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The Professional Development Playbook

Advancement shops work hard to train their fundraisers when they’re first hired—and then stop. 79% of the MGOs we interviewed for our Gifted and Talented research project rated professional development as an important or very important factor in their decision to join their current institution, but most professional development opportunities stop at the end of onboarding.

To prevent their MGOs from leaving, advancement shops need to provide continuous and ongoing opportunities for professional development. This toolkit and the related resources have been designed to help chief advancement officers and directors of strategic talent management develop and refine existing professional development programs to ensure that they include three imperatives:

  • Equip managers
  • Diagnose skill gaps
  • Deploy high-impact skill building
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This toolkit will help advancement shops improve major gift officer retention by offering ongoing fundraiser training so they can develop new skills.

Imperative 1: Equip managers

Traditionally, senior leaders, managers, and fundraisers neglect professional development because it is detached from both organizational and individual goals. Formalizing professional development raises it to a strategic priority and ensures it gets the attention it deserves. At the same time, managers and fundraisers require tools to hold conversations that are accountable and forward-thinking.

Step 1: Formalize professional development

Step 2: Facilitate talent conversations

Imperative 2: Diagnose skill gaps

Since advancement staff possess various levels of experience and skill, the status quo, one-size-fits-all professional development approach wastes time and provides little return. Advancement leaders can target professional development to fundraisers’ wants and needs by understanding the skill gaps and strengths among their fundraiser populations.

Step 3: Establish a list of core skill sets

Step 4: Identify skill gaps and strengths

Step 5: Understand the overall talent pool

Imperative 3: Deploy high-impact skill building

With traditional training models, fundraisers do not always retain or use what they have learned. Often, these trainings are one-and-done, and they fail to fit current understandings of adult learning styles. Turning traditional programs into ongoing and outcomes-oriented models can start to plug knowledge leaks. Integrating learning into workflows takes it one step further by ensuring immediate application of knowledge, while also adapting to fundraisers’ busy schedules.

Step 6: Optimize traditional training

Step 7: Integrate learning into workflow

Step 8: Provide practice environments

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