the emergence of fundraising as a profession.pdf

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Formal fundraising efforts have long been a part of American philanthropy.

1641, clergymen Hugh Peter, Thomas Weld, and William Hibbens left the Massachusetts

Bay Colony to travel to England to seek funds to support Harvard College, thus earning a

place in history as members of the “first systematic effort to raise money on [the

American] continent.”

While systematic, this effort was nonetheless ancillary to the

participants’ acknowledged profession as clergy. Fundraising would remain an ancillary

activity rather than a professional pursuit until the middle of the nineteenth century, when

the growing needs of the poor during the Industrial Revolution outstripped the ability of

philanthropy to meet these needs face-to-face. These conditions—and the ensuing shift

from charity, which focused on alleviation of immediate need, to philanthropy, which had

social progress as its aim—created a new need for resource development on a scale never

before seen.

Only then did fundraising begin to emerge as a distinctive discipline.

Even so, a discipline is not the same as a profession. While major campaigns at

the end of the nineteenth century at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and the

University of Chicago (where Baptist clergy Frederick T. Gates and Thomas W.

Goodspeed were instrumental to the campaign’s success) demonstrated the way in which

Selected content of Chapter One has been adapted from Eva E. Aldrich, “Fundraising as a Profession,” in

Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, Third Edition, edited by Eugene R. Tempel, Timothy L. Seiler, and

Eva E. Aldrich (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2010), 427-433; and Eva E. Aldrich, “Fundraising as a

Profession,” in Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, Fourth Edition, edited by Eugene R. Tempel,

Timothy L. Seiler, and Dwight F. Burlingame (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2017), 503-516.

Scott M. Cutlip, Fund Raising in the United States: Its Role in America’s Philanthropy (New Brunswick:

Rutgers University Press, 1965), 3.

Olivier Zunz, Philanthropy in America: A History, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 10.

Paul P. Pribbenow, “Public Service: Renewing the Moral Meaning of Professions in America,” Ph.D.

diss., (University of Chicago, Divinity School, 1993), 18.

major fundraising efforts required structure, their success nevertheless hinged for the

most part on the work of talented individuals who earned their bread in other callings

rather than on full-time fundraising professionals armed with science and method.

Fundraising changed fundamentally in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Mass philanthropy—“the mass campaign for small donations”—revolutionized

fundraising, effectively “democratizing philanthropy.”

This paved the way for

fundraising to emerge as a profession, as these highly successful, high-volume, small

contribution campaigns required full-time, knowledgeable professionals for structuring

and execution. Possibly the most famously cited instance of a successful early “mass

philanthropy” campaign was that of the American Red Cross, which launched the

country’s first nationwide campaign in 1917. This remarkable fundraising effort raised

$114 million in eight days to support the United States’ World War I efforts.

It is the individuals responsible for these early, successful mass philanthropy

campaigns—men like Charles S. Ward and Lyman Pierce, who perfected their principles

and practices as fundraisers for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)

system—who were the founders of the modern fundraising profession at the start of the

twentieth century. In the ensuing years, the fundraising profession has grown and

matured even as the philanthropic sector in the United States has grown and matured.

However, the understanding of fundraising and its importance to the philanthropic sector

still lags, with many organizations unable to instill a culture of philanthropy in otherwise

Pribbenow, “Public Service,” 20.

Virginia Hodgkinson, “Individual Volunteering and Giving,” in The State of the Nonprofit America, ed.

Lester M. Salamon (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2002), 397.

Cutlip, 110.

highly professionalized and sophisticated charitable enterprises.

Despite being a century

old, fundraising is still seen as an emerging profession, with further development of

research and theory being vital to the profession’s future.

While fundraising as an aspect

of philanthropy is increasingly a focus of scholarly attention, contemporary scholarship

on the history of fundraising as a profession is generally limited. This is especially true

regarding the history of credentialing for fundraising professionals in general and the

history of the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) credential in particular.

Problem Statement

Credentialing has become an established albeit voluntary—and often debated—

part of the fundraising profession. At the center of discussions regarding credentialing for

fundraising is the CFRE credential, which is the oldest and most widely acknowledged

credential for fundraising professionals. First awarded in 1981, the CFRE credential is a

baseline credential for the fundraising profession. To obtain the CFRE credential,

candidates must complete a two-part process: 1. an application in which they

demonstrate how they meet baseline requirements in the areas of professional practice,

performance, and education; and 2. a demonstration of their knowledge of best practices

in ethical fundraising as confirmed by achieving a passing score on a 200-question,

multiple choice examination.

Jeanne Bell and Marla Cornelius, UnderDeveloped: A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit

Organizations (Oakland: Compasspoint Nonprofit Services, 2013), 18.

Robert F. Carbone, Fundraising as a Profession, (College Park: Clearing House for Research in

Fundraising, 1989), 46; Harold G. Bloland and Eugene R. Tempel, “Measuring Professionalism,” New

Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, no. 43 (2004): 5; Ian MacQuillan, Less than My Job’s Worth: Is

Fundraising a Profession? And Does It Matter if It Isn’t? (Plymouth: Rogare, 2017), 5,

https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/document/path/9/9060/Rogare_Green_Paper_-

_Is_Fundraising_a_Profession.pdf.

While research has explored the benefits of credentialing for fundraisers and the

general public, it has failed to examine how the CFRE credential came to be and why the

development of the CFRE credential marks a significant milestone in the evolution of

fundraising as a profession.

This lack of research into the development of the CFRE

credential is not simply a lacuna in the history of the fundraising profession. It is

significant because the void it represents contributes to the fundraising’s ongoing self-

doubt regarding its right to call itself a profession and under what terms.

Study Purpose

The purpose of this study is to document the development of the CFRE credential

within the larger context of the emergence of fundraising as a profession. In particular,

the study focuses on the voices and experiences of the practitioners belonging to early

fundraising associations such as the American Association of Fund Raising Consultants

(AAFRC), which was the first formal association for fundraising professionals; and the

National Society of Fundraising Executives (NSFRE), which developed the CFRE

credential.

Study Significance

Recent research has shown some disturbing signs of volatility in the fundraising

profession. There is high turnover in leadership positions, inadequate and

underdeveloped professional talent, conditions to sustain fundraiser success are minimal,

and organizational cultures of philanthropy are lacking.

In the face of trying

circumstances, fundraising professionals have traditionally relied on their professional

Carbone, Fundraising as a Profession, 46; Bloland and Tempel, 5; MacQuillan, 5.

Please see the list of acronyms used in this study.

Bell and Cornelius, 5-20.

associations. However, professional associations themselves are now falling behind as

members become increasingly less loyal and more value-oriented in the return on

investment they expect for their membership dues.

Credentials such as the CFRE serve the interests of professionals by signaling that

an individual has attained baseline levels of professional experience, education,

performance, and knowledge of best practices. This presumably also assists in building

the strength of the talent pool available to the profession, which in turn strengthens the

profession as a whole.

In addition, a credential tends to elevate both the reputation of

the individual practitioner and the reputation of his field of practice. This factor is

particularly important for fundraising, which some say “suffers from a bad reputation.”

Credentials also serve the interests of associations. In addition to reinforcing

association values, helping to delineate professional knowledge, and promoting ethical

conduct, credentials also have the very practical, bottom-line value of generating revenue

and increasing member loyalty to associations.

In short, credentials create “sticky”

members—professionals who maintain long-term membership in the association and who

usually go on to form the backbone of leadership for the association and the profession.

Given the contemporary challenges of the fundraising profession and of many of

the associations serving it, a deeper understanding of the CFRE credential has the

potential to reacquaint the profession not simply with the merits of professional

Harrison Coerver and Mary Byers, Race for Relevance: 5 Radical Changes for Associations

(Washington, DC: The Center for Association Leadership, 2011), Loc. 249.

Bell and Cornelius, 24.

Bell and Cornelius, 23.

Mary Tschirhart, Chongmyoung Lee, and Gary Travinin, The Benefits of Credentialing Programs to

Membership Organizations (Washington, DC: ASAE Foundation Research Series, 2003), 5,

https://www.asaecenter.org/publications/107675-the-benefits-of-credentialing-programs-to-membership-

assns-pdf.

credentialing but more importantly with how the profession was built, why it is

important, and how the CFRE credential serves to support the health and strength of

fundraising associations and the fundraising profession.

Research Questions

This study posits that the CFRE credential is the result of the fundraising

profession following patterns typical of the sociological approach to professionalization.

The sociological approach to professions is characterized by an emphasis on stipulative

criteria that determine the status of an occupation as a profession.

