Seeking Work in Professional Philanthropy

Job Seeking at its best can be frustrating unless you see it as an opportunity to experience new things. You will be working 40 - 50 hrs per week to find a job. 

It is critical that you take care of your body, mind, and spirit during these times.

Hope and vision is always a better alternative than making it a hard and frustrating process. Keep the faith, pray and mediate to your higher power, dream dreams, and know hundreds of people are wanting you to succeed. Hang in there.

If not sure what you want to do in your work life, get and work through the book, "What Color is Your Parachute?" - click here for a copy through Amazon or Horizon Books usually has a copy of the current year. There are plenty of job coaches in our region to help in this process.

Best place to find work in Grand Traverse region:
The best place to find work in philanthropy in our Grand Traverse region is to find a righteous cause that you have passion and talk to the CEO, key board leadership, or the development people from the top charities in that field face-to-face. Learn their insights, the vision for their organization, and see if you would like to work with them. You are gathering information and not seeking a job from them at this time.

Another alternative is NorthSky Nonprofit Network or the Northern Michigan Fundraising Professionals group for insights into the region.

Be willing to share information with other philanthropic professionals seeking work. If something does not fit you, pass it on to someone else for the sake of the profession and the needs of charities in our region. We want good people working the craft of professional philanthropy.

Realities:
Charities are waking up to the fact or continuing to realize that philanthropy is a professional craft that needs people who know what they are doing to lead organization in the acquisition of volunteer time, talent, and financial resources.

The Grand Traverse region is still in the infancy stage in developing professional philanthropy so jobs are there but in tight supply. Expect salaries for comparable jobs to be between 25% and 50% lower than down state and national levels. If you want to stay in philanthropy you might have to consider doing a statewide or national search. "Half the pay and twice the view" is still alive and well here in Traverse City.

There are still organizations that think they need someone in philanthropy but do not understand the craft of our efforts. Some of your interviews will be only educating Executive Directors/CEOs and key charity leadership on the reality of the craft of philanthropy and lead to no job offer. We (your colleagues) need you do these interviews for the sake of the profession and continually educating people on professional philanthropy. A great man said, "A person is not a prophet in their own land," so if one of us asks you to do a presentation or speech on a fundraising strategy or a part of philanthropy that you have expertise, please do it. 

Let everyone you know that you are looking for work through social media, phone calls, and key leaders in the field of philanthropy that you work. Update your Facebook and LinkedIN page for everyone looks at it even future employers. (Form a prayer group of people praying for you if that is your faith world view.)

Make a list of the 25 charities you want to work for and get and appointment with the CEO, key board people or the lead philanthropic officer you might know to find out what their vision is, direction they are going, possible changes in leadership, and future openings. Have a vita/resume ready to give them only if they ask for it.

You will be filling out hundreds of applications and now 99% of that activity is on-line. You will have a lot of screen time in front of your computer.

Update:
Every piece of information you provide to a prospective employer will need to be in a format that you can copy and paste into an electronic application and upload-able.  Although most applications will pre-fill in information based on your Facebook, LinkedIN, or your resume, review each fill in and assume the information was not moved correctly.  Keep track of your user names and pass words. You might want to upgrade your computer. Copy everything you write or fill out and store it in an easily accessible to you cloud storage service.  

Your philanthropic vita/resume, your references (5 - 10 of them and contact them and let them know you are listing them what are you looking for in work and give them your current resume), writing samples, portfolio of fundraising plans - powerpoint presentations - articles - grant samples, etc. all need to be reviewed by someone who knows English grammar.

Be ready to write a custom cover letter for every application you create. State how your job skills more than fit the needs of the charity.

Make a list of all of your employment including organization, phone numbers, addresses, supervisors  and their emails and phone numbers, exact dates that you started and ended, and reason that you left your position.

Create a tracking sheet as a table or a spreadsheet to that you can track status of everything that you apply for. It will help you when a screener calls you and you can see where you are at in your process. Track organization information, contact person, website that is clickable and linked, and any contact that you have. Develop the daily discipline to keep this updated daily.
You may want to color code them whether they are active, declines, interviews, and next steps.

