r/nonprofit

Has anyone successfully transitioned from a career in a frontline fundraising?

A little over 3 years into frontline work (almost 10 years in nonprofits), and thinking of a career change. Recently completed my MPA while working.

Things I enjoy about this work: interacting with people, compensation, perks (I'm in higher education)

Things I don't like: Chasing donors, disengaged board members, solicitation in general

If I have the opportunity to pivot toward something more in alignment with my personality, I'd like to. Would love to hear about others' experiences.

First, I'm not very knowledgeable about grant writing so excuse my ignorance. I generally understand the concept though.

For those writing grant applications, do you play any role in evaluating whether the nonprofit has the capacity to deliver on the scope being proposed (staff, expertise, infrastructure, etc.)?

Or if a project seems larger than the organization's current capabilities, do you typically advise on that (e.g. capacity building), or is your role mainly to document the organization's plans and needs rather than assess readiness?

I ask because I'm interested in helping nonprofits build capacity and it was suggested to partner with other consultants. And if this is something that occurs, I'd wonder how to reach out to grant writers and make myself available to them?

Thank you

I have worked at a not for profit for the last four years and for the last six months I was the interim ED. Last week I was fired without cause, and I am still in shock. I was working hard, well liked and growing the brand. They gave me a severance with a two year non compete. I live in a small town and work with many not for profits so there’s no way I can sign that.

I can’t figure out what I did to make the board so angry except perhaps stand up for myself when the board chair bullied me, and told me not to speak at meetings or be honest at meetings.

Sorry, I guess I am not really seeking advice, but needing to vent.

I’m working as a contract grant writer for a small nonprofit. I’ve been writing grants with them for about a year, and it’s gone quite well. They’re a young charity with pretty minimal staff, mostly a small team of contractors like myself who report to the ED.

When I started with them, their fundraising had been quite successful thanks to a very well-connected board, but also a little haphazard. Basically a spray and pray approach that left the ED scrambling to pigeon hole successful grants into under-resourced areas of the budget. When I was hired, this was something the ED noted that she wanted to address.

I worked with the ED on taking a more strategic approach - we got an account for a grant database to amp up research, built out a tracking system for active grants and their associated projects, and created a budget map for each of their programs so I could make requests to funders that were based on actual expenses. My results have been good, and we’ve managed to keep existing funding renewed, crack a couple of funders that they’d unsuccessfully been applying to for a couple of years, and had good results with brand new funders.

I come at this work with a pretty long history as a grant writer and experience as a grant officer and juror myself, so I think I’ve got a pretty decent handle on what kinds of things read well to a review committee, and what small things can trip a jury up and make for a poorly-received application. That’s my wheelhouse, and I’ll freely admit that the other areas of fundraising like events and individual donor solicitation are not my strong suit.

The ED went on mat leave for a year, and an interim ED has stepped in, and the work that we’ve put in to strategizing grant writing has gone out the window. I think the interim ED wants to follow up on every suggestion from the board, and make fundraising even more aggressive, so it’s slipping back into a haphazard approach, and I’m feeling a little micromanaged.

Basically, she’s got me applying to grants that we’re not eligible for, and she wants me asking for the maximum amount for every application. I’ve passed along application packages for her to review, and she’s completely re-written budgets to max out requests, pulled statistics out of thin air (the organization actually does a great job of tracking quantitative data, so I’ve got really solid statistics I can pull when I’m building applications), and interjected pieces of writing into applications that are grandiose, unsubstantiated, and clearly AI-generated.

I’ve tried to gently push back - noting when I don’t think we’re eligible for a particular funding stream, showing her where I’m gathering my data from, why I’ve identified the specific funders that I have and what I’m looking for when I do my research, and where I’m getting my budgets from… but it’s mostly falling on deaf ears. Her response is usually “it might be a stretch, but let’s give it a shot.”

She’s really talked up her fundraising and grant-writing skills, and it’s honestly got me questioning my whole approach. I’m all for talking an organization up in a grant, setting aspirational targets, and a little bit of budget padding, but mostly I like to work within real need and make sure we can back our claims. Is my approach way too conservative? Am I being a little defensive and overly cautious?

My org has a program that offers multiple courses/initiatives that people can register for free to take part in.

These initiatives are funded by multiple funders, all who require impact and metric reporting by location and initiative.

We have been using Excel to manually track registrants, but as we've grown, this is getting very tedious for tracking, as we have sometimes hundreds of people a month registering for our virtual courses.

We are looking for a software that has (hopefully) the ability to:

- track the source of the registration (i.e. Ad paid by donor A, Ad paid by donor B,etc)

- run reports on numbers of registrants (total and per program) breaking down by location, age etc.

