Testing the Effectiveness of Fundraiser Job Titles in Charitable Bequest and Complex Gift Planning

• Author: Russell N. James
• Date: 01 December 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21231
• Published date: 01 December 2016

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N M  L, vol. 27, no. 2, Winter 2016 © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21231

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Testing the Eff ectiveness of Fundraiser

Job Titles in Charitable Bequest and

Complex Gift Planning

Russell N. James III

Texas Tech University

Traditional fundraiser job titles are often institution centered, focusing on the benefits of

fundraising as “institutional advancement” or “institutional development.” Such institu-

tion-centered job titles may not be as effective with donors given the modern shift toward

donor-centered philanthropy. Alternative job titles can be gift centered (for example, “major

gifts”) or donor centered (for example, “donor advising”). A survey of 3,188 respondents

tested sixty-three job titles in four charitable scenarios: a charitable bequest gift, a gift

of stock, a gift of real estate, and a charitable gift annuity. Measured by which person

donors would be more likely to contact to discuss each donation, the worst-performing

titles were the traditional institution-focused fundraiser job titles, in particular those using

“ advancement ,” “ institutional advancement ,” or “ development. ” This was also true when

examining only respondents who had made large gifts ($500+) to a charity. Traditional

institution-focused job titles are both the most commonly used and the worst performing.

Nonprofit managers may do well to consider the donor ’ s perspective when selecting job titles

for fundraisers rather than following traditional industry practices.

Keywords: fundraising , philanthropy , job titles , charitable bequest , planned giving

ALTHOUGH NO PREVIOUS research appears to have examined fundraiser job titles, there is

reason to believe that understanding public perceptions of such titles may be important. In

systems theory, organizations can adopt an open or closed orientation toward their external

environments (Lindahl 2009 ). Unless a charitable organization is self-contained, for example,

raising money from its own benefi ciaries as a mutual benefi t society, fundraising must focus

on reaching out to external donors. Applying systems theory to fundraising, Tempel ( 1991 )

explained, “For an organization to be successful in fund raising, it must be connected to its

external environment” (19). More so than other members of the nonprofi t organization,

fundraisers are necessarily focused on attempting to successfully interact with external audi-

ences (Lindahl 2009 ). So, although public reaction to the job title for a nonprofi t organiza-

tion ’ s information technology specialist may be of limited importance, such is not the case

for nonprofi t fundraisers. A core task of fundraisers is to have conversations with existing

Correspondence to: Russell N. James III, Texas Tech University, Graduate Studies in Charitable Planning, Box 41210

Lubbock, Texas 79409–1210, E-mail: russell.james@ttu.edu.