The Magnetic Workplace
In many ways, the challenges for fundraising professionals resembles those of the nursing field, where it’s thought that shortages can be easily remedied by attracting new talent. Despite the healthcare industry’s efforts at making nursing a more attractive career option, those already in the field understand one thing quite well—that merely increasingly the supply of nurses only complicates matters until more systemic problems are addressed.
Gordon Lafer, political economist and former Senior Labor Policy Advisor for the US Congress, explains, “There is not an actual shortage of nurses at this point. Instead, there is a shortage of nurses willing to work under the conditions currently offered by the hospital industry.”3 Similarly, the fundraising profession doesn’t have a shortage of enthusiastic people willing and able to raise funds for organizations they care about. The supply of fundraising talent is limited by a growing unwillingness on their part to tolerate conditions that interfere with their ability to achieve mastery and find meaning in their work.
Lafer says the current nursing shortage is the result of industry decisions made in the 1990s like those that McKinsey’s research pointed out. Reductions in the nursing staff. Increases in patient loads. A near-freeze in average wages. These decisions led to consistent factors that influence a nurse’s decision to resign.
Because of how it handled this, the healthcare industry essentially created quite a predicament for itself. Their efforts to reduce costs have come back to haunt them. Likewise, nonprofit organizations have a track record of making fundraising-related decisions that routinely return to haunt them. Efforts to raise funds are held to a model that results in an experience for both the fundraising professional and donor that is less than meaningful.
The good news is there’s hope for the nursing profession and the fundraising profession as well. Research shows there’s a direct correlation between the patient experience and the quality of the nurse’s experience as a hospital employee. One way of measuring how a nurse experiences the workplace is through the Magnet Recognition Program, created by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Magnet hospitals receive their designation through an objective evaluation of the nursing experience. Research indicates that the magnet hospitals themselves experience several advantages, including higher net income, reductions in nursing turnover, and lower mortality rates. 4
Although lacking any official designation, some nonprofit organizations are recognized as magnets for great fundraising talent, and others deserve to be recognized as such. Unfortunately, there are others that, despite their best intentions, have an organizational culture that repels success in fundraising. What’s troubling is that these organizations are not necessarily aware of their inherent weaknesses. Worse, few in the sector have the courage to proactively assist them with identifying and addressing these weaknesses. While many fundraising professionals are aware of their organization’s flaws, rather than attempting to confront the leadership, they find it easier to resign, hoping to have more success elsewhere.
To me, the instability within the fundraising profession is quite clear, with many fundraising professionals failing to commit to staying in fundraising. Forty percent of development directors said fundraising was their current field of work, but they weren’t sure they would stay in it for their entire careers. This was significantly more common among fundraisers at small and mid-sized organizations.
To lessen the instability, we must understand the terrain through which today’s fundraisers must traverse. The opportunities and challenges are very different than those of a generation ago. Today’s fundraising professionals are increasingly aware of the inherent dysfunction that that interferes with their ability to succeed. They also recognize their chosen career path is still earning its legitimacy among the public, and that its foundation remains dependent on other professional fields. Despite the challenges, these professionals recognize the growing list of opportunities that await them wherever they go.