I think this must be a common need. What software do other NP's use for this?

i volunteer as a treasurer in a community group; we file 990 as a 501c4. we had been on cash basis with one checking account since the beginning. for a variety of reasons we r considering adopting credit card.

1. one of the reasons is to protect us from unscrupulous vendors. in your own experience is charges on debit cards have on the same level of protection as on cc? i have spoken to my bank about recent debit card charges regarding this protection and she reassured me that i can dispute these within 30 days of statement closing

2. credit card application asks for my own personal details such as income, ssn, address as well as business details. while i don't mind giving these out if necessary for the application, i am concerned about the implications after i leave the organization. do anyone knows what happened to the credit card account after the one who applied is gone?

3. they also asked for the physical address to ship the credit card. we have pobox only and i had been using my home address in the past when some online vendors require a physical address. how do people deal with the need for physical address in general. renting a shop just for few requirements is not in our budget either. i have heard of something like private (non usps) boxes. do u have good experiences with these especially as a primary address of your org

Hi everyone,

I work for a research institution as a communications and development coordinator. I do not have any assistants or anyone who helps in any way with comms or development.

This research institution is a combination of three universities. Understanding that is key. As it stands, comms is a completely full time job here.

I went on medical leave starting July 1 due to burnout. We had a new ED here since October 2025 and they have blown the wind out of almost everyone’s sails.

Before their arrival, I worked at a base level of maintenance with fundraising which means keeping our current donations flowing each year. We have about 20 donors overall that fund specific programs within our research institution. This is a front facing relationship building job in development. The donors and I are very close because of this and the trust is solid.

My new ED is feeling a bit upset that the donors are coming to me instead of them. They are having secret meetings with the donors about reporting requirements (which I manage).

My new ED is also saying I am not fundraising enough. For the past two years, I have brought in close to $700,000 in donations for programmatic support.

Again, I am just trying to manage here. My boss is saying we need to cultivate new donors. I agree but I am fully at capacity here and I think $700k is great for someone who is doing fundraising and comms alone.

My question to you all: Is 700k low for a singular fundraiser? Please be honest with me if the number is low. i just want other opinions on this.

We are a 501(c)(3) in the state of Florida.

I'm looking for low or no cost courses that explain "the rules" about certain gift types and how they should be processed - stock, distributions from DAFs, 401Ks, grants, pledges, other types of foundations, all the ones that are sort of weird and/or have rules that just a straight cash or check gift don't come with.

I've sent out feelers to nonprofitready and Kellogg to enquire about courses specific to what I'm looking for. Where else can I look?

Thank you in advance for any information!

I volunteer in development for an all-volunteer run rabbit rescue. Which is great because its giving me the chance to get experience in things my work wont give me opportunities for, but I also have very little guidance as Im the only one with any development knowledge in this group.

Im getting us started on little green light to process direct donations. The issue is we will still be using Square for some transactions, such as volunteer run rabbit grooming services, which requires a specific sign up form from Jotform (as we need people to upload vax records to get appointments). We allow for people to add on optional donations in this transaction.

For these transactions, should we only record the donation in little green light, or the whole transaction but list only the donation portion as tax deductible? If we do the latter method, should we also be recording all rabbit grooming services and just listing it as 0 tax deduction? That just feels like a lot of work for no benefit.

Any help is appreciated.

we have determination letters & was looking into hiring volunteers, can we give hours to them

I was doing the mandatory ethical training for this org and the irony is too much so I came here to vent.

I am a volunteer for an old school non-profit. The work we do is the non-profit's product. There is no paid volunteer coordinator. The employees have a volunteer management team that does it, usually full time. For free.

I love the actual work but those volunteer managers are another story. Financial malfeasance, misrepresentation, breaking privacy, smearing reputations with made up stories. A volunteer who is an HR manager went to talk with the staff with backup and was chewed out for bothering them. She was so disgusted she quit.

It's so 'ick' I won't put the org's name on my LinkedIn. And I avoid any contact with the volunteer management.

Is this common in larger non-profits?

Hello! I have opened a new chapter from a national nonprofit organization. My first event is a 5K Fun Run and I need to open registration EXTREMELY SOON (like the goal was June 30th). I am using RunSignUp to collect registration fees but I don't know what bank account to collect it with. I can't send it directly to the national nonprofit because I need to keep some money to offset event venue expenses. Should I use my personal account or just create a generic new account and collect form there? I have reached out to many nonprofits and run clubs for fiscal sponsoring and they have all said no.

Any recommendations?

