Charity fundraiser

Charity fundraisers organise events and activities to encourage people to donate to causes and to support organisations.

• Starter salary£23,000 a year
• Experienced£36,000 a year
• Typical hours37 to 39 a week

What you'll do

As a charity fundraiser, you could:

• research, develop and plan fundraising ideas and activities
• manage street and door-to-door collections, and online appeals
• recruit and train volunteers
• keep admin records up to date
• manage high street charity shops and online stores
• assess campaigns to see how effective they've been
• build and manage partnerships with donors
• give talks to the public and organisations about your charity's work
• create online content, write reports and issue press releases

Working environment

You could work from home or in an office.

Skills and knowledge you'll need

You'll need:

• customer service skills
• the ability to use your initiative
• persistence and determination
• to be thorough and pay attention to detail
• persuading skills
• the ability to work well with others
• sensitivity and understanding
• business management skills
• to be able to use a computer and the main software packages competently

How to become a charity fundraiser

You can get into this job through:

• a university course
• an apprenticeship
• working towards this role
• volunteering
• applying directly
• specialist courses run by a professional body

University

You could do a degree subject relevant to working in fundraising, which may give you an advantage when applying for jobs, especially in corporate fundraising. Subjects include:

• marketing
• media and communications
• public relations
• business studies

You could also do a university course in a subject like voluntary sector management or public service management.

Some of the larger UK charities offer work experience, internships and graduate training schemes. You can search the Charity Commission register for organisations.

Entry requirements

You'll usually need:

• 2 to 3 A levels, or equivalent, for a degree

College

You could take a college course to develop skills which are useful for this job.

Relevant courses include:

• customer service
• event management
• T Level in Marketing

This may help you when applying for volunteer and junior fundraising roles.

Entry requirements

Entry requirements for these courses vary.

• 4 or 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), or equivalent, including English and maths for a T Level

Apprenticeship

You could apply to do a Fundraiser Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship, with a charitable organisation.

This typically takes between 1 and 2 years to complete and is a mix of training in the workplace and off-the-job study.

Entry requirements

You'll usually need:

• 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), or equivalent, including English and maths, for an advanced apprenticeship

Work

You could start by working for a charity in an admin or retail support role, then move into fundraising once you've got some experience.

Volunteering

Volunteering is a good way to get experience in fundraising and to gain insights into the charity sector. It's also a great way to start making contacts, which might lead to paid job opportunities.

You can find out more about volunteering through:

• The National Council for Voluntary Organisations
• Do IT

Direct application

You can apply directly to job vacancies in charity fundraising, if you've got relevant experience from other work, for example advertising, public relations, events, sales or finance.

Other routes

You could do a specialist course like the Certificate or Diploma in Fundraising offered by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising . You'll normally need to be working in fundraising to do these.

Career path and progression

With experience, you could move into policy work, communications, partnership development and charity management, or become a self-employed fundraising consultant.

You could also take professional qualifications through the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.

Career tips

Employers will be interested in your skills, experience, values and commitment to working in the charity sector.

Guides for this industry

• Charity & Non-Profit: pay, interviews and getting started →

Related roles

• Job roleBid writer
• Job roleAid worker
• Job roleArts administrator
• Job roleMarketing executive
• Job roleEvents manager

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0