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Previous "The Fund Raiser" Columns
Career advice for administrative staff members in fund raising and development
The Fund Raiser
Fund raising was never an easy task, and now it's complicated by having to defend the honor of philanthropy.
The Fund Raiser
Is it a conflict of interest, or just plain stupid, to share tricks of the trade with another nonprofit group?
The Fund Raiser
A development office had two hours to raise $3,000 more and reach a record sum in cash gifts. Could it be done?
The Fund Raiser
Can a development officer convince his alumni board to commit itself to the recruitment of new donors?
The Fund Raiser
How can we in higher education reach beyond the intellect and find that visceral core where true philanthropy exists?
The Fund Raiser
With preparations near complete, a development officer readies for the public phase of his college's capital campaign.
The Fund Raiser
Why would a college decide to scrap the time-honored tradition of homecoming?
The Fund Raiser
If you can convince people that Harvard deserves more money, imagine what you could do for our industry writ large.
The Fund Raiser
It often doesn't but when the hiring process in academe works, it's a beautiful thing.
The Fund Raiser
When you spend your days defining success as the collection of dollars, it's inevitable that you apply that barometer to your own career.
The Fund Raiser
Part of a development officer's job is orienting new board members to the college's fund-raising possibilities and limits.
The Fund Raiser
At what point should you end an interview with someone who is clearly unqualified for the job?
The Fund Raiser
The college's most popular fund-raising event actually raises very little money. So why continue it?
The Fund Raiser
As a development officer drifts into midlife, he can't help but wonder if he'll still be raising money 25 years from now.
The Fund Raiser
Is it better to find suitable people to fill prescribed positions or to craft positions based on the talent already in place?
The Fund Raiser
How much help should the director of a capital campaign get from a hired gun?
The Fund Raiser
Standing at the podium, a new foundation director knew he had to be informative, inspirational, and insightful -- all in the course of 10 minutes.
The Fund Raiser
A development officer works a phone bank calling alumni for donations and finds the task trying, demoralizing, and rewarding.
The Fund Raiser
Should fund raisers earn bonuses for the number of visits they make to prospective donors?
The Fund Raiser
For a development officer, creating a new logo means finding something distinct but not too different.
The Fund Raiser
Part of any development officer's job is teaching a college's alumni and friends the habit of giving.
The Fund Raiser
A development officer gets a chance to see what it feels like to be the one doing the giving.
The Fund Raiser
A development officer believes his work is a form of creative expression, just not his own.
The Fund Raiser
An advancement career suddenly seems to be the perfect springboard to a college presidency.
The Fund Raiser
Recruiting volunteers, often in the form of new board members, is a key part of what development officers do.
The Fund Raiser
A newly hired foundation director prepares to invoke that fundamental force of nature known as the search committee.
The Fund Raiser
Sometimes you've got to move out, a development officer finds, in order to move up in the administrative ranks.
The Fund Raiser
Expecting a job offer, a development officer instead gets a rejection letter. What went wrong?
The Fund Raiser
A development officer reaffirms the simple truth that some colleges know how to treat candidates and some don't.
The Fund Raiser
A development officer wants to make June, July, and August the three best things about being a fund raiser too.
The Fund Raiser
Strong development officers need strong people skills, but they also need to know their way around a golf course.
The Fund Raiser
They spend their days urging donors to give, but do advancement professionals contribute to their own alma maters?
The Fund Raiser
When a colleague feels like the development world's version of Willy Loman, all the usual career advice seems to fall flat.
The Fund Raiser
A campus development officer writes an open letter to Andy Rooney.
The Fund Raiser
A failed fund-raising trip makes a development officer rethink how he spends his college's money.
The Fund Raiser
Advancement professionals may see fine distinctions between alumni relations and development, but we're all playing the same game.
The Fund Raiser
Development officers hear "no" much more often than "yes," but it's the yeses that keep them in the game.
The Fund Raiser
It's easy for fund raisers at large universities to attract corporate dollars, but what if you work at a small, rural college?
The Fund Raiser
How much sensitive information about donors should college fund raisers share with their trustees?
The Fund Raiser
A fund raiser's "case statement" about the need for a capital campaign gets ejected by the only audience that matters.
The Fund Raiser
A campus fund raiser talks to his counterparts about why they've become certified, or why they haven't.
The Fund Raiser
A campus fund raiser mulls whether to seek formal certification in his field.
The Fund Raiser
Fund raisers aren't required to have a graduate degree, but if you want one, what's the best field?
The Fund Raiser
Part of the job is persuading donors to support the college's agenda, not just their own.
The Fund Raiser
If college fund raisers are supposed to be good with a dollar, then why do so many rarely think about their own finances?
The Fund Raiser
Why do so many campus marketing professionals view their counterparts in development with suspicion?
The Fund Raiser
The importance of building an endowment seems obvious to fund raisers, but donors may be skeptical.
The Fund Raiser
The development community is relatively small. Do you really want your institution to gain a reputation for mistreating candidates?
The Fund Raiser
For campus fund raisers, organizing a special event can be thrilling, and thankless.
The Fund Raiser
As development offices look increasingly corporate, have they taken the fun out of fund raising?
The Fund Raiser
Far too many development professionals have trouble writing a coherent sentence.
The Fund Raiser
If you're a campus fund raiser specializing in corporate and foundation relations, you'd better get used to being a sidekick.
The Fund Raiser
Mark J. Drozdowski offers 10 questions for development staff members to ask in hiring an outside consultant.
The Fund Raiser
When you're a fund raiser, professional-development conferences come with the territory.
The Fund Raiser
Should advancement researchers, whose job it is to determine a donor's assets, be invited on a visit to the prospect?
The Fund Raiser
In planning a capital campaign, the fund raiser's job is to keep people mindful of the big picture.
The Fund Raiser
Are "development" and "fund raising" the same thing? Mark J. Drozdowski offers a few distinctions.
The Fund Raiser
Fund raisers are never nervous when it comes to talking about money, except when it's their own.
The Fund Raiser
Sample the art of imparting knowledge and you'll gain a deeper appreciation for the academic enterprise.
The Fund Raiser
A college fund raiser wonders whether his work is akin to selling cars.
The Fund Raiser
In the development field, the obsession with moving up the career ladder rules. But it doesn't have to, says Mark J. Drozdowski.
The Fund Raiser
Mark J. Drozdowski offers tips on how to prepare for a job interview in fund raising and what you're likely to be asked.
The Fund Raiser
Here's what you should hope to accomplish during your first semester in a new development job.
The Fund Raiser
Wondering where you fit in the world of academic fund raising? Mark J. Drozdowski offers a taxonomy of the development species.
The Fund Raiser
A primer on how to break into the field of university fund raising and development.
The Fund Raiser
After 10 years of evaluating the résumés of fund raisers, Mark J. Drozdowski offers his take on what works.
The Fund Raiser
For newcomers to the development office, Mark J. Drozdowski offers this primer on fund-raising lingo.
The Fund Raiser
How can colleges slow the turnover in their development offices? Pay commissions to fund raisers.
The Fund Raiser
Mark J. Drozdowski begins a new column on careers in university fund raising and development.
Resources:
Library:
Landing your first job
On the tenure track
Mid-career and on
Administrative careers
Nonacademic careers for
Ph.D.'s
Talk about your career
Elsewhere Online:
New York Times
Associated Press
University Affairs