You Can't Build Sustainable Fundraising Around One Person

Dear Executives, Board Members, and CEOs,

There is a version of nonprofit fundraising that looks incredibly successful right up until someone quits.

The Development Director knows every major donor. They know which foundation program officers will take a meeting, which board member can make an introduction, which sponsor needs a phone call instead of an email, which donors should never receive the standard appeal, and which report is due next Thursday.

They know how the CRM works, or at least how their version of the CRM works. They have the spreadsheets. They know the passwords. They know why that weird field exists. They remember what happened with that donor three years ago even though nobody bothered to put it in the database.

And because they're competent, fundraising keeps moving….Then they leave.

Suddenly, everyone realizes nobody knows where half of this information lives. A donor calls and nobody recognizes the name. A grant deadline appears on the calendar without any context. Someone opens the CRM and discovers that the departed fundraiser had an entire personal system for using it. Leadership starts digging through old emails trying to reconstruct relationships that existed for years.

The organization thought it had a fundraising program.

What it really had was a very capable person carrying an enormous amount of institutional knowledge around in their head.

That's a dangerous way to fundraise.

Competence Can Hide a Bad System for a Long Time

Talented fundraisers are remarkably good at compensating for weak infrastructure.

Give an experienced fundraiser a messy CRM and they'll figure out a workaround. Give them unclear internal processes and they'll learn who to chase for what. Give them a disengaged board and they'll find the three people willing to help. Give them inconsistent leadership participation and they'll compensate by managing more donor relationships themselves.

Eventually, the workaround becomes the process. That's where organizations get themselves into trouble.

The fundraiser keeps producing, so nobody feels much urgency to examine the infrastructure underneath their work. Every new responsibility lands with the same person because they have proven they can handle it. More donor relationships become concentrated with them. More information lives in their inbox. More spreadsheets appear. More processes depend on their memory.

Competence starts masking organizational vulnerability.

I've seen this happen with Executive Directors too, especially founders and longtime leaders. One person becomes the keeper of every relationship, every funder history, every community connection, and every piece of fundraising context.

It can work for years.

Then somebody takes a new job, goes on leave, retires, burns out, or simply takes a two-week vacation and everyone realizes how much of the fundraising program has been living inside one human being.

Institutional Knowledge Needs Somewhere to Live

Every organization has institutional knowledge. The question is whether anyone besides the person holding it can access it.

If someone makes a significant donor visit, where does that information go? If a corporate partner mentions they're interested in sponsoring something next year, who records that? If a foundation declines a proposal but encourages the organization to return during the next cycle, will anyone remember six months from now? 

If your Development Director disappeared tomorrow, could someone find your current major gift pipeline? Could they understand how your Annual Fund works? Could they see which donors need stewardship? Could they figure out which grants are pending, awarded, declined, or approaching a reporting deadline? Could they tell what the board has committed to doing?

That information should live somewhere people can find it.

Some of it belongs in your CRM. Some belongs in written procedures. Some belongs in project management systems, calendars, dashboards, meeting notes, shared files, or documented workflows.

And yes, this is the boring shit.

Data standards. Naming conventions. Contact reports. Process documentation. CRM maintenance. File organization. Written responsibilities.

Nobody is putting "WE FINALLY CREATED A STANDARD PROCESS FOR RECORDING DONOR INTERACTIONS!" on the gala invitation.

Do it anyway! Because sustainable fundraising depends on your organization's ability to remember what it has learned.

Donor Relationships Need More Than One Thread

This becomes particularly important with donor relationships.

We talk about "the Executive Director's donor" or "the Development Director's donor" all the time.

I understand what people mean. Fundraising is deeply relational, and certain people naturally become the primary relationship holder for particular donors.

Those relationships are valuable. Protect them. Then give the donor additional ways to connect with the organization.

Introduce them to a board member. Let them meet program leadership. Invite them into an experience where they can see the mission differently. Make sure someone else understands the history of the relationship. Document meaningful conversations so the organization's memory doesn't depend on one person's inbox.

A donor who knows several people at your organization has several reasons to remain connected when staffing changes.

That matters.

Turnover is already disruptive. You don't want every departure to trigger a corresponding departure of donors, sponsors, funders, and community relationships.

Fundraising Has to Reach Beyond Development

Culture of Philanthropy plays a huge role here.

I've heard Culture of Philanthropy translated into "everyone is a fundraiser," and I think that phrase creates more confusion than clarity.

Your program staff shouldn't suddenly be responsible for closing major gifts. Your Finance Director doesn't need a donor portfolio. Your Communications Manager doesn't need to become a grant writer.

They do need to understand how their work connects to philanthropy.

