Understanding higher education fundraisers in the United States

Since their earliest days, the U.S. higher education institutions have relied on philanthropic support to achieve their missions. What began as incidental is now a highly organized process of fundraising that accounts for tens of billions of dollars annually. As institutions' desire for private support grows, so too does the demand for successful fundraising professionals. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative analysis, this survey-based study (n = 508) of U.S. higher education fundraising personnel provides new knowledge and grounds fundraisers' position in historical and contemporary literature about fundraisers and professionalism. The findings highlight notable generational, income, and gender differences within the higher education sector and between higher education and the greater profession. The analysis shows an established knowledge-base and set of learnable skills for higher education fundraisers—which are best applied when combined with particular personal attributes. Although the latter are critically important, without full and fair attention to the former, the occupation is unlikely to garner full professional status. This study highlights, the path forward highlights the complexity of contemporary fundraising, is a reminder that fundraising is relationship- and information-driven, and indicates that select, strategic efforts can further professionalize the field. In particular, fundraisers in the education sector may have special opportunities to advance the professionalization of their occupation.     

Exploring fundraising executives' careers in arts and culture: The role of tenure and career switching

Fundraisers play a crucial role in helping arts and culture organizations obtain the financial resources they need to carry out their missions and support their causes. However, research on fundraisers' careers is still in its infancy. As the profession gains importance, understanding the main motivating factors of fundraisers' career paths is key. This study investigates the effects of three variables that emerged as relevant motivations for fundraiser careers, that is, education, career promotion and sector experience, on fundraising executives' tenure and career switching. In addition, this research identifies profiles of fundraising executives in the arts and culture organizations in the United States. Moreover, this study explores the role of non-profit orientation as a moderator of the relationship between career switching and tenure, and parallel titles as a moderator of the relationship between sector experience and tenure. Managerial implications are outlined.     

Chance Events and Executive Career Rebranding: Implications For Career Coaches and Nonprofit HRM

We conducted and analyzed interviews with 20 executives from the for‐profit sector who had transitioned into second careers in the nonprofit sector. Our qualitative study provides an in‐depth analysis of the critical events that triggered career agency and stimulated the change process. At each stage of transition, the executives revisited their personal brands, deciding how to best position their skills, knowledge, and values within the context of their new nonprofit organizations. This research contributes to academic and practitioner knowledge of new career paths open to mid‐ and late‐career executives and insights for nonprofit leadership, as many nonprofits can anticipate major shortages of qualified executives. Each stage in the career transition process provides opportunities for human resource professionals to contribute to successful nonprofit leadership change: first, by creating opportunities for “chance events” motivating transition, followed by career coaching opportunities before and throughout the transition. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Finding an academic home for fundraising: a multidisciplinary study of scholars' perspectives

• The high‐demand, high‐paying field of fundraising does not have an academic home in higher education, which hampers fundraising research and education. Recent advances in fundraising education and research can be attributed to four different disciplines: public relations, marketing, nonprofit management, and higher education administration. This disjointed approach has impeded the empirical study of fundraising, the development of theory in the field, and the education of future fundraisers. The purpose of this study is to begin the process to scientifically identify an appropriate academic home for fundraising that benefits fundraising practice, advances scholarship, and strengthens America's nonprofit sector. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 15 scholars from multiple disciplines who had published articles on fundraising in the three major nonprofit management and philanthropy journals. Findings show that there is no consensus among scholars about whether fundraising belongs in public relations, marketing, or nonprofit management. Although this study found no consensus among fundraising scholars about the appropriate academic home for fundraising, it does identify areas of agreement and disagreement on pertinent topics and provides a benchmark to guide further discussions about locating fundraising within an academic discipline.

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On boundary spanners and interfirm embeddedness: The role of guanxi institution in China

Based on social embeddedness theory and institutional theory, we construct a research model that depicts how boundary spanners’ personal relationships affect dyadic embeddedness at the organizational level, under the varying influence of guanxi institution across different regions in China. We empirically test our model by analyzing data collected from 225 retail gas stations within the distribution network of a major Chinese petroleum company. Our analysis shows that boundary spanners need to first establish relational ties, which, in turn, influence interfirm dyadic embeddedness. Additionally, the results indicate that the informal institutions, such as guanxi in China, exert an indirect effect on personal trust through personal closeness. The informal institutions also moderate the effects of personal level trust on organizational level trust, which is a key linkage between personal relationship and interfirm embeddedness.     

