#66 | Does experience as a fundraiser make for a better boss?

I was anxious to connect with Melissa Siegfried and Rebecca McAtee this week. The two of them are co-chairs for the Lehigh Valley’s Philanthropy Institute which I will be a part of in mid-May. We will be giving away 200 copies of The War for Fundraising Talent, and I will be presenting a fast-track version of the How Fundraising Really Works seminar. I’m excited to see that Gail Perry, Matt Hugg, Shanna Hocking and Chad Barger are also in the lineup.

After talking for a few minutes about the upcoming event, Rebecca, Melissa and I compared notes on two topics that reminded me just how complex the job of a fundraising professional can be.

Even as we had two unique topics in mind, most of our conversation begged the question of whether experience as a fundraiser makes for a better boss. We started by sharing our thoughts about the tendency of organizations to promote talented fundraisers to supervisory roles and whether these new managers were being adequately prepared. Even as our conversation shifted towards the topic of high-impact philanthropy, we continued to reflect upon how important it is to have a supervisor who is patient and has a solid grasp of how fundraising really works.