BY MELANIE ULLE
When I tell people I’ve been fundraising for 28 years, the most common response I get is, “I’m sorry.”
Not “congratulations.” Not “tell me more.” Just… condolences. Like I have the shittiest job in the world. Like my job is worse than the guy’s who has to clean the scum out of the reflecting pool.
A while back, a friend spotted me at an event and made a beeline for me. “Oh, I get it,” she said, smugly. “You’re here because there are a lot of rich people in this room.”
I laughed. I was there because I had sponsored a table for a nonprofit client who was receiving an award. But honestly? It kind of stung. Because that’s not my job. I don’t troll parties hunting for wealthy people, and here’s a secret most people don’t know: the majority of wealthy people aren’t particularly philanthropic anyway. If my strategy were to stand near rich people and hope, I would have been out of work 27 years ago. If all rich people gave, we wouldn’t have poverty, food insecurity, school matriculation issues.
That moment stuck with me because it exemplified how misunderstood this profession is. I think people picture a sucky grind of begging for money, making awkward cold calls, and running galas. They see development as a necessary evil. It’s just another thing that nonprofits have to plug their noses and tolerate.
Fundraising is one of the most strategic, complex, and rewarding careers I know of. Working in the nonprofit sector gives us purpose and agency. Over a career, we help build actual institutions. I can drive around Denver and point to the buildings I helped actualize.
We fund medical research. We expand who gets an education. We strengthen communities. The social sector takes on the work that markets and governments have absconded.
Philanthropy in the United States moves hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Individuals, foundations, and corporations seek trustworthy partners to fund. The money is out there. We make those connections.
That’s why strategy in philanthropy is absolutely essential. Modern development consists of portfolio management, prospect research, behavioral psychology, and long-range planning. I don’t spend my days schmoozing at the country club (though I know fundraisers who operate this way, God love em’). My job is analyzing data, mapping multi-year campaigns, working on messaging, looking at estate plans and structuring major gifts that often take years of relationship-building to come together.
Fortunately for me and my peers, fundraisers generate the revenue that keeps the doors open, which means that development roles are among the best-paid in the nonprofit world. Executive directors and boards know who brings in the dollars and usually acknowledge that it requires more competitive pay and faster promotions.
Sadly, despite the decent pay, and the obvious purpose fulfillment, the industry has a very bad turnover problem. The average tenure for a development officer has fallen to under two years nationally, and in our own client data, it’s more like 10 months. But for folks who show up disciplined, organized, and willing to just simply work, that turnover makes good candidates pure gold. Boards will fight to keep good fundraisers. Competitors will never stop recruiting you. Never. Unlike so many of my friends, I have never felt like I couldn’t find a job.
I keep telling the next generation that development is a career AI can’t take. Yes, of course, AI can draft a newsletter or segment an email list. But it will never sit across a table from a major donor and hear about their husband’s last days. It can’t read the pause before someone answers, or build trust over a two-hour lunch, or navigate a difficult conversation about a family’s legacy.
The heart of this work is genuinely human. That’s what makes it so rewarding. It’s a vocation.
There’s another thing that nobody talks about, which is that learning to manage capital gives you leverage everywhere. Through this work, I have picked up board governance, financial planning, and organizational leadership faster than peers in almost any other department in my previous institutions.
So no, Friend Whom I Will Not Name, I’m not at the party scanning for rich people. I’m probably there because I’m supporting a cause I love, just like you. And to be clear, twenty-eight years in, and I’m not sorry at all.