Subject: Working in fundraising - your tips

Depends what type of fundraising job you want to do but think about things you have done which are  relevant (paid and unpaid). If you don't have any relevant experience - get some - start fundraising for others!

• What have you done to raise money for charities / community groups etc?
• Have you organised events?
• Have you worked in sales / customer service?
• Are you good with money?
  

Further to the insight provided by NSPCC, it's probably fair to say that you should only really be applying for fundraising roles at charities whose missions you feel passionately about, on the basis that it's difficult to engage others in supporting a cause if you're not genuinely engaged by it yourself.

Having said that, I've worked at specialist agencies for most of my fundraising career, developing fundraising appeals, campaigns and strategies for all sorts of charities and causes, and - because they all do good in some way or other - it's easy to get emotionally engaged with all of them.

In a way, I can understand why 'professional fundraisers' forget to mention the cause when they go for interviews, because most good fundraisers can get results regardless of the cause, and - to a large extent - that's all that's really important, rather than how much they care about the cause personally.

I'd rather have a great fundraiser on my team, with experience of fundraising for many different causes, than a mediocre one that means well.