Do not provide any information that your think is intrusive, violates any moral standard that you have, or is really none of their business. If information requests are voluntary, think through if you want to provide that information.

Be prepared for background checks, and future drug screens including credit reports. Clean up your credit report if it is inaccurate.

Other places to find openings:
Most applications now are taken through job boards, search engines, and organization websites. 

With on-line search engines search "Development" "Major Gifts" "Philanthropy" "Fundraising" or any particular niche fundraising what you want to do. Figure out where you would like to work by city or state and create a search for that. You will be emailed daily with these electronic searches. "Development" will also provide you with all the computer development jobs, so experiment how you search.

Here are some of the posting services that I found on-line:

Michigan Nonprofit Association

NorthSky Employment

Monster for major gift fundraising

CareerBuilder

Michigan Talent Bank

Chronicle of Philanthropy

LinkedIn

Indeed

Philanthropic Journal

Council of Foundations

Higher Education Jobs

Idealist

Christian Career Center

Look at niche on-line fundraising boards: AFP, PPP, APRA, NCDC, ALDE, AHP

You need to be in contact with some the national "head hunting" firms for now even mid-size organizations are using these great services.  Most are free to you. They are excellent resources and do good work. DO EXACTLY WHAT THEY ASK YOU TO DO!

    Aspen Leadership Group
   
    DiversifiedSearch

    Kittleman

    Paschal Murray

    Campbell and Company

    Lois Lindauer

    Korn Ferry

There are hundreds of other search firms ready to serve you. You should not have to pay for any of this process.

The Flow ...

The flow of the job process might be for you the following:

1. Make the application (you will do this hundreds of times)
2. Wait...
3. Receive an email from someone from the organization that received the information. Don't call us, we will contact you.
4. Wait ...
5. Follow up with them if you have not heard from them in 7 working days.
6. You might receive an E-mail rejection that you don't fit job for some reason. E-mail them back with a thank you for their consideration and ask them to send you information in the future of other similar job openings in their organizations.
7. Phone inquiry to check you out usually by an Human Resources person or the head of the Search team.
8. Wait ...
9. Call back or email from organization whether they are going to proceed with you or not.
10. If they do, they will set up a phone or Skype or I-Face conference call. Be sure you know how to work the technology. This interview might be with an individual or the search team. You are going to be one of ten or twenty they are doing this with. Be sure of your background behind you in the viewing screen says who you are for they will be looking at it. Make sure your face is well lit, your voice is warmed up to talk, and you are in formal business attire with all the information you might need to be in front of you. Have water or coffee/tea near you if you go dry.  Your face and upper torso should look natural. Relax and be natural. Expect the technology to fail and have a backup plan.
11. Wait ...
12. Call whether they rejected your application or will be moving forward for an on-site interview.
13. Wait ...
14. On-site interview which at our level can with a stream of individual or group interviews of various members of the team lasting a day (8 hours) or two. Clarify what expenses they are going to pay for and your time and out-of-pocket expense.
15. Wait ... background checks, other information they may require of you continues ..
16. Your application may be rejected via email or phone call.
17. You may get an offer. Get it in writing and take time for consideration. Have an email and hard copy with all the benefit package set to you.
18. Happy dance!

CRITICAL: At all times, if you speak to someone or interview them face-to-face, send them a thank you note. Find some conservative stationary and hand write them out within 24 hours of the meeting or contact and snail mail them. Include interview teams, people who make arrangements for you, etc.

If you want advice or need some encouragement, contact me at deitland@gmail.com for a confidental conversation.

by Dave EitlandNovember 5, 2015 a.d.

This post is for educational purposes only and can not be construed as an endorsement of any service, website, or anything else.  Web links are useable at the time of publication, may change at any time beyond my control, or warranted in any fashion. This is based on my experiences. Others may have different results. This site will not be used commercially. No warranties or guarantees.