Charity fundraiser
Charity fundraisers organise events and activities to encourage people to donate to causes and to support organisations.
What you'll do
Day-to-day tasks
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.
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.
What it takes
Skills and knowledge
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
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
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
More Information
You could take a college course in customer service to develop skills which are useful for this job.
This may help you when applying for volunteer and junior fundraising roles.
Entry requirements
Entry requirements for these courses vary.
More Information
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
More Information
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 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:
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.
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 tips
Employers will be interested in your skills, experience, values and commitment to working in the charity sector.
Further information
You can get more advice about working and training in the charity sector through the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and CharityJob.
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External links
This page contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.