While various

models for stipulative criteria have been developed, this study uses the criteria of “(1)

systematic theory, (2) authority, (3) community sanction, (4) ethical codes, and (5) a

culture” as defining features of a profession.

To date the fundraising profession has been successful in establishing systematic

theory for fundraising (albeit mostly practice-based theory, not research-based theory,

although research-based theory is growing) and ethical codes (as established by

professional societies such as the Association of Fundraising Professionals). It has been

significantly less successful in terms of establishing authority, community sanction, and a

culture with a strong sense of professional identity. As a profession that often elevates

practice over research and talent over formal qualifications, fundraising frequently

undermines the traditional building blocks of professional authority.

Since it is self-

policing rather than governmentally regulated, fundraising lacks the hard boundary of

licensure that defines traditional professions such as law and medicine. Further,

MacQuillan, 4.

Ernest Greenwood, “Attributes of a Profession,” Social Work 2, no. 3 (1957): 45.

One school of thought posits that a philosophical approach to defining fundraising as a profession is

more apt. See Chapter Two for further discussion.

fundraising still struggles with the concept of a unified culture beyond that offered by

ethical codes. Partly this can be attributed to the wide diversity of individuals and

organizations engaged in the fundraising profession. Partly it can be attributed to the

very real ambivalence that many fundraisers feel about their profession, which is many

times neither widely understood nor well supported by charities or by society at large.

The thesis of this study is that the CFRE credential represents an effort by the

fundraising profession to grow professional identity through mitigation of deficiencies in

professional authority, community sanction, and culture. The CFRE credential’s process

of voluntary certification acts to enhance professional authority by providing a

mechanism for distinguishing those who possess baseline professional knowledge from

those who do not; by enabling community sanction through a self-policing function that

designates minimal criteria for being acknowledged as a bona fide fundraising

professional; and by reinforcing fundraising’s unique culture to charities and the public

through the CFRE credential, which is a visible insignia or emblem available only to

those who prove themselves as fundraising professionals by successfully completing an

accredited certification process. In creating the CFRE credential, the fundraising

profession moved forward in its ongoing professionalization through the consensus

created regarding expectations and boundaries for fundraising professionals in terms of

knowledge, experience, and ethics. In addition, the creation of the credential fostered the

profession’s adoption of a view that the fundraising profession was bigger than any

particular fundraising association. It also promoted an understanding of certification as a

potential gateway to a better and more robust knowledge and research base for

fundraising.

Primary research questions include: What were the historic pressures faced by

fundraising practitioners that acted as catalysts for professionalization? What role did

issues of systematic theory, authority, community sanction, ethical codes, and culture

play in the development of professional norms and standards for fundraising? What were

necessary preconditions for the development of certification? What key elements helped

shape the CFRE credential? What issues faced by the profession did fundraising

practitioners seek to address with the creation of the CFRE credential? What role did the

development of certification play in the professionalization of fundraising?

Research Design and Methodology

This study reveals the voices and perceptions of the fundraising practitioners

responsible for creating the building blocks of professionalism that culminated in the

CFRE credential. The study employed traditional historical methodology and relied

mainly on archival research to develop an understanding of the historic environment

shaping prior generations of practitioners, including the contemporary circumstances and

concerns that led them to prioritize the development of the systemic theory and ethical

codes that eventually led to the creation of a professional credential.

Completing this study required a critical reading of records from archival sources

of early practitioner associations such as the American Association of Fund Raising

Counsel and the National Society of Fund Raising Executives. It also required an

examination of records belonging to CFRE International. In examining these sources, the

researcher utilized a postmodern framework that understands text as performative

utterances.

This framework views text as not simply as a record of reality but as a

shaper of reality. Such an approach makes particular sense for this study. Archival

sources provide a window for the analysis of the fundraising associations that built the

modern fundraising profession as we know it, and the records of these fundraising

associations show how the recursive discussions regarding the nature of the fundraising

profession that took place over time and in the context of a shifting philanthropic

landscape molded practitioner understanding of what the profession was and should be.

Notably, it was largely through dialogues internal to the profession—that is, of

practitioners engaging with each other about the nature of the profession—that led to the

creation of credentialing (itself a performative utterance), with external forces that shaped

the ebb and flow of the philanthropic sector as it developed in the twentieth century

having minimal impact on decisions regarding credentialing.

The advantage of using traditional historical methodology and relying mainly on

archival sources is that this allows for the voices of the practitioners responsible for

building the profession to be heard. This provides new insight into how the CFRE

credential was constructed, the social context of the fundraising profession at the time

when the CFRE credential was being conceptualized and developed, and the tensions and

biases extant in professional fundraising associations that impacted the credential’s

development. The advantage of utilizing a postmodern critical framework is that it aids

in understanding how these practitioner voices engaged in a powerful cycle of recursive

J. L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); John R. Searle,

Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1983); John

R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1974); Jacques Derrida, “Signature, Event, Context,” in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 307-330.

dialogue over time to create a collective understanding of what it means to be a part of

the fundraising profession. It also allows for credentialing to be understood as a powerful

performative utterance that attempts to demarcate profession boundaries within a non-

regulated profession. Further, examining the historical development of the fundraising

profession allows the study to illustrate the recursive, ever-emerging nature of the

profession and the ways in which professionalization has occurred only incrementally.

Archival Sources

The study relied extensively on primary sources of information from the

following archival sources:

American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel, Inc. Records, 1935-1992.

Location: Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives, University Library, IUPUI,

Indianapolis, Indiana. As an association of leading fundraising counsel that pre-dated the

establishment of the National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR), AAFRC (now The Giving

Institute) records provided helpful context on trends affecting philanthropy during the

period being studied, as well as early efforts to consolidate systematic theory for

fundraising practice and to establish a professional code of ethics. Archive contents also

included some contemporary reporting on governmental legislation (primarily New York

State’s Tompkins Committee) affecting the potential regulation of fundraising. Series I:

Minutes of Meetings (1935-1987) was examined for the period up to 1965, as after 1965

NSFR became the primary proponent for credentialing. In addition to meeting minutes of

the Board of Directors, Series I contained minutes of Executive Committee meetings and

records of yearly meetings. In addition, some transcripts of the earliest meetings,

treasurers' reports, committee reports, and speeches and papers presented by association

members were also included in Series I.

Association of Fundraising Professionals Records, 1960-1998. Location: Ruth

Lilly Special Collections and Archives, University Library, IUPUI, Indianapolis, Indiana.

The National Society of Fund Raising Executives was the originating organization for the

CFRE credential, and its volunteers led the processes that investigated the feasibility of

the creation of the CFRE credential and spearheaded the credential’s development.

Archival materials were examined to identify private and public discussions around the

creation of the credential, as well as messaging promoting the credential to NSFRE’s

membership. Specific materials examined include relevant records of the Board of

Directors (1961-1998), including minutes, correspondence, reports, committee records,

Division minutes and reports, Executive Committee minutes, and speeches mentioning

the NSFRE certification program (which became the CFRE credential); program records

(1970-1995), focusing on files of the NSFRE certification program; publication records

(1962-1994), focusing on issues of the NSFRE Journal and NSFRE Newsletter published

around the time of the launch of the CFRE credential in 1981; and NSFRE Foundation

Board of Directors minutes (1978-1981) and Sightlines newsletter (1981) that discuss the

CFRE credential or provide insight into the circumstances of the funding of its

development. It should be noted that because this study ends just after the establishment

of the CFRE credential, NSFRE records post-1985 were not examined for the study.

The National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR) was founded in 1960. It became the National Society of

Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE) in 1977; it was during the NSFRE years that the CFRE credential was

developed and first awarded. In 1999, the association changed its name to the Association of Fundraising

Professionals (AFP).

CFRE International records. Location: CFRE International, Alexandria,

Virginia. CFRE International records include NSFRE documents related to the creation

of the CFRE credential. Many of these documents do not exist in the Association of

Fundraising Professionals Records, 1960-1998. In addition to minutes of NSFRE

Certification Council meetings, the records also contain Certification Council Founding

Chair Lyle C. Cook’s correspondence related to the creation of the CFRE credential,

results of early surveys of NSFRE members regarding certification, and demographic

information on early CFREs.

Other archival sources examined included an American Foundations Oral History

Project interview with Charles Johnson, the Lilly Endowment Inc. executive who

approved funding to create the CFRE credential. The interview did not contain

information relevant to this study.

