To Incentivise or Not?

Fundraising isn’t an easy job, ask anyone who has been doing it for some time; they’ll say they enjoy the work, the challenge and like the fact that what they are doing is helping someone else.

But, are fundraisers missing out. People in sales and marketing roles in the private sector receive not only their salary but also performance bonuses; often in the non-profit sector this doesn’t happen.

The reason why there’s no performance incentive is often because of perception that money given for charitable purposes is being redirected to pay over inflated wages; as anyone in the non-profit sector knows, wages, pay are not over inflated; actually often the pay scale in the non-profit sector is below what someone would earn in the private sector.

Staff turnover in the fundraising area of charities can be high, and it could be that those who are performing well are feeling frustrated and feel that their efforts aren’t being recognised (or rewarded).

It’s recognised that organsations have some hesitation in giving rewards, or paying any form of commission due to either public perception of charity money being “misused” or due to other restrictions (such as sector organisations not permitting such payments); that’s understandable. However, there are ways that fundraisers can be recognised, as said early, an extra day off or similar.

What we need to ask is, is it wrong for people to be rewarded for doing well in ensuring funds are available for the beneficiaries of an organisation?

If fundraisers can’t be recognised or rewarded for doing well, organisations could run the risk of having empty desks and empty bank accounts; that would be more harmful to the organisation and its beneficiaries than some small acknowledgement of a job well done.

I have seen some fundraisers being rewarded through special gifts from major supporters; supporters who acknowledge the hard (and stressful) job of fundraising; such as a hotel that would make a room available once a year for an extended weekend to be used by the fundraiser who brought in the most new donor support.

There are ways fundraisers can be rewarded, often it only needs some lateral thinking to come up with a method.

Do you incentivise your fundraisers?

Should fundraisers be rewarded?