Nonprofit Professions

Development/Fundraising
In the nonprofit industry, many organizations depend on donations to implement their programs. With the demand to raise more money each year and the numerous ways in which donors give, most nonprofit organizations employ a team of fundraisers. At a small nonprofit organization with budgets of less than $1 million, there may be one or two fundraisers—also known as development professionals, which is shorthand for either resource or donor development—who manage all kinds of donors. At these smaller groups, there is usually a “director of development” who oversees all fundraising activities, and a “development associate” who provides support and may manage one particular aspect of fundraising, such as the membership program. Larger organizations employ a team of fundraisers comprised of specialists. There are many different titles that usually refer to the kind of donors that the fundraiser interacts with.

Executive Director
The executive director (ED) of a nonprofit organization is, effectively, the chief executive officer of the organization, and makes sure that everything runs smoothly. An executive director has a few primary responsibilities that, throughout the nonprofit sector, the head of every organization shares. Working with the board First and foremost, is managing the functionality and effectiveness of the organization's board of directors. The skills needed for this task come naturally to some, but are a challenge to most. Nonprofits are administered from the top down, starting with the board—not overlooking the fact that its members have busy lives with limited time to study the organization’s intricacies. It’s up to the ED to know when and how to provide enough information to each board member so that, as a body, they can make the right decisions and become strong advocates who can effectively raise money on the organization’s behalf. EDs who manage large enough organizations with lots of staff support may spend half or more of their time on this one duty. Unfortunately, in most organizations the ED’s involvement is needed in too many other areas of the organization’s management. From the industry’s perspective, too often are EDs not prepared to adequately take on the important task of establishing relationships with the board members and liaising between the board and the organization, and thereby between the organization and the community of donors. There are many resources available to EDs and boards to help them address this very issue, such as nonprofit consultants and many of them seek such help to the benefit of their organizations, constituents and communities. ED as CEO There are usually four main administrative departments that report up to the executive director. Quite often, larger organizations will have a position between the four main department heads and the executive director. This is true when the ED spends most of the time out of the office and needs another chain of command to manage operations. The four main departments are development/fundraising, programs, public relations/marketing, and finance and administration. Based on an organization’s needs, there could be any number of other established departments. For example, organizations that have thousands of employees may have human resources its own department, typically a function of finance and administration, or a research-based institution that dually implements programs that help articulate its findings may have research as its own department, otherwise a function of programs. Public relations If managing the board and the organization, itself, is not challenging enough of a task, another of the ED’s main duties is to serve as the organization’s top representative to the community it serves. Many mid- and large-sized nonprofits of all types play very public roles both locally and nationally. More frequently than not, the media and public will want to hear from the ED on issues that have caught their attention. Strong and frequent communication with the ED’s senior staff is needed to stay on top of the organization’s opinions or activities that might be called into question or be of interest. An ED with the support of a strong public relations department will rely heavily on that department, often asking to be scripted on specific issues in an effort to maintain consistency in message throughout the organization. Not unlike a politician is an ED of an organization that is under close community and media scrutiny. For most nonprofits, their entire donor base lives and works in the community they serve, making an ongoing positive public image critical to survival.

Grant Writing
Overview The grant writer—also known as a proposal writer, foundation relations manager or institutional giving officer—occupies a special, superhero-sized place in the fundraising world. True-life, fairy-tale stories about lifesaving (or organization-saving) grants abound. Richard Linklater received a $2,300 grant from a Texas-based nonprofit, supporting independent film, to complete Slackers, the movie that established his career. On the other end of the scale, Conservation International—one of the largest environmental organizations in the world—received a $261 million grant from the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation for a range of special projects to protect biological diversity worldwide. Such stories perpetuate a myth that the grant writer is the one person who can keep a nonprofit organization afloat, or at least allow staff to embark on that next exciting project. However far from the truth this may be—and in fact it is, as you've read in this guide—the myth persists each time a sizable grant is awarded to an organization. What does a grant writer do? A grant writer crafts funding proposals to convince grant-making institutions—foundations, corporations, and government agencies, primarily—to give money. In the simplest terms, a grant proposal describes a grant-seeker’s mission, programs, activities, and how much money the grant-seeker needs to undertake its work. The proposal may describe the grant-seeking nonprofit generally or a specific project. A successful grant proposal also outlines all the compelling reasons why a grant-seeking nonprofit, and the work described in the proposal, makes a difference in the world. Obviously, almost every aspect of the job requires that the grant writer write clear and concise prose, and more importantly, be able to produce clear and concise prose at a regular clip. Assuming that a nonprofit is successful at institutional fundraising, the grant writer will have many deadlines and cannot afford to procrastinate. Generally, proposals are between five and 10 pages long and can be the most in-depth discussions of program activities that an organization has on paper. In fact, the grant writer is often the first person to document all aspects of a program or project and therefore plays an important role in helping flesh out that program. It is often the grant writer that asks the most difficult questions about activities, knowing that the grant-maker will ask the same tough questions. The grant writer is therefore a crucial player in program planning for the organization and can often lead this process. Unlike other fundraisers (particularly major gift and planned giving officers), grant writers are less likely to work directly with funders, although there are opportunities to interact with staff at foundations, government agencies and corporations with grant-making programs. Most of the time, grant writers collaborate closely with a nonprofit’s leadership—primarily the executive director, but also with other managers—and with program specialists on building relationships with grant-makers. Most foundation officers, community relations officers and government administrators want to hear the inside scoop on any issue from program specialists, or they want the executive director to show up for a meeting to demonstrate how important the grant-make is to the grant-seeking organization. A grant writer is also a financial manager of sorts, working closely with a nonprofit’s accountant or director of administration to develop budgets for projects and programs, and also with program staff on how they spend grants. At larger nonprofits, a finance department may produce financial documents for grant-makers and employ a grants manager to oversee expenditures to grants; but more often than not, the grants writer is as knowledgeable as the organization’s leadership and financial officers about program expenses and how a particular grant ought to be spent.

