Fund-Raising Teams Rethink Roles Amid Economic Pressure to Justify Jobs

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The economic downturn has brought about a shift in what fund raisers do all day, as well as changes in how employees in other departments work.

Timothy Higdon, Amnesty International's deputy director for external affairs, says he was able to avoid the job cuts that affected other departments at the charity by shifting two employees from the marketing department into direct money-producing roles — one into a new street-canvassing program, and the other into Amnesty's merchandising program.

Other charities are training staff members to carry out a wide range of roles, rather than working just in one area, such as seeking big gifts.

Cross-training staff members to be able to perform multiple fund-raising functions can prove invaluable when budget cuts make it necessary to shift staff members into other roles or redistribute the responsibilities of employees who have been laid off, says Edith H. Falk, a fund-raising consultant at Campbell & Company, in Chicago.

"If you've built that kind of thinking into your development operation, you're really equipped to deal with a drop-off in staffing, whether voluntary or involuntary," she says.

Bill Littlejohn, chief executive at Sharp HealthCare Foundation, which raises money for hospitals, in San Diego, believes efforts to cross-train staff members have allowed his organization to respond quickly to changes in the economy.

Over the past year, the foundation has restructured its staff of 30 into four teams — major and planned gifts, annual giving, stewardship, and administrative operations — so that employees share fund-raising responsibilities with members of their unit and collaborate across teams to build ties to current and prospective donors.

That approach, says Mr. Littlejohn, gives the fund-raising department more flexibility to shift focus — say, from major-gifts fund raising to annual giving — depending on the economic climate and the needs of the foundation.

He says that approach is more like the way fund raising worked a few decades ago, when development offices were smaller. "People are having to be a bit of a generalist again," he says.