Brochure fundraising

A fundraising brochure is regarded by many charities as a major source of income. This is associated usually with the charity's major fundraising event in its annual calendar. What many charities do not do is plan their brochure campaign to eliminate wasted effort and costs while maximising revenue received. This paper examines brochure fundraising techniques, drawing on personal and anecdotal experiences of fundraisers working in the nonprofit and voluntary sector.     

Community-engaged philanthropy: The role of the fundraiser in building equitable communities

In recent years, fundraisers have become increasingly focused on major gift solicitation while donors have been making larger gifts to fewer organizations. As this trend continues, some have begun to question whether major organizations and/or wealthy individuals now have too much control over the work of nonprofits and the communities they serve. While it is true that major gifts are important and can made a noticeable, positive impact, in some cases community members might see their impact as intrusive. In situations such as this, what is the “best” course of action? How should fundraisers consider, balance, and address the perspectives and rights of their organization, donors, and community members? This paper creates a framework for fundraisers as they consider not only their responsibilities to their organization and constituents, but also their responsibilities for promoting equity within their community as a whole. This paper draws on the social-ecological model, as well as concepts from intersectionality, to explore how fundraisers can increase involvement from all community members in a nonprofit's work to create a participatory and community-engaged process, with a special focus on including those who are typically marginalized, rather than maintaining a hierarchical system of power. It also draws on the theories of rights-balanced fundraising ethics, community-centric fundraising, and other ethical frameworks of fundraising and public administration to compare what is being done by fundraisers to what should be done to encourage ethical practices in fundraising. The paper is supplemented by examples of the impact of implementing (or not implementing) community engagement in fundraising practices. This paper aims to create a community-engaged philanthropy framework for fundraisers as they consider not only their responsibilities to their organization and donors, but also their responsibilities for promoting equitable distributions of power within their community. This framework provides specific guidance for fundraisers as to how they can balance these multiple (and sometimes competing) responsibilities while also keeping ethics at the forefront of their actions. It demonstrates how, by taking a community-engaged approach to their work, fundraisers are able to bring about better long-term outcomes for their organization. Specifically, the framework considers: (1) To whom are fundraisers most responsible, and to whom should fundraisers be most responsible—their nonprofit, their donors, or those being served? (2) For what rights of community members must the fundraiser account when soliciting funds, and to what extent is the fundraiser responsible for upholding these rights? (3) In what ways can an invitation from a fundraiser to make a gift also invite some level of power or control over the organization's work? (4) To what extent do fundraisers have the responsibility to maintain an equitable power balance among their constituents, including donors and those served? (5) How can fundraisers help ensure that all community members are able to participate in the organization's work to extent that they are willing and able?     

The paradox of growth and giving: Critical case sampling to illuminate the catalytic potential of an underresearched phenomenon

The paradox of growth and giving is that, for a philanthropic gift to be of maximum use, both the donor and the nonprofit client must grow. The client's growth is frequently measured through program outcomes. The donor's growth is rarely addressed, but it can be measured by the cognitive complexity with which the donor approaches the problem. This qualitative study used constructive developmental theory and critical case sampling to identify and describe the three possible patterns in cognitive complexity: meaning making more complex in work than in philanthropy, equal in both domains, or more complex in philanthropy than in work. For each participant, we identified a developmental growth edge that, if pursued, would improve their philanthropic impact. Findings suggest that donors' cognitive complexity structures how they approach philanthropy and can be variable (context dependent). Participants were not aware of the extent to which philanthropy could also be a growth opportunity for themselves. This lack of awareness impedes their own growth potential and, thus, the potential of their philanthropic gifts. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for philanthropy.     

Gender Roles and Organizational HR Practices: The Case of Women's Careers in Accountancy and Consultancy Firms in China

The Chinese finance industry has experienced significant expansion both within the state sector and into the private sector. Professional consultancy firms have also emerged as a result of the rising interest in the outsourcing of accounting and management services. However, the study of women's careers in the accountancy profession in contemporary China remains largely an uncharted territory. Drawing on data from 69 interviews with auditors in five firms, this article investigates the nature of work of external auditors in China and how women auditors view their work‐life choices and constraints. We explore the likely differences between male and female auditors in their career aspirations and the extent to which these self‐perceived differences are informed by social conventions of gender role, organizational practices, and personal preferences. The study has strong implications for human resource management in professional service firms in China, with particular reference to job design, work organization, career support, and work‐life balance initiatives. The study contributes to the debate on gender, employment, and career development in the accountancy profession in different parts of the world. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Measuring Embeddedness and Its Effect on New Venture Creation—A Study of Farm Diversification

