Job-Market Jitters - Philanthropy.com

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Article: Job Tips for Fund Raisers in a Still-Shaky Economy

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In mid-June, one month after Jaime Weller-Lafavor received a pay raise and a glowing performance review, she was shocked to learn that her job as director of development at a West Coast youth group was being abolished.

Ms. Weller-Lafavor, who has a master's degree and several years' experience as executive director of a local Lutheran social-services group, understood that her new organization was facing financial difficulty. But she says she was unprepared for the abrupt way in which she was let go — especially after raising in just four months nearly as much as she was expected to bring in for the entire year.

"There was no notice," she says. "I wasn't offered any kind of severance, the chance to resign, or the choice of reducing my hours."

As the economy continues to weaken, stories like Ms. Weller-Lafavor's have become more common, especially at small or financially fragile organizations.

While some charities are laying off fund raisers and other staff members, others are putting a freeze on hiring or enlisting temporary workers to take over junior-level tasks such as grant seeking or running special events. Meanwhile, in many parts of the country, the number of openings, particularly for top-ranking development jobs, appears to have dwindled. That is in part because charities are not expanding their fund-raising offices — but also because many seasoned fund raisers have become less willing to move to new jobs.

That has caused a conundrum for organizations recruiting new fund raisers to senior positions. With the nationwide mortgage crisis depressing real-estate values, officials of big charities say that recruiting for the most prestigious fund-raising jobs has become harder and more expensive. Even the most avidly courted fund raisers are turning down better-paying jobs that require them to move to a new city or town because they might have to sell their homes at a loss. Other top fund raisers fear their spouses won't be able to find work in the new location.

"People are much more cautious about wanting to participate in searches because of the poor housing market," says Chrissi Rawak, executive director of recruitment in the University of Michigan's fund-raising department. "The candidates talk about the market, and this has become a regular part of the conversation, whereas before it was not."

To lure top fund raisers, executive recruiters say, nonprofit institutions have had to spend more in recent months, not just on salaries but also on other enticements, such as housing assistance and multiple airline tickets for newly hired fund raisers to find housing and jobs for their spouses.

"The benchmark has always been that the new salary is at least 20 percent higher; now it is closer to 28 to 30 percent," says Henry R. Maly, a Ponte Vedra, Fla., recruiter who seeks fund raisers for higher-education and medical institutions. "Now you have pretty standard perks where the university will fly in the person along with the spouse for one or two trips for house hunting. Another trend is to sweeten the pie with things like the use of a car with a line item for gas."

But such offers are usually extended only by colleges and hospitals. In fact, many experienced fund raisers looking for work at other types of charities now say they cannot find jobs to match their skills.

"I have been surprised at the lack of positions at the higher level since I moved here," says Madelynn Arana, a former university development director who moved to Saint Louis when her husband got a job there in 2006. "There are surprisingly few positions for vice president of development, major-gift officers, and directors of development." To make ends meet, Ms. Arana says, she has taken on some short-term consulting projects, but she has not found a full-time job.

Top jobs are in short supply in other cities as well. Says Janice Rice, president of the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals: "We have talented colleagues with years of experience who are out of work for a number of reasons and cannot find a job. Since November, I have seen senior individuals having a very hard time finding a comparable, or even less-than-comparable, position."

And it's not only top fund-raising jobs that are scarce, says Ms. Rice. At her chapter's monthly meetings, she says, "we start each meeting by asking individuals to talk about any open positions they have," she says, and for years six or seven fund-raising jobs, on average, have been mentioned at every meeting. But, she says, "a couple of months ago, for the first time I can recall, in an audience of over 130 people, nobody raised their hand. For there to be no jobs spoke volumes to everyone in the room."

Other parts of California have also been hit hard as the state tries to close a $15.2-billion budget deficit.

"We are in a hiring freeze due to the economy, and when I lost our special-events person in May that meant we have to do the same, and hopefully more, with less," says Larry Hostetler, director of fund development at Sierra Vista Child & Family Services, in Modesto, Calif.

He says that his organization, like others in the state, expects additional belt tightening when California adopts a plan to close the budget gap.

Part of the slowdown in hiring is due to the fact that many charities have delayed filling their fund-raising openings for months, in hopes of saving money, says Polly Aris Stamatopoulos, a Washington fund-raising consultant who works with small and medium-size charities. "They have applicants from this spring who won't be called until September," she says. "They leave all these people dangling, and résumés just sit on the desk."

