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Someone who is passionate about charities and nonprofits should consider a career as a Charity Director helping organizations raise money to promote their cause.
Charity Directors can also work for educational institutions, museums, zoos or libraries.
Charity Directors are more commonly known as Development Directors and their main task is to increase fundraising efforts to raise money for their organization.
Their job is important because a charity or nonprofit greatly depends on donations and grants in order to operate and function.
An organization would not be able to promote their message without a Charity Director’s fundraising efforts.
Charity Directors implement a variety of fundraising efforts and typically have a yearly monetary amount they have to meet in order to keep the organization running.
The amount depends on the organization’s size with some larger organizations requiring up to millions of dollars.
Charity Directors with larger organizations can expect to be busy throughout the day applying their strategies in order to meet high monetary goals.
Charity Directors can raise money for their organization in a variety of ways; some fundraising efforts can include planning special events, sponsorships, grant proposals or memberships.
All these fundraising efforts are part of a strategic plan created in part by the Charity Director in order to create and increase an organization’s revenue.
Someone who is interested and wants to become a Charity Director should have plenty of experience fundraising, a lot of ideas on new fundraising methods and strong communication skills to help increase an organization’s revenue.
Similar job titles in the nonprofit sector include:
- Development Director
- Compliance Examiner
- Director of Development
- Development Associate
- Chief Development Officer
- Director of Business Development
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Education Requirements to Become a Charity Director
Someone who wants to become a Charity Director needs a minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree in order to work with an organization.
They also need several years of experience.
Potential Charity Directors can even begin their career as Development Associate in order to learn the ropes assisting with fundraising efforts.
Majors that can help someone become a Charity Director include Marketing or Public Relations although the minimum educational requirement is a Bachelor’s Degree in any area.
Organizations look for a candidate’s track record of fundraising efforts and look for proven experience and success in sales and fundraising.
Some candidates must also have a background that includes special events management, public relations and grant writing.
Charity Director Job Description
A Charity Director is in charge of creating and executing a development strategy in order to increase revenue for their organization.
Typically reporting to an Executive Director, a Charity Director is responsible for accomplishing the organization’s fundraising goals and drawing sponsorships by planning and executing a variety of activities.
The listed tasks consist of more detailed information regarding a Charity Director’s duties.
- Design and execute a yearly development plan and strategy
- Manage and guide an organization’s development plan in order to raise a specified annual budget
- Develop and maintain relationships with existing or potential sponsors and individual donors
- Write grant proposals and reports to potential funders: corporations, foundations, individuals and government funders.
- Implement a strategy to grow individual donor base; execute a marketing and public relations plan
Charity Directors use a variety of skills and techniques in order to help their organization meet its financial yearly goals.
A potential Charity Director should have a proven track record of developing fundraising plans and meeting yearly financial goals.
Nonprofit organizations typically have to extend their efforts to a variety of donors in order to meet their yearly required revenue in order to perform their mission.
Each individual charity has a different mission as well as fundraising goals.
An experienced Charity Director will know which types of strategies to use and how to achieve yearly monetary fundraising goals.
Charity Director Salary and Career Path
The average national salary range for these professionals is approximately $58,100 to $142,000 per year.
Several factors affect this including location and years of experience as well as the nonprofit’s size.
Larger organizations will have more means to pay higher wages.
Job growth for these types of jobs is expected to grow at 14% until 2016, higher than the average growth for other professions.
