here are two questions you can ask candidates in interviews to see if they display humility.
What was the best gift you ever booked? Can you tell us the start-to-finish story. If they have humility, they will say “we” more than “I.”
What was the toughest visit you ever went on? Look for if they were ok with the problems on the visit and if they learned from it. That shows humility.
The second characteristic is hunger. Hungry people are highly motivated and always looking for more. As fundraisers they hustle to get a lot of visits and make a lot asks. The questions you can ask candidates in interviews to see if they display hunger include the following.
What was the toughest gift you ever booked? What were the issues and how you overcame them? The ways they overcame adversity will tell you a lot about how motivated they are to do fundraising work.
What do you do to find new prospect leads and reach out to them for visits? This will show you how motivated they are to do the hard work of prospecting
The third characteristic is smarts. In the context of teamwork, being smart is not about one’s intellectual capacity. Instead, smart team players have good common sense about people, how to read them and knowing what motivates them. Here are the questions you can ask candidates in interviews to see if they display smarts.
Have you ever worked with a tough colleague? How did you handle it? This will show how smart they are at reading situations.
How would you describe your personality? Look for how accurately they describe their personality in comparison to what you are observing.
Our last bit of advice about hiring the right people is it’s not just about candidates selling themselves; you must sell the job too. Showcase the unique benefits of working at your university and within your department. Assume candidates are exploring multiple opportunities, and articulate why your workplace is the optimal choice for top-tier fundraisers.
Overall, the relentless pursuit of assembling an exemplary major gift fundraising team is a lot of work. The strategies outlined above serve as a compass that can help guide you towards philanthropic success.
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