Social embeddedness has been found to influence the development of new ventures, providing a basis for the trust needed for economic exchange. This study takes a novel approach to measuring embeddedness, focusing on entrepreneurs' perceived value of advice from various network partners, and shows that different types of partners exercise different influences. Analysis of a survey of 670 farm businesses shows varied embeddedness in professional and social networks, where stronger embeddedness in social networks is more associated with the development of diversified enterprises, whereas stronger professional networks is more associated with a lower incidence of such development. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

论我国企业战略性慈善的制度保障

在激烈的竞争形势下,企业能否持续发展主要取决于企业能否迅速适应环境变化。在这种情况下,传统的企业慈善行为已经不能适应企业生存与发展的需要,而将慈善行为和企业经营目标相结合的战略性慈善行为是现代企业适应环境的必然选择。因此,必须通过制度尤其是法治的保障和引导,推动企业战略性慈善事业的快速健康发展,这样企业参与社会建设的力量才会更加强大。     

When expatriates explore other options: Retaining talent through greater job embeddedness and repatriation adjustment

This paper introduces the concept of job embeddedness to research on international assignments to help explain how the processes of expatriation and repatriation might lead to such outcomes as strengthened personorganization fit or career exploration. It develops a model with a related set of theoretical propositions, based on a comprehensive literature review covering international assignments, adult development and career theories, job embeddedness, and career exploration. The paper also presents implications for future research, as well as practical implications for assignment practices and career interventions for organizations trying to retain their valued repatriate talents and, thus, secure a greater return on their investments in talent development. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An exploratory study of stewardship for Chinese nonprofit organizations

This study examined how Chinese nonprofits practice stewardship and how stewardship principles influence nonprofit–donor relationships and donor retention. Fifteen qualitative in‐depth interviews were conducted with experienced fundraisers in China. Results showed that Kelly's stewardship principles were applicable in China; Chinese fundraisers practiced stewardship principles of reciprocity, responsibility, reporting, and relationship nurturing to maintain relationships with major gift and annual donors. Besides, practitioners also utilized a variety of communication channels, ranging from face‐to‐face, telephones, emails, to digital shared media such as WeChat and Weibo, in communicating with individual and general public donors. Finally, interviewees also provided evidence on the positive role of quality nonprofit–donor relationships in retaining donors. This study illustrated the current status of nonprofit fundraising practice in China and expanded the explanatory power of the stewardship theory. The findings are implicative for Chinese nonprofits professionals on how to develop their unique stewardship practice in managing relationships with donors.     

Designing a system for career development and advancement in the U.S. Navy

The Navy is undergoing fundamental changes that will likely alter the nature of work and worker requirements. At the heart of their human resource management strategy are five distinct competency areas: professional development, personal development, leadership, certifications and qualifications, and job performance. These five areas, called “vectors” by the Navy, form the foundation around which the Navy identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities which Sailors need to succeed. As part of this HR transformation, the current research describes the design of a career development and advancement system. The primary component of the system is a weighting algorithm that links performance across all five areas to advancement to the next paygrade. The system is designed to compute an advancement score based on achievement of defined milestones across all five competency areas of concentration. It does so by defining the career paths associated with a member's development across these five areas; and identifying the advancement potential for recruit, apprentice, journeyman, and master-level personnel across every occupation in the U.S. Navy. In addition, this scoring system will be transparent such that personnel can view their own record at any time and assess what they might do in their career to improve their relative standing for future advancement. These results will also be used by future promotion boards to guide their selections.     

Strategic management and fundraising: A planning model for resource development in the nonprofit organisation

Many nonprofits can benefit greatly from integrating their strategic, marketing and fundraising planning into an environmentally comprehensive process. Even during this critical period for them, many nonprofits typically have failed to implement this type of integrated planning because their corporate culture often nurtures: an inner process focus, leadership pathologies, professional balkanisation, reluctance to accept advancement as a global organisational activity, an unwillingness to accept the realities of a moving market and a lack of political will to undertake social advocacy on behalf of their clients. In order to succeed in the future, nonprofit organisations will need to approach strategic planning through an interdisciplinary methodology that will be shaped by multiple market audits focusing on: mission and institutional capabilities, image and competitive analysis, philanthropic feasibility and flexible integration of revenue/resource development. Nonprofits that adopt this interdisciplinary process will be rewarded by enhanced fundraising returns, once re-founded on a culture that has remained mission-relevant while becoming market-driven. The nonprofit that bases its planning on more effective use of intelligence gathering and flexible focusing of its human and financial capital will be more capable of acting upon a fluid environment and realising the institution's optimal future.     

