Demand for fund raisers continues to be intense as the number of charities in the United States keeps growing, the ambitions of organizations expand, and the economy’s ups and downs lead organizations to look at ways to raise private money to replace government aid.

Dozens of people who want to fill those jobs — or upgrade their skills — gathered at New York University on Saturday to participate in a day-long conference run by the George Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising.

Naomi Levine, executive director of the center, warned aspiring fund raisers that success “doesn’t come easy.”

She urged participants to “look at yourself and make sure you have what it takes. You have to be a salesman, an entrepreneur, an idea person, a teacher, a lawyer, an accountant, and you have to like people.”

But perhaps most important, she said, “you can’t be a dumbbell.”

She added: “You can’t just walk into a meeting with a potential donor and say, ‘Will you give me $10-million?’ You need to read and read so you can talk about all the things a donor is interested in.”

For example, she said right now if a donor wanted to talk about the superdelegates to the Democratic convention, Iraq, or the subprime crisis, she could hold a long conversation about those things.

A deep belief in why the cause matters is also essential.

“You have to be able to tell donors why they should give to your organization out of all the other nonprofits in the country,” Ms. Levine said. “If you can’t explain that, you’ll never be a good fund raiser

To read a profile of Ms. Levine — in which she talks at length about the other qualities that make a successful fund raiser — see The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s archive.