A request was also made to Lilly Endowment Inc. to examine its archives on the

grant award that funded the development of the CFRE credential. Lilly Endowment Inc.

reported that documents related to the grant had been purged as part of standard file

maintenance.

Researcher Bias

The researcher has been a member of the professional fundraising community in

varying capacities since 1995, first as a member of the fundraising consulting firm

Johnson Grossnickle and Associates; next as Associate Director of The Fund Raising

School at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University (now the Indiana University

Lilly Family School of Philanthropy); and now as President and CEO of CFRE

International, the certification body administering the CFRE credential. The researcher

has been a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals since 1995 and held

the CFRE credential from 2001-2016. The researcher has also experienced fundraising

from the perspective of a graduate student in Philanthropic Studies whose research

interest is fundraising, a volunteer engaged in fundraising for community organizations,

and a donor to a few charities both large and small. The researcher is likewise humbled

by having had the honor over the years to meet or work with individuals engaged in the

development of the CFRE credential—individuals like Charles Johnson, Jim Greenfield,

Bob Pierpont, Don Campbell, and Hank Goldstein. These experiences mean that the

researcher cannot make unbiased judgments and observations about fundraising

professionals, the fundraising profession, and the CFRE credential, which form the

objects of this study.

However, the researcher bias that inevitably comes from having close ties to the

objects of research is somewhat mitigated by the researcher having experienced

fundraising and fundraising professionals in multiple roles over the years. These multiple

roles have made the researcher very aware of the many lenses through which fundraising,

fundraising professionals, and certification are viewed as well as the need to triangulate

these lenses against each other in order to achieve a balanced perspective when

approaching research about the fundraising profession.

Research Limitations and Delimitations

A significant limitation of this study is its reliance on archival sources. While

providing plentiful data, archival sources are many times selective deposits whose

contents depend on what individuals at the time thought to be worthy of keeping.

Because of this, there is the potential for archival sources to be incomplete and perhaps

suffer from bias as a result. An example of this encountered during this study were the

NSFRE Ad Hoc Committee on Certification documents that were missing from AFP’s

records but present in CFRE International’s records. Without the NSFRE Ad Hoc

Committee on Certification documents, the materials in the AFP records provide an

incomplete picture of the work that went into the creation of the CFRE credential and the

importance and scope of that work. Likewise, CFRE International’s records are solely

focused on documents related to the creation of the CFRE credential and lack the wider

context present in AFP’s records.

Another limitation of archival sources is that terms used in the records can take on

different meanings over time. This study encountered this issue with the term

“fundraiser,” which at various times meant a fundraising consultant working for a large

firm; a fundraising consultant who either worked for a large firm or who was a sole

proprietor; a for-profit professional solicitor of donations; or a paid staff member of a

charitable organization. While not an insurmountable limitation, such things require

extra care on the part of the researcher.

Delimitations are within the control of the researcher, and there are several

important ones pertaining to this study. This study does not pretend to be a history of

American philanthropy, nor is it even a fulsome history of the fundraising profession.

This study focuses on developments in the fundraising profession that were crucial to the

creation of the CFRE credential. Because the first phase of professionalization—the

development of a systemic theory of fundraising practice at the beginning of the era of

mass philanthropy in the early twentieth century—has already been exhaustively

documented by Scott M. Cutlip in Fundraising in the United States: Its Role in American

Philanthropy (1965), this study does not try to duplicate that work. Instead, this study’s

in-depth focus begins in 1935 with the founding of the American Association of Fund

Raising Counsel and ends in 1985 with the first recertification cycle of the CFRE

credential. This timeframe allows the researcher to expand on prior research through

analysis of the records of the American Association of Fund Raising Counsel, the

Association of Fund Raising Professionals, and CFRE International, which were not

available to researchers in Cutlip’s era.

In addition, this study focuses on the voices and experiences of the practitioners

who shaped the profession as contained in records existing in archival sources. The

records from the archival resources on which this study relied showed that in creating the

fundraising profession, practitioner discussions were largely insular and surprisingly

devoid of great concern for significant external events (for instance, the Filer

Commission) that are milestones in American philanthropy. Because of this, the study

examines external events only when records show that the events significantly influenced

the development of the CFRE credential.

Last, this study does not include oral histories from individuals still alive who

participated in the creation of the CFRE credential. Because of time restraints on the part

of the researcher and because memory—while valuable—is also notoriously unreliable

over time, the researcher chose to focus this study on an analysis of records contained in

archival sources. An opportunity for further research is to expand this study to include

eyewitness accounts.

Dissertation Overview

Chapter One introduces the study and provides an overview of the context for the

study, the problem to be addressed, the purpose and focus of the work, the thesis and key

research questions guiding the work, the research methodology, and archival sources

used. It also includes reflections on the theoretical framework for the study, researcher

bias, limitations of the study, and an overview of the structure of the study.

Chapter Two reviews the literature informing the study, including research

regarding the history of the fundraising profession, theoretical constructions of the

profession, and discussions of the role credentialing plays in the profession.

Chapter Three focuses on the twentieth-century origins of standards of practice

for fundraising professionals.

Chapter Four focuses on key attempts by state legislatures to regulate fundraising.

These cases began the discussion among fundraising professionals about certification as a

possible means of self-regulation.

Chapter Five focuses on efforts in the realm of ethics and professional education

that were precursors to the development of the CFRE certification program.

Chapter Six focuses on the creating of the CFRE credential and how the

credential constituted an effort of fundraising practitioners to address issues of

insufficient professional authority, community sanction, and culture.

Chapter Seven summarizes the study and identifies implications for future

research.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

The search for professional sustainability and respect has long been a driving

factor for practitioners seeking to build fundraising as a profession.

This chapter

reviews literature relevant to the development of professionalism in fundraising and

fundraising credentialing. Sections include perceptions of the fundraising profession;

perceptions of fundraising professionals; the philosophical approach to defining

fundraising as a profession; the sociological approach to defining fundraising as a

profession; and credentialing in the profession.

For purposes of this study, “fundraising” is defined narrowly as an activity that

generates monetary support for charitable organizations. “Fundraising professional” is

defined as an individual who is employed by a charitable organization and whose

occupation is the generation of monetary support for that organization. “Fundraising

consultant” is defined as an individual who is employed by a for-profit company and

whose occupation is providing advice and counsel on fundraising to charitable

organizations. “Professional solicitor” is defined as an individual who is employed by a

for-profit company and whose occupation is soliciting donations on behalf of a charitable

organization. These distinctions did not always exist within the fundraising profession,

and indeed grew only as divisions of labor entered the field. Even today, these various

terms are not always well understood or used consistently by the public and by those

Selected content in Chapter Two has been adapted from Eva E. Aldrich, “Fundraising as a Profession,” in

Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, Third Edition, edited by Eugene R. Tempel, Timothy L. Seiler, and

Eva E. Aldrich (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2010), 427-433; and Eva E. Aldrich, “Fundraising as a

Profession,” in Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, Fourth Edition, edited by Eugene R. Tempel,

Timothy L. Seiler, and Dwight F. Burlingame (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2017), 503-516.

within fundraising. Still, they provide a valuable means of distinguishing various

functions and relations within the fundraising profession.

Perceptions of the Fundraising Profession

Evidence suggests that many donors find nonprofit personnel to be trustworthy

because they seek their advice when making philanthropic gifts, and professional training

for fundraisers asserts that fundraising is about “pride” not “apology.”

However, an

ongoing challenge for those in the fundraising profession is that deservedly or not,

“fundraising suffers from a bad reputation.”

Periodic “charity racketeering” scandals

and sensationalist stories in the press asserting donors are being disrespected and even

harmed by overly aggressive or overly frequent charitable solicitations mean that the

profession of fundraising tends to suffer from low-esteem issues both in the eyes of the

public and in the eyes of its own practitioners.

Much of this problem is due to perceived tensions between the task of fundraising

and the interests of those being solicited. One researcher suggests a key problem with

fundraising is the inherent conflict that exists between the interests of the donor and the

interests of the fundraiser, noting,

Without questioning the general good intentions of fundraising or the

authentic generosity of givers, there is certainly a tension between the

giver’s empathy for others, on the one hand, and the calculating rationality

of the fundraiser, on the other, in his or her effort of marketing or

persuading a potential donor.

Una Osili et al, The 2016 U.S. Trust Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy (Indianapolis: IUPUI

Scholarworks, 2016), 34, https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/handle/1805/11234; The Fund Raising School,

Principles and Techniques of Fundraising (Indianapolis: Indiana University Center on Philanthropy,

2013), iv.