On teaching philanthropy

This commentary focuses on teaching philanthropy using an innovative pedagogy known as experiential philanthropy. Experiential philanthropy allows students to study social issues and nonprofit organizations and then make decisions about awarding funds to nonprofits working to address the social issues they learned about. The pedagogy is considered to be transformative for students across a variety of disciplines (e.g., business administration, marketing, public administration, and social work). In this commentary, I raise an important consideration for those who teach philanthropy using this pedagogy and I conclude by issuing a call to action.     

Women as philanthropists: Leading the transformation of fundraising

This paper provides an overview of women's motivations and potential as philanthropists. It includes demographic information that can help fundraisers approach and communicate with women of different generations and life stages. The conclusions are based on qualitative research conducted by the author and others. It explores some of the barriers to women's giving and offers specific recommendations for involving more women as donors. Finally, it explains how women as donors will help transform the fundraising profession and prepare nonprofit institutions for a changed funding environment in the future.     

Understanding solicitation: Beyond the binary variable of being asked or not being asked

The identity, motivation, and experiences of philanthropists have become increasingly popular topics of study in a wide range of disciplines, yet no equivalent attention has been paid to the askers, despite research showing that almost all donations are solicited in some way. The propensity to be asked for contributions has been found to be positively related to the propensity to give, but despite the usefulness of this finding, it reinforces the suggestion that solicitation is a binary variable, such that people are either asked or they are not asked. This paper, drawing on data from in-depth interviews with 73 successful fundraisers in the UK and Canada, highlights the importance of the quality, as opposed to simply the quantity, of solicitation. Three important factors that lie behind successful “asks” are identified and discussed: First, they are made within relationships of trust rather than as a result of a transactional approach. Second, they occur as a result of fundraisers' ability to be an “honest broker” between donors and the organisations they might support. And third, they rely on the fundraisers' skills in reframing complex issues and finding alignment between the recipient organisation's needs and the philanthropic aspirations of the donor. The paper concludes with implications for practice.     

Work goals among male and female business students in Canada and China: the effects of culture and gender

The work goals of 374 male and female business students in Canada and China were compared along six dimensions: simplicity/routine, extrinsic rewards, organizational influence, intrinsic rewards, balanced life and moral congruence. Compared with Canadians, the Chinese exhibited a weaker concern for balanced life, an equal attention to extrinsic rewards and organizational influence, and a stronger interest in intrinsic rewards, simplicity/routine and moral congruence. The young educated women in the two countries appear to face similar challenges of balancing their career and family interests. Canadian and Chinese women, while giving higher priority to the goals of balanced life and simplicity/routine than their male counterparts, were as concerned about their career success as the latter, in terms of both materialistic and intrinsic rewards. The pattern of sex differences in work goals was, however, not entirely identical between the two countries. While no sex difference existed with respect to organizational influence in Canada and moral congruence in China, Chinese women assigned less importance to organizational influence than their male counterparts and Canadian women focused more on moral congruence than their male counterparts. For Western multinational firms in China, the results of this study suggest that, even though the Chinese male and female professionals give very high priority to career success, the special needs of the Chinese women should not be overlooked. To compete effectively for the talents of professional women in China, these firms need to consider providing their Chinese employees some of the 'family-friendly' organizational initiatives, such as flextime and part-time work, which are already made available for many of their North American employees.     

A path-analytic investigation of the determinants of career withdrawal intentions of engineers: some HRM issues arising in a professional labour market in Singapore

Data obtained from engineers (N = 230) in Singapore were used to test a model of career withdrawal intentions. The model hypothesized personal, organizational and environmental variables as exogenous variables that affect career satisfaction and job satisfaction. These affective states in turn affect career commitment which was posited directly to affect career withdrawal intentions. The findings suggest that the model is useful in explaining career withdrawal intentions as 50 per cent (R²) of the variance was explained. As hypothesized, career commitment revealed a significant negative path to career withdrawal intentions. Some of the exogenous variables, particularly organizational variables, showed direct significant paths to career withdrawal intentions, though work–family conflict, a personal variable, approached significance. A limitation of the study, direction for future studies and implications of the findings are discussed.