Programs can help Development understand impact, outcomes, community needs, and stories. Finance makes accurate budgets, gift reconciliation, and reporting possible. Communications helps people understand the mission and stay connected to it. Executive leadership communicates vision, builds relationships, and opens doors. Board members can steward donors, make introductions, advocate, give, host connections, and participate in solicitation when appropriate.

Development sits at the intersection of a lot of those activities. Strong development professionals coordinate, strategize, connect, and move relationships forward.

When every fundraising responsibility eventually lands on their desk, though, the organization loses the benefit of everyone else's expertise and relationships.

It also creates an impossible job.

I've watched nonprofits ask one Development Director to manage annual giving, major gifts, grants, corporate sponsorships, events, donor stewardship, CRM administration, board fundraising, prospect research, communications, gift processing, reporting, and whatever emergency fundraising idea someone came up with at yesterday's board meeting.

Then leadership wonders why there isn't enough time for donor relationships.

Well...look at the job.

Hiring Another Fundraiser Won't Automatically Solve This

Capacity absolutely matters. There are organizations asking one fundraiser to do the work of three people, and sometimes the answer really is more fundraising staff.

But I would look carefully at the system before assuming headcount will solve the underlying problem.

Imagine hiring a second fundraiser into an organization where responsibilities remain unclear, donor information is scattered, the CRM is unreliable, leadership participation is inconsistent, board expectations are vague, and every campaign gets rebuilt from scratch.

Congratulations. Now two people are confused.

I've seen organizations respond to fundraising turnover by searching for someone extraordinary enough to manage the chaos. They want the unicorn who can build strategy, raise immediate revenue, clean the database, activate the board, manage grants, coach leadership, rebuild the Annual Fund, and somehow develop a major gift pipeline simultaneously.

A great fundraiser may actually pull some of that off. And then you've recreated the same dependency with a different person.

The healthier question during a transition is broader: What needs to exist around this person for them to succeed?

Maybe that's better CRM administration. Maybe it's documented grants management. Maybe leadership needs defined donor responsibilities. Maybe the board needs clearer fundraising roles. Maybe gift processing belongs somewhere else. Maybe the organization needs outside expertise in a specialized area rather than piling another responsibility onto one generalist.

Staffing decisions become much smarter when you're designing the fundraising function instead of trying to find a human being capable of absorbing every weakness in it.

Shared Responsibility Still Needs Ownership

There's a trap on the other side of this conversation too.

Once organizations embrace the idea of shared fundraising responsibility, things can get fuzzy fast.

Someone still has to own the development strategy. Someone needs to manage the donor pipeline. Someone needs to know what's happening with grants. Someone needs responsibility for the Annual Fund. Someone has to ensure stewardship actually happens.

"Everyone is responsible" becomes useless when nobody knows what they're personally accountable for.

A strong fundraising operation has clear ownership and shared participation.

The Development Director may own the major gift strategy while the Executive Director and selected board members hold relationships within the portfolio. A grants professional may manage the grants pipeline while Programs supplies outcomes and Finance owns budget information. Development may create the stewardship strategy while board members make thank-you calls.

Everybody knows their lane. Everybody can see how the lanes connect. That's the kind of infrastructure that makes fundraising resilient.

Build for the Day Someone Leaves

Start with the end in mind!

I think one of the healthiest questions an organization can ask about its fundraising program is uncomfortable: What happens if this person leaves?

You shouldn't ask it because you're expecting them to. Ask because eventually everyone does.

Development Directors change jobs. Executive Directors retire. Board members rotate off. Consultants finish contracts. Staff take leave. Organizations grow and responsibilities shift.

A sustainable fundraising practice accounts for that reality while people are still there.

Document what they know. Build systems other people can understand. Give important donors multiple connections to the organization. Cross-train where it makes sense. Define responsibilities. Make the CRM useful. Build workflows that survive turnover. Give board members meaningful fundraising roles. Keep leadership involved in donor relationships.

And please, let your talented fundraisers spend more of their time fundraising.

Every hour they spend manually holding together an undocumented process is an hour they aren't cultivating a donor, meeting a funder, developing a partnership, coaching a board member, or thinking strategically about revenue.

The best fundraising infrastructure can feel almost invisible when it's working. People know where information lives. Responsibilities are understood. Relationships continue moving. A staff departure creates a transition rather than a crisis.

Your fundraiser still matters enormously.

They just don't have to carry the entire fundraising program on their back.

And that might be one of the clearest signs that you've actually built something sustainable.

Sincerely,

Queers

Queer For Hire provides fundraising support to Queer nonprofits, LGBTQIA+ cultural competency to straight-led organizations and corporations, and individual coaching for Queer professionals.

Learn about our Fundraising Services <here> – we’ll lead or support your fundraising efforts, whether you need general support or want to focus on raising money from and for the LGBTQIA+ community.

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