While the leaders of such charities may think they are saving money, Ms. Stamatopoulos says, their approach is "short-sighted." Their organizations not only lose fund-raising momentum but also risk compromising contributions in the months ahead during the busy giving season, she says. Spring applicants who don't get hired until September, she adds, "are not going to be up and running for year end."

Another way charities have saved money in recent months is by conducting their own searches for development officers rather than relying on search firms, according to several recruiters who fill fund-raising jobs.

"It used to be that a large national nonprofit would hire us right away; now they try to do it on their own first," says Nancy Racette, chief operating officer at Development Resources, an Arlington, Va., fund-raising consulting and recruiting company. After a slow spring, she says, her company started to get more calls for help with searches in June and July, but those organizations had first spent several months trying to find a qualified fund raiser on their own.

"A lot of organizations are worried about end of year, so they are conserving, not spending on consultants as they might otherwise do," Ms. Racette says.

As in previous economic downturns, charities most likely to be struggling now include small, local organizations and social-service groups that rely on one or two sources of income.

"When they don't have diversified funds, this is when you see them get hurt," says Bonnie J. Cook, a Las Vegas fund-raising consultant who says she knows of "at least six organizations in the last month that have let fund raisers go."

They all rely on government grants and special-events revenues, both of which have declined along with the economy, says Ms. Cook. "People cut back going to an event in a recession."

The fallout can be severe for fund raisers in such organizations, some of which are now slashing their budgets or shutting down operations altogether because of the economy. "I have five candidates in the last month who became unemployed because the nonprofit didn't make payroll; all were social-service organizations," says Diane Carlson, president of 1-2-1 Executive Search, a recruiting company that places fund raisers in development jobs nationwide. "I have seen this in the past, but not since the early 1990s."

But even as many charities reduce the size of their staffs, the poor economy has prompted some others, both large and small, to hire additional fund raisers to help them stay on track.

"Ten percent of our clients are investing in more staff because they foresee a more challenging philanthropic environment," says Heather Eddy, president of Alford Group Executive Search, in Chicago. "Other clients are continuing to fill vacancies but not expanding."

The Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, which provides mentors and tutors to help young people get into college, in December decided to hire its first full-time development director to supplement the fund-raising efforts of its board members and president and help offset the effects of the economy.

"In a tough year for all businesses, our board saw the need to create this position," says Margot P. Vanscoy, the fund raiser who got the job and started work in May. "It leaves more time in the president's schedule to focus and lets my office do some of the planning and heavy lifting around fund raising so her time is used appropriately with donors."

Many job candidates looking for senior development positions now are also doing more heavy lifting. That's because the poor economy — coupled with a run-up in salaries in recent years for experienced fund raisers who can bring in the biggest gifts — is causing nonprofit leaders to put more pressure on candidates to prove that they are worth what they will be paid, executive recruiters say.

"The economy is going to make senior leaders and board members more cognizant of the value they're getting for the investment they make in the development office," says Amy Hines, senior vice president of Payne Forrester, a Farmington, Conn., fund-raising consulting firm.

"Development professionals may feel more pressure. That is likely and not necessarily a bad thing. The economic climate is going to increase the need for every nonprofit to be as competitive as possible for philanthropic dollars."

Heidi Gider, a fund raiser in the District of Columbia who moves to San Francisco this month to take a new job as a development director, says she noticed a big change in the requirements she was expected to meet as a job candidate, compared with a search she did three years ago.

"In the past, you would just send a résumé and a writing sample," says Ms. Gider, who will soon start work at Equal Rights Advocates, which promotes women's rights. After applying for a job at another charity in mid-May, Ms. Gider says, she received an e-mail response, then had a telephone interview, flew to San Francisco for an in-person interview, came back to Washington and met with some staff members the organization had there, did two more phone interviews with the organization's human-resources and development staff, submitted to a background check, and conducted solicitation role-playing exercises with development officers of the organization. But that wasn't all: Ms. Gider was asked to identify a new corporate donor for the organization and write a report outlining a plan for how the organization could approach that company for a big donation.

In the end, Ms. Gider says, she got a cursory e-mail message stating that the organization had selected someone else. "Not even a phone call," she says. "I was disappointed and angry. It's like dating someone and having a good time and never hearing from the person again."

Still, Ms. Gider, who has 10 years of experience, is one of the lucky ones, according to other fund raisers in San Francisco. After all, she secured her new position as a chief fund raiser relatively quickly, after a search lasting less than three months.

"At the senior level, it is tight," says Sean Sullivan, president of the Golden Gate Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. "There are fewer job openings and not a lot of vacancies in established organizations."