I'm an intern at FFP ( foundation fighting poverty) and i am struggling to collect donations PKR 25,000 for different cases like needy widowers,food for poor. I need to collect donation with proof so I can show it to my ngo. so can you tell me What creative, low-cost strategies have worked for you? so I can use it in my time

Hello, We have a small volunteer run non profit organization that is having its first fundraising gala this Summer. Looking for thoughts on what has worked best for those of you who have held in person events and collected donations upon check in and check out at the event. We currently use Wordpress to manage our website and payments are processed by Stripe on the website. What physical device is best for use at the live event to capture credit card payments? We do not have much coding experience in house and would prefer not to have to pay for third party vendors/apps, so an easy set up and use card reader is preferred.

Those who have experience with this specific element of the set up for in person donation collection please chime in. No vendors, sales pitches please.

I have always made things work. But going into this job I was told a hand-off would occur. Instead the only person that knew what development had going on, processed, etc apparently disappeared before I got here.

No information, guidelines, general instructions on what to work on have been given but in being just given free range to the old files, database system, and upon inquiry the old email of the guy who managed this last I have discovered a lot of issues the past two days.

We had a meeting with my direct manager and the COO my second day, today, and that was very vague as well. They seemed surprised about the discrepancies I discovered.

The COO said "well, maybe we should __ a list so we know the responsibilities of the role" while looking at my manager

My manager turns to look at me and says "yes thats why she (should do it)"

Im just trying to make things work so I let the shock roll over me as I nod in agreement and write that down.

Additionally one of the issues was that I found a pile of checks from months prior that were never added to the CRM, when I asked my manager about it my first day she said "well, this is what Ive been waiting for you for cuz we havent been able to figure this out." She then referred me to an excel sheet "that would answer it" that instead was entirley unrelated to the checks and had its own unresolved issues of unallocated for donation pledges from months prior.

It feels like im just going down endless rabbit holes to answer questions/solve issues and end up finding more issues to fix.

So...

They never gave me instructions

I found a bunch of issues that I feel like I can resolve if given enough time probably?

They told ME to create a write up of how to do my job, on my second day after absolutley no instructions.

But? It is honestly a dope job. And a big step up. So, idk. Imma play it the best I can. But I am pretty flabbergasted.

This subreddit is overrun with posts asking whether to go to the board of directors about a problematic executive director. The answer to that question is almost always "no."

Unless something illegal or truly unethical is going on, don't do it. Boards don't like to admit they made a mistake when hiring an executive director. Boards often have the same attitudes as the EDs they hire. It's easy for you to be dismissed as a disgruntled employee and word will get around, which will hurt your career.

You need to focus on getting out of the situation and leaving that organization in your rear view mirror.

Hello! I'm a new ED of a staff of two. Our computers need to be updated because they crash every time we use zoom, which we do a lot both for meetings and online events. I got approval in the budget which goes into effect today and I'm anxious to get us something usable. I'm stuck in a bit of a decision paralysis. We're currently using ThinkPads which seem to work great other than the constant zoom crashing on both machines. I could get us new ThinkPads. I'm also more used to a mac, so I'm considering a mac for myself and a ThinkPad for my program coordinator (she prefers PCs).

We use them for office work, online events, some design, and video editing. Basically everything as we're just a small team.

Does anyone have a favorite, go-to computer for this type of office work?

We're a small nonprofit that runs a lot of events. Free monthly mixers (70 to 100 people), members-only events, and professional development events that are free/discounted for members and full price for non-members.

Right now we use DonorBox because it's free and lets us set up each event separately. It works fine for registration and payments. The problem is attendance tracking.

We can see who attended a single event and export that to Excel. What we can't do is pull up one person and see every event they've attended over time. And the bigger issue: DonorBox only credits the ticket purchaser. So if one person buys 5 tickets for their friends, we only see the buyer as an attendee. The other 5 people are invisible in our records.

We want something that automatically ties attendance to each individual attendee, not just the purchaser, and rolls it into their profile. That way we can see how engaged each member and non-member is across events over time.

We looked at Wild Apricot and it does what we need, but at our volume the pricing gets close to $400/month, which we can't do.

For scale: 500 to 1,500 total contacts (members and non-members combined). Budget needs to be well under Wild Apricot. Open to either replacing DonorBox entirely or adding a tool alongside it.

Anyone using something that handles this without breaking the bank? Would love real recommendations from people running similar event volume.

i have only been wrkng for three days and i feel like crying after every shift, i love my charity i just dont know if its for me got a 20 pound OTG, i just dont know if its always like this for everyone, i just would love some words, i dont know