Bell and Cornelius, 23.

Cutlip, 441-475; “Poppy Seller Who Killed Herself Got 3,000 Charity Requests for Donations a Year,”

The Guardian, 20 January 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/20/poppy-seller-who-

killed-herself-got-up-to-3000-charity-mailings-a-year.

Per-Anders Forstorp, “Fundraising Discourse and the Commodification of the Other,” Business Ethics: A

European Review 16, no. 3 (July 2007): 286.

The use of the term “tension” to describe the tenor of the donor/fundraiser relationship

and “calculating rationality” as applied to the fundraiser certainly suggests that the author

finds the donor/fundraiser relationship to be suspiciously stacked in favor of the

fundraiser.

Another researcher offers a stronger opinion regarding the ability of fundraisers to

serve the interests of the donor, from which it may be inferred that asymmetrical

information and contract failure may be a cause for a lack of trust between the donor and

the fundraiser:

Even assuming the fundraiser is fully honest and forthcoming, the

fundraiser remains an agent of the nonprofit, with a duty to that

organization to the exclusion of the interests of the donor. A conflict with

the donor’s interests is permissible; a conflict with employing organization

is not. Knowing this, the donor cannot rely on the fundraiser as his or her

own agent.

Here, the researcher takes the stance that agency is necessarily a one-way street. The

fundraiser must seek to benefit the employing organization to the detriment of the

donor’s best interests.

As if a bad reputation, perceived conflicts of interest, and issues of contract

failure are not bad enough, fundraising historically has been a source of ambivalence

even among fundraisers. Some fundraisers dislike the word itself, while a significant

portion of fundraisers feel distinctly uncomfortable asking for money.”

Even

fundraising luminaries such as Charles S. Ward, one of the seminal personae in the

Richard Steinberg, “Theories of Nonprofit Organizations,” in The Nonprofit Sector: A Research

Handbook, Second Edition, eds. Richard Steinberg and Walter W. Powell (New Haven: Yale University

Press), 121.

Scott Sibary, “Counseling Philanthropic Donors,” Ethics & Behavior 16, no. 3 (2006): 185.

Margaret A. Duronio and Eugene R. Tempel, Fundraisers: Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and

Accomplishments (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997), 192-19.

development of early mass donation campaigns for the YMCA system that led to the

emergence of the modern fundraising profession, admitted that he perfected the structure

for short duration, high intensity campaigns because he did not really like fundraising and

was irritated that fundraising took him away from his programmatic responsibilities.

Perceptions of Fundraising Professionals

One result of this ambivalence toward the fundraising profession is an effort by

fundraising professionals to present themselves and their work in a way that mitigates

these anxieties. For the most part, this is done by downplaying claims to extensive

specialized knowledge and highlighting fundraising as a function of servant-leadership.

For the most part, despite the growing number of academic and continuing

education programs available to fundraisers, successful fundraising professionals

continue to be described in ways that de-emphasize the need for an understanding of

systemic theory for fundraising and that sometimes go further to suggest a rejection at

some level of the notion that formal qualifications are needed to be successful as a

fundraiser. As an example, requirements for successful major gifts fundraisers have

typically been described as including possession of a solid liberal arts education and

excellence in listening, negotiation, and communication—qualities that are unlikely to

distinguish major gifts fundraisers from other fundraisers, or other professionals, for that

matter.

Other research notes that as reflected in advertisements for management

positions in fundraising, key trade publications such as The Chronicle of Philanthropy

and The Nonprofit Times seek individuals possessing qualities such as

Cutlip, 41.

Ernest W. Wood, “Profiling Major Gifts Fundraisers: What Qualifies Them for Success?” New

Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, no. 15 (1997): 5-15.

verbal and written fluency and competence; attention to detail; ability to

conceptualize; negotiating skills; ability to coordinate and manage; innovation;

the capacity of seeing something new, different, and better; analytical skills;

mentoring, supervising, and teaching ability; understanding of budget; and ability

to plan.

Only two qualities that might be considered more specialized in nature, “volunteer

management” and “technical expertise,” are included in this list. This preference for non-

technical skills may also be indicative of organizations that lack a strong culture of

philanthropy and therefore may not be entirely aware of exactly what to seek in a skilled,

successful fundraising professional.

So why is it beneficial for the skills required for fundraising to be portrayed in

such a generic fashion, with an emphasis on the qualities possessed by many competent

individuals regardless of profession? While it is true that it is generally accepted that the

basis for success in fundraising is the ability to grow relationships with donors, and this

work may indeed depend on more generic skills such as superior communication

abilities, it behooves the fundraising profession to portray itself in this way because of the

potential for informational asymmetries between fundraisers (who as professionals

seemingly ought to be privy to a set of special skills or knowledge that might give them

an unfair advantage in securing gifts from potential donors) and donors (who, not being

privy to these special skills and information, might therefore be gullible and vulnerable to

fundraisers’ professional wiles and skills).

Thus, the portrayal of fundraisers as individuals who possess general competence

but who do not necessarily possess specialized knowledge or skills has a dual positive

impact on the positioning of the profession. On the one hand, it emphasizes that

Lilya Wagner, Careers in Fundraising (New York: Wiley, 2003), 57.

fundraisers are competent individuals, and the public trusts their competence. On the

other hand, the lack of emphasis on specialized knowledge or skills suggests that

fundraisers do not have an unfair advantage over the donor, which again emphasizes the

trustworthiness of the fundraiser because of an implication of lack of professional guile

on his part. Because of this, the fundraiser can be perceived as free of the problems

inherent in contract failure, where the relationship between the producer and the

consumer is eroded because of differences in knowledge which produce a lack of trust.

The assertion of the liberal arts as appropriate preparation for fundraising does

something more: it also positions fundraising as a profession in the classical style. The

current state of the profession of fundraising is often described as an emerging profession

at best and, many could argue, may be more akin to a trade. While the availability of

academic training for fundraisers has emerged over time, researchers continue to note

that fundraising is still infrequently taught in academic settings, whereas academic

training is common for other recognized professions such as law and medicine.

Instead,

most fundraisers still do their learning on the job—something more like the

apprenticeship system common in trades. The assertion that the liberal arts constitute

perfect preparation for a career in fundraising suggests through association that

fundraising could rightly be placed in the same league of respected and established

professions such as law and the clergy, where the liberal arts have traditionally provided

undergraduate preparation. This association provides fundraising with a tenuous but

Steinberg, 121.

Wood, 5-15; Sarah K. Nathan and Eugene R. Tempel, “Fundraisers in the 21st Century,” Indianapolis:

IUPUI Scholarworks, 2017, 2,

https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/13845/Fundraisers%20in%20the%2021st%20Centur

y%20_%20white%20paper%20_2017.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=yhttps://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstre

am/handle/1805/13845/Fundraisers%20in%20the%2021st%20Century%20_%20white%20paper%20_2017

.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

nonetheless real connection to other professions, thus helping fundraising—and

fundraisers—position themselves as more than simply tradesmen.

No doubt this positioning is important because some of the most effective asking

relationships occur between peers.

Without the advantage of association with other

professions through the portrayal of the importance and viability of the liberal arts as a

source for fundraising excellence, fundraisers might be awkwardly positioned as

belonging to a lesser occupation, with this power inequality potentially having an impact

on the ability of the fundraiser to ask for and to be successful in securing gifts from

donors who consider themselves as belonging to a higher professional rank.

Another recurrent theme within the fundraising profession is the suggestion that

fundraising is equal (if not superior) to other professions because the fundraising

profession leads through serving others. One of the clearest assertions of this appears in

the frequently awkward position of fundraisers within charitable organizations.

On the

one hand, fundraisers are rarely the ultimate institutional decision makers, instead having

to carry out directives regarding fundraising and institutional advancement. On the other

hand, institutions are rarely successful unless fundraisers have a true seat at the leadership

table, being able to influence policy and grow an understanding of philanthropy as an

institution-wide concern.

To navigate these difficult waters, fundraisers frequently

adopt the position of “servant-leaders.”

The Fund Raising School, Principles and Techniques of Fundraising, VII.10.

Lilya Wagner, Leading Up: Transformational Leadership for Fundraisers (New York: Wiley, 2005),

30.

Bell and Cornelius, 18.

A concept popularized by the work of Robert Greenleaf, servant-leaders are

“affirmative builders of a better society.”

Servant-leadership “involves others in

decision making, is ethical behavior, demonstrates caring, and fosters individual growth

within the context of organizational life.”

