Fundraisers More Committed To Causes Than Organizations?
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AFP Update and News Fundraisers More Committed To Causes Than Organizations? Michael Nilsen International Journal of Educational Advancement (2007) 7, 249–251. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ijea.2150069
Fundraisers might be more committed to the causes their organizations serve than the organizations themselves, according to new research sponsored by the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy. The Revolving Door: A Study on the Voluntary Turnover (Intent to Stay) of Fundraisers in the Nonprofit Sector examined how long fundraisers are staying at their current position and their primary reasons for leaving. The research was conducted by Aleah Horstman, Ph.D., director of major and planned gifts for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in Denver. The average length of service for participants in the study was 3.6 years. Females averaged 3.50 years, while males averaged 4.17 years. These averages are similar to figures seen in other recent studies about the length of fundraiser service. Author’s Contact Address: Michael Nilsen, Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) 4300 Wilson Blvd., #300, Arlington, VA 22203, USA E-mail: [email protected]
The education sector made up 27.8 percent of the 169 respondents and was the largest subgroup in the study. While much has been made about the short amount of time fundraisers spend at their particular jobs, a 2002 study (Employees: Recruitment, Retention and Loyalty, Drizin) found that among all the sectors (nonprofit, for-profit and government), the average employee stays in his or her job 3.4 years. However, as the study notes, problems with frequent fundraiser turnover can be more acute than other professions given the donor–fundraiser relationship and the amount of contributions that could be lost as new fundraisers are trained and brought up to speed.
Staying or Going The survey found seven key variables that can help predict fundraisers’ intent to stay at their current jobs: 1. Job satisfaction 2. Commitment to mission
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADVANCEMENT. VOL.7 NO.3 249–251 © 2007 PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD. ISSN 1744–6503 $30.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/ijea
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AFP Update and News
3. Distributive justice, equity (i.e., rewards and promotions are perceived as equal for all employees) 4. Promotional chances 5. Job involvement 6. Support of supervisor 7. Search behavior. While a fundraiser’s commitment to the mission of his or her current organization was very important, organizational commitment was not found to be a significant factor. This result is quite different from traditional job turnover models used in the forprofit sector by human resources and organizational management scholars. Horstman calls for additional research in this area, but conjectures that organizational commitment may be different in nonprofits than in forprofits, or simply that a fundraiser’s loyalty to a cause displaces the typical loyalty a worker might have for his or her organization. Another area where fundraising behavior was different than the norm was in search behavior—how mu
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