What makes a good fundraiser?

A few weeks ago, a client came to me and said they were stuck. They'd finished interviewing for a fundraising role and had narrowed it down to two candidates. One had years of experience. They knew the sector inside out, had built partnerships, understood the jargon and would probably hit the ground running.The other had less experience. But every answer they gave had energy behind it. They asked brilliant questions. They'd clearly done their homework. They had that look about them that said if you give me a problem, I might not know the answer but I’ll definitely work it out.The client wasn't sure which way to go. On paper, the experienced candidate felt like the safer choice… But we suggested they hire the other one.

Not because experience doesn't matter. It absolutely does. But because experience is something people can learn, whereas attitude is much harder to teach. And it got me thinking...People often ask what makes a great fundraiser.I've come to think there are lots of useful skills. Communication. Strategy. Commercial awareness. Relationship building. But underneath all of them, there are two qualities I look for every single time.

The first is curiosity.

Not just the kind of curiosity that gets you the meeting. The best fundraisers stay curious long after they've landed the partnership. They're the people asking why a donor behaved the way they did. Why one proposal worked and another didn't. Why one company keeps engaging while another keeps going quiet.

And perhaps most importantly, when things stop working, they become more curious.

It's incredibly easy to become frustrated in fundraising. You send the proposal. Nothing. You follow up. Nothing. You tweak the proposition. Still nothing.

Eventually it's tempting to decide that companies don't care anymore. That donors have changed. That it's the economy. Or your pipeline. Or your manager. Or your luck.

Sometimes those things are true. But curiosity asks a different question.

"What's happening here that I haven't understood yet?"

That's a very different place to start. One of the questions I ask myself when I'm having a difficult spell is surprisingly simple. Am I more curious, or more frustrated?

Because if the answer is frustration, I'm probably becoming part of the problem.

Frustration makes us stop asking questions. It makes us assume. It makes us rush conversations, send worse emails and convince ourselves we've already got the answer. Curiosity does the opposite. It slows us down just enough to notice something we'd missed. It asks one more question. It makes one more phone call. It tries one more approach. And more often than not, that's where the breakthrough lives.The second quality is much less glamorous.

It's simply being the kind of person who gets knocked down...

...but gets up again. 

(Yes, I appreciate I've just quoted Tubthumping.)

Fundraising is one of the few professions where doing the right thing often results in absolutely nothing happening. You send the email. You leave the voicemail. You follow up. And you get nothing back.

And if you're not careful, your brain quietly translates "no reply" into "no." But they're not the same thing.

"No reply" isn't rejection. It's just... no reply.

Recent research from Microsoft shows that the average office worker is interrupted every two minutes. I’m obsessed with this stat, because it shows why people aren’t responding - most of the time, it’s not personal, they just got distracted.

I've seen partnerships begin because of a sixth follow-up that almost didn't get sent. Not because the first five were bad. Just because the timing finally became right.

That's why the people who quietly keep going often outperform the people with the flashiest CVs. Not because they're louder. Not because they're more talented. Because they haven't decided the story is over just because somebody else hasn't written the next chapter yet.

The candidate the client chose did, in fact, hit the ground running. They’re soaking up every moment and pitching their heart out to an incredible range of companies. They ask questions every meeting, and they learn from the answers. When they’ve been knocked down, they’ve got up again. And so far, that's a pretty good combination.

If you’re having any recruitment hardships, including wanting a good set of questions to ask in an interview, let me know - we’ve developed attitude-based questions that make sure you end up with the right team. Or, if you want a coffee to talk about your career, we have a bit more space over August and I’d love to hear from you.