Museum/Nonprofit Education
Museums and nonprofits often contain libraries, study centers and other educational resources related to their organization's mission (e.g., an art museum may have an art history library and an image catalog) for researchers studying a particular topic, as well as for visiting classes looking for a general overview and place to have lunch. To manage the education and research side of an organization, a professional must have a thorough knowledge of not only the organization, itself—its mission, structure, contents, etc.—but also the broad subject area it covers. Having a friendly and welcoming attitude towards the many visitors won't hurt, either.

Program Officer
Perhaps the most prestigious job in the philanthropic giving world is that of a foundation officer, also known as a program officer. At the largest foundations, program officers are the elite, intellectual powerhouses behind philanthropy in America and the world. They are admired, courted and feared by fundraisers and nonprofit executive directors alike. In the simplest terms, a foundation officer is the gatekeeper at a foundation, determining how to distribute a pool of grant funds each year to worthy nonprofit organizations. Foundations are themselves nonprofit organizations but with the single purpose of supporting other nonprofits through grant-making programs. A foundation is built from a pool of assets carefully invested over time. Those assets can come from a variety of places—from the pocket of a wealthy individual (in the case of a family foundation), a percentage of corporate profits (in the case of a corporate foundation) or from a group of different funds of varying size (as is true for the community foundation). Foundations with a single source of assets are referred to as private foundations; those with multiple sources are known as public foundations. By law, foundations are required to distribute 5 percent of their assets in any given year, and most give away about that much. However, some foundations are set up to dissolve at a point in the future and therefore program officers are tasked with spending down assets in a more aggressive manner. Like all other nonprofit organizations, foundations must establish a board of trustees to oversee operations. A foundation's board of trustees is ultimately responsible for the financial health of the foundation and the effective distribution of grant funds. What does the foundation officer do? As a gatekeeper, the foundation officer is the primary contact to nonprofit organizations seeking grants and the key coordinator of the foundation's grant-making process. Every foundation has a different way of doing business. Foundations that employ program officers—and this is a very small percentage of foundations, since the vast majority of foundations are run by volunteer boards of trustees—usually establish a formal and rigorous process for reviewing grant applications. Most foundations today will not accept unsolicited grant proposals; there are simply too many groups seeking grant funding for program officers to keep up with requests. So the grant-making process usually begins as a series of conversations between foundation officers and the staff of grant-seeking organizations. Most of the time, initial contact is made by the grant-seeker. An executive director meets a program officer at a meeting, a board member at a grant-seeking nonprofit has a business or personal relationship with a board member at a foundation or a fundraiser writes a compelling introduction letter to a program officer. A foundation officer then must evaluate potential grantees, determining if they are a good fit for the foundation. The evaluation process usually involves interviewing staff at a grant-seeking organization, visiting the organization's facilities and/or the communities that the grant-seeker serves, as well as meeting with leaders at other nonprofit organizations providing similar or complementary services. Program officers are also guided by the foundation's giving priorities, usually established by the person or corporation that established the foundation, and by strategic planning initiated by the board of trustees. It's not uncommon for a foundation to change its mission and giving priorities over time, especially if founding members pass on. For example, a wealthy entrepreneur may establish a foundation to fund nonprofit organizations in a particular community, such as his/her hometown, but not provide any other guidance on what kind of nonprofit organizations to support. But as that foundation matures, the board of trustees may survey the community and further refine the foundation's mission to meet particular challenges and needs. If a foundation officer believes that a nonprofit organization is a strong candidate for funding, he/she will ask for some kind of proposal that makes the case for support. The proposal review process at each foundation is different; in some cases, foundation officers have the authority to approve or reject grant proposals with minimal interference from the board of trustees. At other foundations, there are lengthy and complicated review procedures, where the foundation officer serves as the advocate for the grant-seeking nonprofit organization at a series of meetings and presentations with foundation staff and the board. If approved, the foundation officer is then charged with monitoring the progress of the grantee; that may merely mean that they require the foundation to send along periodic progress reports. It can also mean more direct involvement; the foundation officer may want to help the organization further shape program activities and campaigns. To be in a position to evaluate the potential of nonprofit organizations, you need expertise and experience. Foundation officers are therefore highly educated with a background in a particular issue, such as urban planning, reproductive rights policy or performing arts. They have also spent time working at nonprofit organizations in some capacity. It's important to note that the largest foundations are now looking to the corporate world for leadership, as evidenced by the recent change in guard at the Ford Foundation, the second largest foundation in the country (the largest is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). The foundation recently hired a management consultant from McKinsey to take over as president. ]]>