Those possessing the characteristics of

servant-leadership exhibit behaviors or attitudes that include “listening, empathy, healing,

awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the

growth of people, and building community”—most of which echo the characteristics of

successful fundraisers enumerated earlier.

The idyllic depiction of the fundraiser as servant-leader is a consistent theme

when fundraising professionals write about fundraising. One such published account

relates an incident from a fundraising professional’s youth, when he and his father, a

clergyman, spent an afternoon of service going from farm to farm near his rural home to

pick up bales of grain being donated for purposes of feeding the hungry overseas. This

story (and others like it) weaves a narrative which takes on mythic proportions in which

the role of the grain gatherer is likened to the role of the fundraiser, providing a vital and

noble yet humble link between those who produce the grain (the donor) and those who

need the grain (the people served).

Those who adopt the trope of fundraiser as servant-leader likely do so not only

because of the reputational boost that may accrue to the profession. While depictions of

the fundraiser as servant-leader and as someone who is dedicated to not just professional

Wagner, Leading Up, 30.

Wagner, Leading Up, 98.

Paul P. Pribbenow, “Public Character: Philanthropic Fundraising and the Claims of Accountability,”

New Directions in Philanthropic Fundraising, no. 47 (2005): 13-27.

excellence but to a better society do much to portray the fundraiser in a positive light, the

trope of servant-leadership may also play strategic importance in positioning the

fundraiser to work well with donors, particularly major donors capable of giving

institutionally significant gifts. Six key characteristics that influence the giving of major

gifts donors are hyperagency, identification, association, tax aversion, death, and

gratitude.

While the last five are fairly common impulses (after all, even those giving

small donations may be motivated by identifying with the situations of others, peer

groups, the desire for the positive impact of donations on taxable income, the wish to

leave a legacy that lives on, and a sense of being blessed and wishing to share those

blessings with others through charitable donations), the concept of hyperagency deserves

special consideration. Hyperagency is defined as

the enhanced capacity of wealthy individuals to establish or substantially control

the conditions under which they and others will live. For most individuals,

agency is limited to choosing among and acting within the constraints of those

situations in which they find themselves. As monarchs of agency, the wealthy

can transcend such constraints and, for good or ill, create for themselves a world

of their own design.

A “monarch of agency” who wishes to find efficacy in the world of philanthropy requires

a loyal servant. Through their positioning as servant-leaders, fundraisers can act as

leaders or guides to the wealthy in their forays into philanthropy. Simultaneously, they

can act as servants to the wealthy in the fulfillment of impulses fueled by hyperagency,

allowing the wealthy to watch as their philanthropy creates, if not an entire world totally

of the wealthy individual’s own design, then certainly an institution that is made

substantially different through the donor’s generosity. In this way, the question of who

Paul G. Schervish, “The Spiritual Horizons of Philanthropy: New Directions for Money and Motives,”

New Directions in Philanthropic Fundraising, no. 29 (2000): 17-32.

Schervish. “The Spiritual Horizons of Philanthropy,” 24.

has ultimate power in the philanthropic relationship—the donor or the fundraiser—is

ultimately answered in favor of the donor while yet allowing the fundraiser to retain a

position that, while focused on service, is not subservient.

This positioning of the fundraiser is crucial for the fundraising dynamic and

deserves further study and attention, as “the social relation that is philanthropy [is] an

interaction between what appears to be only two actors: donors and recipients.”

It goes

further:

The general tendency is for donors to occupy positions that give them

substantially more active choice than recipients about how to define the

philanthropic transaction and how to take part in it. Recipients also can and do

make choices that affect what happens to themselves and to donors and shape the

way philanthropy is organized.

While it can be argued that the greater power of the donor is not a danger in terms of the

distortion of the philanthropic relationship with recipients or of fulfillment of institutional

mission, a reasonable counterpoint is that the superior power afforded the donor by the

philanthropic relationship does indeed put philanthropy at risk by placing the donor’s

interests above that of the institution’s mission and those the institution serves.

Such

considerations point out the advantage of the servant-leader trope for the fundraiser

because the trope emphasizes the fundraiser as a champion of institutional mission in the

face of possible corruption or distortion of the mission by donors who may be tempted to

put their own visions or interests first.

Susan A. Ostrander and Paul G. Schervish, “Giving and Getting: Philanthropy as Social Relation,” in

Critical Issues in American Philanthropy, ed. Jon Van Til (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990), 68.

Ostrander and Schervish, 70.

Schervish, “Is Today’s Philanthropy Failing Beneficiaries? Always a Risk, But Not for the Most Part,”

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 36, no. 2 (2007): 373-379; Susan A. Ostrander, “The Growth of

Donor Control: Revisiting the Social Relations of Philanthropy,” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector

Quarterly 36, no. 2 (2007): 356-372.

One further feature deserving attention in the perception of fundraising

professionals is the terminology employed by the profession in talking about giving. This

distinction is particularly evident in the realm of major gifts, where major gifts are

commonly described as “transformational gifts” and the act of giving is called a “values

exchange” between the donor and the institution.

Such terms are important in

positioning the fundraising professional, as the very use of this elevated language is a

performative utterance that quite clearly changes fundraising from an act of resource

procurement for institutions into one of vision fulfillment for donors. The advantage that

such an approach gives to fundraisers in the practical art of securing gifts is hard to deny,

as it removes the “taint” of money from the philanthropic equation and instead

emphasizes the spiritual benefits accruing to the donor from successful fundraising.

Using language that places emphasis on the change that the donor wants to see happen in

the world in a very real way “ups the emotional ante” of giving, leading the way

potentially not only to larger gifts but to a heightened sense of trust in the fundraiser,

whose use of terms like “transformation” and “values exchange” elevates his role not to

the status of spiritual adviser, but certainly to that of someone who is more interested in

the donor’s satisfaction and sense of fulfillment than in merely securing support for

institutional projects.

The Philosophical Approach to Fundraising as a Profession

Ambivalent perceptions of the fundraising profession create a context in which

fundraising professionals have reason to downplay their specialized professional

knowledge and embrace the mantel of servant-leadership. This helps explain the

The Fund Raising School, Principles and Techniques of Fundraising, II.5.

continuing strength of the argument that a philosophical approach is the best way for

defining fundraising as a profession.

The philosophical approach to defining a profession “tries to determine, through

argument, whether an occupation ought to be considered a profession.”

Under such an

approach, “a profession is a number of individuals in the same occupation voluntarily

organized to earn a living by openly serving a moral ideal in a morally permissible way,

beyond what law, market, morality, and public opinion would require.”

Rather than

relying on stipulative criteria to separate professions from non-professions, the

philosophical approach relies on individuals in the occupation to engage in “reiterated

conversation” and “Socratic definition” to establish the parameters of the profession.

In some ways, the philosophical approach to defining fundraising as a profession

is both nostalgic yet entirely modern, as its precepts harken back to the pre-mass

philanthropy era of fundraising, when fundraising was largely an occupation of

clergymen and talented amateurs. In setting up the argument for what is at heart an

endorsement of a philosophical approach to fundraising as a profession, one researcher

begins by noting that the fundraising profession tends to suffer from expected problems

such as the taint of the fact that “the currency of our work is currency.”

The argument

goes on to assert that the key to the establishment of a strong professional base for the

fundraising profession—and, by extension, for the ethos of professionals in the field—is

a return to an earlier construction of the concept of professionalism.

This earlier

MacQuillan, 4.

MacQuillan, 15.

Paul P. Pribbenow, “Love and Work: Rethinking Our Models of Professions,” New Directions for

Philanthropic Fundraising, no. 26 (1999): 49.

Pribbenow, “Love and Work,” 49-68.

construction goes beyond sociological conceptions of the professional, which defines

professions by criteria such as possession of exclusive access to specialized bodies of

knowledge, and instead emphasizes the idea of professions as holding responsibilities of

social trusteeship. In other words, the philosophical approach would charge lawyers with

fighting for justice and not simply with knowing how to navigate the law.

Likewise,

under the philosophical approach, fundraisers are charged not simply with raising dollars

but with being stewards of the greater good. It is a balance between “love and work,” a

counterpoint that the researcher borrows from the writings of Wendell Berry. “Love” can

be defined as “the realm of the amateur” and its realm “literally, [that of] the lover, one

who participates for love.” “Work” is defined by “efficiency, the realm of the

professional.”

To rightly practice fundraising—and to rightly understand it—this

argument asserts that love must transform work and in so doing create a world in which

professions and professionals become teachers in a society that needs to

understand how its highest moral aspirations are served in very concrete

ways in our common work to build a better society. [The work of

professionals] will be transformed…by virtue of the public goods they

seek to enhance and preserve.

