Over the past three years, there has been a significant increase in the demand for professional fundraising staff at not-for-profit organisations throughout Australia. The increase has been triggered by the turbulent nature of Australian government funding and is driven by the need for NFPs to expand their revenue streams.
PREDICTING THE NFP JOB MARKET
The state of the NFP job market for 2019 was predicted last year, in December 2018, by NGO Recruitment:
“A shortage of fundraisers across the board will persist into 2019 with salaries in difficult to source niche areas continuing to spike. As the NFP sector in Australia continues to mature, we also expect to see a groundswell of smaller organisations looking to fundraise in the major donor area which will create added pressure and demand for these specialist fundraising professionals.”
LARGE AND SMALL NFPS
Not only are larger NFP organisations in need of more fundraising professionals, but smaller NFP organisations are starting to recognise the need to employ fundraising professionals to solicit major gifts; both existing positions are becoming available – as fundraising professionals move on or retire – and new positions are emerging where there were none before.
REVENUE APART FROM GOVERNMENT FUNDING
As financial assistance from the government is not enough for NFPs to fully execute their philanthropic goals, revenue can be generated through other means, such as capital campaigns and prospect research.
The success of a capital campaign is based on testing, planning, implementing, and reviewing, and is often a large project requiring multiple members of internal staff, and assistance from professional fundraisers of an external organisation, such as the fundraising consultants at AskRIGHT.
In Australia, Private Ancillary Funds (PAFs) and Public Ancillary Funds (PuAFs) hold more than 7 billion dollars and are required to distribute a minimum percentage of their assets to charitable organisations each year. As there are thousands of such funds – each with unique giving activities and history – they are all added to and updated in PafGUIDE. Subscribing to the PafGUIDE, which is the only online database of its kind, allows access to every PAF and PuAF and opens up thousands of opportunities for support and funding that is not directly dependent on government support.
BECOME A FUNDRAISING PROFESSIONAL
For those who want to pursue a career in fundraising, the Australian Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies (ACPNS) at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) offers a range of postgraduate courses, as does the Center for Social Impact through UNSW Australia, The University of Western Australia, and Swinburne. For a list of tertiary education courses in philanthropy and nonprofit studies, and the offering institutions, visit the Philanthropy Australia website: www.philanthropy.org.au/tools-resources/tertiary-education/.
FUNDRAISING CAREER DEVELOPMENT
For those already working within the NFP sector who require further development, fundraising consulting firms, such as AskRIGHT, offer a coaching program for individuals and teams – both professional and volunteer. Such a program is designed to empower fundraising professionals with industry knowledge and better tools to succeed in the fundraising department of their NFP organisation.
JOBS IN FUNDRAISING
For fundraising professionals at the peak of their profession, there are a number of Part Time and Full Time positions available at NFP organisations in Australia, including at Life Education, Amnesty International, Greening Australia, Spinal Cord Injuries Australia, Australian Wildlife, Charidy, Australian Red Cross, The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation, Muscular Dystrophy Queensland, and more. Visit FIA Jobs for more hiring organisations: https://fia.org.au/jobs/view-jobs/.