This view of professionalism clearly sees the fundraising professional as primarily as an

educator who helps donors understand their role in philanthropy and who helps

institutions create a culture of philanthropy. By placing an emphasis on the creation of

public goods, the role of the fundraising professional in securing actual funding for

institutions is downplayed, thus suggesting that the actual getting of money is potentially

a task that deflects the fundraiser from the major thrust of the fundraiser’s calling.

Pribbenow, “Love and Work,” 49-68.

Pribbenow, “Love and Work,” 36.

Pribbenow, “Love and Work,” 42.

According to this argument, fundraising as a profession “suffers for its attempts to

ground its knowledge-base in a contractual understanding of human relationships” and

instead must be grounded in an ethic of service.

The typical fundraiser’s understanding

of the profession as a set of techniques and skills to be mastered “is important only if it is

understood as part of the promotion of healthy relationships between institutions and their

various friends and constituencies.”

The “disconnection between knowledge and

service” is claimed as a key problem of the fundraising profession, and this disconnection

explains why recent efforts to professionalize fundraising solely through the creation of

stipulative criteria are “wrong-headed.”

The next step in the evolution of fundraising as

a profession within the philosophical approach is not to oppose the impulses of the

amateur (whose pursuits are driven by love) and the professional (whose pursuits are

driven by work), but rather to adopt a model whereby “loves transforms work.” In this

way, the fundraiser’s love of humankind and ethic of service to the community

transforms the work of fundraising from a set of techniques into a powerful calling. This

rightly “define[s] the profession of philanthropic fundraising in terms of its philanthropic

dimension.”

The Sociological Approach to Fundraising as a Profession

The sociological approach to defining a profession “assesses the prospective

profession against qualifying criteria, such as whether it has a code of conduct or a

professional body.”

The sociological approach has dominated most recent research on

Pribbenow, “Public Service,” 221.

Pribbenow, “Public Service,” 222.

Pribbenow, “Love and Work,” 34.

Pribbenow, “Love and Work,” 42.

MacQuillan, 4.

fundraising as a profession, which is understandable given that the sociological approach

measures the developmental stage of a profession based on stipulative criteria that

became relevant to fundraising only after the emergence of mass philanthropy and the

systemic theory of fundraising that developed in its wake.

While most researchers conclude that fundraising falls short on many stipulative

criteria and therefore is rightly assessed as an emerging profession, researchers using the

sociological approach nevertheless provide important insights into the ways in which

fundraising has worked diligently to build the values, norms, and symbols that are typical

of an established profession.

They observe that “fund raisers aspire to what professions

and occupations generally seek: effectiveness and efficiency in the work, control over

work and work jurisdiction, and recognition of the legitimacy of the work and those who

perform it.”

Some go further, asserting there are three distinct phases with discernible

steps within the sociological approach to professions. First is the process phase, in which

the profession is first designated as a full-time endeavor, followed by the establishment of

specialized educational and training programs and an acknowledged professional

association. Next is the power approach, in which the profession establishes market

control through convincing the public that the services it performs are vital and not

Carbone, Fundraising as a Profession; Harold G. Bloland and Rita Bornstein, “Fundraising in

Transition: The Professionalization of an Administrative Occupation,” in Taking Fund Raising Seriously:

Papers Prepared for the Third Annual Symposium, Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, University

Place Conference Center, Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, June 6-8, 1990

(Indianapolis: The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, 1990); Pribbenow, “Public Service”;

Duronio and Tempel, Fundraisers; Bloland and Tempel, “Measuring Professionalism”; Jamie Levy, “The

Growth of Fundraising: Framing the Impact of Research and Literature on Education and Training,” New

Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, no. 43 (2004): 21-30; Richard B. Chobot, “Fundraising

Credentialing,” New Directions in Philanthropic Fundraising, no. 43 (2004): 31-50; and Lilya Wagner, “A

Crossroads on the Path of Professionalism in Fundraising,” On Philanthropy, September 17, 2007.

Bloland and Tempel, 69.

readily learned by a large number of people. Last is the structural-functional approach,

which demands a base of theoretical and applied knowledge; professional autonomy in

decision making; service to others; the acknowledgment of professional authority; the

development of a distinctive professional culture; and societal recognition of the

legitimacy of the profession.

Some researchers suggest a shorter list of commonly accepted characteristics of

professions under the sociological approach, including “a body of applicable expert

knowledge with a theoretical base, acquired through a lengthy period of training

(preferably in a university), a demonstrated devotion to service, an active professional

association, a code of ethics, and a high level of control over credentialing and

application of the work.”

However, they note that measuring the degree to which

fundraising fulfills these traits as a profession can be challenging, as an examination of

each of these areas demonstrates.

Another criterion common to models of professions within the sociological

approach is the development of systemic theory. As some researchers note, “for a busy

and successful fundraising professional, theory may seem obscure and hard to connect

with practice. Yet theory that is generated through research is so significant that it is a

major means for marking the difference between professions and nonprofessions [sic].”

Despite this, the fundraising profession and fundraisers in general seem to value the

development of skills over the development and utilization of theoretical or research-

Robert F. Carbone, “Licensure and Credentialing as Professionalizing Elements,” New Directions in

Philanthropic Fundraising, no. 15 (1989): 83-96.

Bloland and Tempel, 6.

Bloland and Tempel, 11-12.

based knowledge.

In part, this is due to the way in which fundraisers have traditionally

been trained.

In one study, 74 percent of respondents cited learning on the job as the

way in which they learned fundraising; 43 percent cited non-degree professional

development training; and less than 10 percent listed formal education.

While formal

education programs are on the rise—and in fact are seen as currently trailing demand—

many experienced fundraisers continue to depend on a philosophical definition of the

profession, maintaining that the primary qualifications for the profession are personal

qualities, including good skills in listening, negotiation, and communication.

However,

by having a solely skills-based conception of the profession, these individuals overlook

the consideration that “although the work of fundraising is shared with amateurs, with a

theory and research base in the hands of professionals, the distinctions between

profession and amateur can be more sharply drawn, and fund raising could have a greater

ability to define and defend its work boundaries.”

Just as technical competence alone is

insufficient as a claim to professionalism, so is a reliance on a purely philosophical

approach that downplays the need for technical proficiency.

Perhaps the area in which fundraising has gained the most maturity as a

profession is in the development of active professional associations and codes of ethics.

The fundraising profession possesses numerous professional associations, with the largest

in North America being the Association of Fundraising Professionals, whose members

are all bound by the AFP’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Practice. This

Bloland and Bornstein, 82.

Beth Breeze, The New Fundraisers (Bristol: Policy Press, 2017), 71-74.

Duronio and Tempel, 134.

T. Cohen, “Nonprofit Training Seen Trailing Demand,” Philanthropy Journal, May 29, 2007, 1; Wood,

5-15.

Bloland and Bornstein, 82.

Code constitutes “an important effort to bridge the gap between fundraising as a business

(represented by the professional fundraising firms of earlier generations) and fundraising

as a mission (in service of particular charitable organizations).”

The Code has

expanded to include articles aimed specifically at fundraising consultants and other

businesses serving the fundraising profession.

While having a code of ethics is one trait of professionalism, codes of ethics can

be problematic because “codes of ethics can be badly or well written. They may be too

general or too specific, too stringent or two lax. They may miss the most significant

measures of ethical behavior.”

More importantly in terms of enforcement, the

fundraising profession has not made it clear how ethics and standards should be

monitored beyond the associational level, and what sanctions might be applied or how

they might be enforced for violations happening outside of association membership.

Credentialing in the Fundraising Profession

A primary reason for the development of fundraising certification programs was a

“justification of fundraising as a profession.”

While credentialing is not necessary to

practice the profession, and fundraisers have been known to debate among themselves the

value of credentialing, credentials have nonetheless become a standard part of the

fundraising profession. A discussion of the comparative virtues of licensing,

certification, certificates, and accreditation points out that credentialing programs make

the case that credentials such as the CFRE have a distinctive return on investment. They

Pribbenow, “Public Service,” 214.

Holly Hall, “Evaluating How Well a Fund Raiser Does in Luring Big Gifts,” Chronicle of Philanthropy,

October 1, 2017, 1.

Bloland and Tempel, 10-11.

Duronio and Tempel, 196.

Chobot, 31.

provide the certificant with the benefits of professional acknowledgment, donor

confidence, employment advantages, higher compensation, and a profession that is

overall stronger.

However, such benefits can be as much or more perceptual than actual. Research

supporting such claims is minimal to non-existent, and while it would appear that

certification would suggest a certain level of competence, what it documents in actuality

is a minimal level of experience and knowledge—two things that may be allied but that

are not equivalent.

In fact, the most documentable correlation between the CFRE and

professionalism is the fact that reported salaries for holders of the CFRE are significantly

higher than those of non-credentialed professionals.

Overall, credentialing programs

for fundraisers are important to the profession because of the way they have evolved to

be “exemplars of good fundraising practice” that have gained acceptance across the

globe.

This voluntary adoption of credentialing is particularly important when

considering the issue of the relationship of professional autonomy to licensure. The

licensing of professionals “is in some ways the enemy of autonomy since it is a mandate

promulgated by civil authority, normally state governments.”

Not only is licensure an

enemy of autonomy. Licensure of fundraisers by government has other serious issues

attached. Because fundraisers must have the public’s trust, they must go beyond

Chobot, 31-50.

Association of Fundraising Professionals, The 2017 Compensation and Benefits Report (Arlington:

Association of Fundraising Professionals, 2017), 22-23.

Chobot, 31-50.

Carbone, “Licensure and Credentialing as Professionalizing Elements,” 89.

licensing, which is based on “meeting a minimal standard of competence.”

Further, the

“mutual relationship between the public and the voluntary sector is on a higher level of

expectation; the public good requires public trust, and trust is a mutual relationship.”

Certification, it can be argued, is a way for the fundraising profession to meet a higher

standard voluntarily through practitioner attainment of a baseline level of professional

experience and knowledge.

Chobot, 31-50.

Pribbenow, “Public Service,” 229.

CHAPTER THREE

THE GENESIS OF THE FUNDRAISING PROFESSION (1900-1949)

The early twentieth century is cited as the beginning of the era of mass

philanthropy, a time when a “people’s philanthropy” characterized by a popular

mobilization to support the common good through small gifts collected on a massive

scale became ensconced as one of the nation’s democratic values.

During this era, mass

philanthropy thrived alongside the Progressive spirit, which expressed that “the defects of

their [American] economic, social, and political institutions could be remedied by the

application of scientific principles, compassion, and expertise.”

Americans came to see

giving as an alternative form of thrift, with giving portrayed as a sort of “self-taxing” that

served as “an investment in a safety net for all that was well worth the momentary

sacrifice.”

The associative state, which “envisioned a society self-governed by dense

networks of associations working in partnership with government to advance public

welfare” took hold, with giving playing a necessary role.

New, innovative vehicles for

giving by middle- and working-class Americans were created, including the Community

Chest and community foundation models.

Demonstrations of the power of multitudes of

small gifts were seen in successful campaigns such as the first ever Christmas seal

campaign in the United States, the structured fundraising methods of the YMCAs, and

the astonishing effort by the American Red Cross that raised in excess of $100,000,000 in

Zunz, 44.

Peter Dobkin Hall, “A Historical Overview of Philanthropy, Voluntary Associations, and Nonprofit

Organizations in the United States, 1600-2000,” in The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, Second

Edition, eds. Richard Steinberg and Walter W. Powell (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 45.

Zunz, 72.

Peter Dobkin Hall, 49.

the space of the week of 18-25 June 1917 on the eve of the United States’ entry into

World War I.

It is within the changing philanthropic landscape of America in the early twentieth

century that fundraising first emerged as a profession. While the activity of fundraising

had been a significant part of the American landscape since colonial times, the massive

scope of small-donation mega-campaigns was required in order to provide the conditions

for fundraising to emerge as a viable, full-time profession.

These mega-campaigns

required men (for fundraising was nearly exclusively a male profession at the time)

capable of organizing and executing fundraising efforts conducted with the precision and

speed of military operations. The perfection of the strategy, tactics, and execution of

such campaigns changed philanthropy from a realm where only the likes of Carnegie and

Rockefeller could achieve true impact to one where average citizens learned about the

power of collective philanthropy to influence the world.

These were exciting times in which to be a fundraiser. But as is often the case,

those living in exciting times often do not realize the enormity of the change in the

environment in which they are operating. From the records of the American Association

of Fund Raising Council (AAFRC), this certainly seems to be the case. AAFRC was

founded by “nine of the major, long-established fund-raising consulting firms” in 1935.

Even these major firms were small by today’s standards. As an example, one founding

firm of AAFRC, John Price Jones, Inc., started out with 6 staff and 5,200 square feet of

office space—presumably to allow for future expansion.

AAFRC’s records—and what

Zunz, 46-58.

Cutlip, 3.

Cutlip, 340.

Cutlip, 175.

they illumine of the early days of the fundraising profession—provide insight into the

cares and concerns of those who were actively shaping fundraising as a true profession,

complete with codes of conduct, standards of practice, and advocacy for those earning

their living through the practice of the new science of fundraising. Often the pressing

concerns of the day were mundane and focused on addressing criticism of this new

profession and protecting “what had become a lucrative business.”

While the larger

picture of the growth of mass philanthropy as a twentieth-century game changer is

certainly important, it has been expertly discussed elsewhere.

What has not been

thoroughly examined—and what is the focus of this study—is the growth of the

fundraising profession from the perspective of those early practitioners’ own words, and

how many of the issues that drove early associations of fundraising professionals echo

through the decades and led to the need to create a certification for fundraising

professionals, the Certified Fund Raising Executive credential.

A Systemic Theory of Fundraising Develops

Prior to the early twentieth century, fundraising was largely a passion, not a

profession. From the first fundraising campaign for Harvard University (then Harvard

College) in 1641 to Reverend Frederick T. Gates’ service to John D. Rockefeller Sr. in

the late 1890s that helped significantly shape Rockefeller’s philanthropic priorities,

fundraising existed as an ancillary activity (not a paid, full-time profession) that was

focused on soliciting the aid of a few donors of substance.

But by the early 1900s these

donors of substance and the new philanthropic vehicle they created, the charitable

Cutlip, 342.

Cutlip, 29-63; Zunz, 44-75.

Cutlip, 3, 34.

foundation, were not enough to address the increasing challenges and needs of urban

America.

True to the American ethos of the value of associationalism, citizens took

action in the early 1900s by forming new, large associations to undertake projects to

address public problems. Large organizations (many of which still figure prominently in

the United States) were formed during this time with such foci as youth (Boy Scouts and

Girl Scouts), disease eradication (American Cancer Society), and civil rights (National

Association for Advancement of Colored People). Each of these organizations had the

need to raise significant sums of money to fulfill their ambitious missions.

However,

when it came to serving as a key player in the evolution of the fundraising profession,

one organization stands out: the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).

Charles Sumner Ward and Lyman L. Pierce, who started their careers as YMCA

administrators, are widely acknowledged to be the “builders” of the short-term, intensive

fundraising campaign that distinguishes modern fundraising. While they were not

originators of the system (similar efforts had existed within the YMCA system as far

back as 1884), they perfected it.

And unlike today’s fundraising professionals who are

apt to speak with a passion about their calling, their success was the result of quite the

opposite instinct: in particular, Ward found fundraising irritating because it took him

away from the YMCA’s programs. In fact, Ward’s methods evolved from the desire for

getting the fundraising chore done all at once, and done quickly. He asked

his directors to agree to close down their desks a part of each day for a

short period of time and give wholehearted support to an intensive,

organized effort to raise the Y’s budget at the beginning of the year. In

return Ward promised these men that they would not be called upon for

begging chores the remainder of the year…. He later explained candidly,

Cutlip, 38.

Cutlip, 39.

‘To get the agony over with quickly was the main idea which prompted

this movement.’

It is ironic that those fundraisers today who feel qualms about their profession likely have

much more in common with a founder of modern fundraising than do their more

enthusiastic colleagues.

Both Ward and Pierce (Ward’s future fundraising colleague at the Washington,

D.C., YMCA and later his business rival) based their fundraising campaign model on

principles that are familiar to fundraisers today: “careful organization, picked volunteers

spurred on by team competition, prestige leaders, powerful publicity, a large gift to be

matched by the public’s donations, careful records, report meetings, and a definite time

line.”

It is YMCA fundraising campaign techniques that provided the foundation of

fundraising science during the era of mass philanthropy, and it was the men who came

out of the YMCA system—namely Charles Sumner Ward and Lyman L. Pierce and their

compatriots—who are widely acknowledged to be “the builders of the model of today’s

fund drive.”

Their first collaboration in 1905, which raised $80,000 in 27 days for the

YMCA of Washington, D.C., was a triumph of the “whirlwind campaign.” Their

subsequent collaborations—and those of their colleagues—escalated goals, strategies,

and techniques for mass philanthropy campaigns, which were soon capable of raising

millions of dollars.

Cutlip, 41.

Cutlip, 44.

Cutlip, 39; Zunz, 62.

Cutlip, 397-440.

AAFRC Defines Professional Issues and Boundaries

Ward, Pierce, and their protegees formed the core founders of the American

Association of Fund Raising Counsel (AAFRC).

The founding of AAFRC is another

important marker of the emergence of modern fundraising. With the founding of

AAFRC, the fundraising profession began to assert itself as a united entity with a

common cause. The profession acknowledged a common set of interests, including the

need to exchange ideas regarding professional practice, set standards, and deflect

criticism. The profession also started to set its boundaries in terms of who was

considered to be a member of the fundraising profession, and who was not.

On May 13, 1935, the American Association of Fund Raising Council (AAFRC)

held its first formal meeting at the Advertising Club in New York, New York.

On the

agenda for the meeting was the adoption of bylaws for the fledging organization and the

approval of the charter list of member organizations. These consisted of many of the

iconic firms from the early days of the fundraising profession, including American City

Bureau; John Price Jones, Inc.; Ketchum, Inc.; MacArt & Campbell; Marts & Lundy;

Pierce & Hedrick; Leo Redding; Tamblyn & Brown; Tamblyn & Tamblyn; Ward, Wells

& Dreshman; and Will, Folsom & Smith.

Officers elected at this time were Cornelius

Smith, President; Bayard M. Hedrick, Vice President; and J. Nate, Secretary-Treasurer.

Cutlip, 340-341.

Cutlip, 342.

Minutes of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel, Inc. (AAFRC

Minutes), 13 May 1935, 1, Series I, Roll 1: Minutes of Meetings, 1935-1987 (Series I), American

Association of Fund-Raising Counsel, Inc., Records, 1935-1992 (AAFRC Records), Ruth Lilly Archives

and Special Collections, University Library, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (hereafter

cited as RLASC).

AAFRC Minutes, 13 May 1935, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 13 May 1935, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Cornelius Smith was particularly singled out for praise for “his tireless effort in

connection with the formation of the Association and the efficient manner in which he

coordinated the work of the various committees in their respective endeavors.”

Smith

in turn gave thanks to others in the AAFRC for “the splendid cooperation they had

afforded him.”

In addition to taking care of business related to the formation of the

AAFRC, the meeting also featured a program on “Trends in Giving” by Mr. Street, which

was followed by a discussion of the topic among AAFRC members. Trends in giving

was to be a consistent interest of AAFRC over the years and eventually led to the

publication of the first Giving USA report in 1956.

The first official meeting of the AAFRC established key foundational features

that continue to define the organization (now known as The Giving Institute) to the

present day. The restriction of membership to fundraising firms rather than individual

fundraising professionals; the focus on mutual cooperation; and early attempts to

approach the topic of giving from a more or less scientific perspective were all factors by

which the AAFRC made an early attempt to define broad parameters for fundraising as a

profession and address three key issues: the public’s lack of understanding of the

fundraising profession; the need for self-regulation of the profession, both for the good of

the public and for the profit of bona fide fundraising professionals; and the development

of a basic body of knowledge regarding the theory and practice of fundraising and related

issues such as giving.

AAFRC Minutes, 13 May 1935, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Contemporary Perceptions of the Fundraising Profession

Then as now, fundraising was a profession that was little understood by those

outside its realm of practice. And from the early days, a key focus of the AAFRC was an

educational effort to uplift the image of fundraising—an effort that was driven not only

by the perceived need for respect of the profession but also by the practical consideration

of driving more business to member firms, which were self-styled as the only true

fundraising professionals around. This focus can be seen in an early AAFRC

memorandum, which states the organization’s purpose was:

1. To advance the standards of the fund raising profession;

2. To stimulate more effective service to the clients of the member

organizations;

3. To provide a forum for exchange of opinion and ideas on matters

related to the profession;

4. To enlarge a friendly spirit of cooperation between member

organizations rendering services in similar fields.

But this concern about the image of the profession went beyond the bylaws and was a

more or less permanent theme within AAFRC over the years, commencing early

on. Partly this may have been due to the fact that at the time, there was a particularly

tight relationship between the fundraising profession and the public relations profession,

as many individuals such as John Price Jones were former journalists who had drifted

into public relations and then into fundraising.

The idea that the fundraising profession

was a victim of bad press had to be particularly galling to them. At the May 18, 1936,

meeting of the AAFRC, the comments of Robert F. Duncan of John Price Jones, Inc.,

reflected this perspective:

There is an opportunity somewhere to say something about us as a

profession. He [Duncan] is being constantly reminded that we are not

AAFRC Minutes, Memorandum, n.d., Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Cutlip, 175-176.

very well understood and he would like to see a written statement

concerning the profession; what it does and does not do; the type of men

who are in it; its ideals. He pointed out that we do not have the

professional standing of lawyers or doctors. He said it would help were

we to get a definite statement put out by the Association, defining what we

do. Many clients and potential clients would welcome such a

statement. Anything we do to elevate our profession would be very

helpful to all.

The notion that releasing a statement was to be a key element to address the problem no

doubt reflects Duncan’s familiarity with journalism and press releases.

President Bayard M. Hedrick of Pierce & Hedrick, who was trained in the YMCA

system, noted similar issues.

He said with great seriousness at the May 17, 1937

meeting of the AAFRC,

We have some real problems to deal with within the

Association. For instance, just how important is it for us, who are in this

business, that this business shall attain a status that gives it first-class

business recognition, or recognition as a profession? We must give real

time, attention and thought to this matter.

What direction shall we take? Shall we attempt to apply rigid

controls or the process of cooperation in which we share our ambitions for

this profession of ours and work together trying to produce better

conditions within our organizations and better service to our clients,

thereby lifting the whole program….

In laying down the real objectives of our Association…we should

bear in mind the lifting of the standards of our profession.

Bayard’s emphasis on the need to cooperate, improve service to clients, and lift standards

no doubt was influenced by the service and religious ethic of the YMCA system with

which he was familiar. More importantly, though, his words show the way in which the

fundraising profession was starting to build consciousness of the need for more than a

simple association of individuals engaged in similar work. While professional

AAFRC Minutes, 18 May 1936, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Cutlip, 161.

AAFRC Minutes, 17 May 1937, 1-2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

cooperation was important, the mention of the potential for “rigid controls” was a

foreshadowing of AAFRC’s work to create formal standards of practice to serve as

community sanction for entry into the profession. Both Duncan’s and Hedrick’s

perspectives led to one common approach: the way AAFRC decided to lift the standards

of the profession was to create standards for regulating membership in AAFRC.

Turnover in the Profession

AAFRC firms themselves wrestled with another issue that is a challenge within

the fundraising profession yet today: staff turnover. In fact, this was such an important

consideration that “personnel” was the single topic of discussion at the AAFRC meeting

on January 18, 1937. Key discussion questions were listed as:

How to attract the best type of man and woman.

How to keep them after we get them.

Employment arrangements and particularly some general discussion as to

retirement plans, profit-sharing plans, etc.

These questions point to a common concern of those in attendance: the tie between the

stature of fundraising as a lesser profession and the issue of staff turnover. Dwight

Folsom, Sr., of Will, Folsom & Smith said that fundraising “has publicity of a type that is

negative, which as a result does not lead me with a burning desire to get into it.”

George Tamblyn, Jr. of Tamblyn & Tamblyn noted a particular challenge of the firms

was “to lay plans whereby men could be attracted with a view to permanently engaging

in our work.”

The collective wisdom of the assembled firms suggested that the best way to get

the right people into the profession was to hire young individuals and train them on the

AAFRC Minutes, 18 January 1937, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 18 January 1937, 4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 18 January 1937, 5, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

job rather than to look for experienced fundraisers. Folsom probably best summarized

the general consensus when he noted that the practice at Will, Folsom & Smith was to

“find a man” and

first put him through a course of training so that he may acquire the

knowledge and experience to fit him for the work. Seldom do they [Will,

Folsom & Smith] find that people claiming to have campaign experience

prove to be of very great value. He [Folsom] felt that we are all faced

with the problem of developing a method whereby we can train people for

the work.

Without reliable training available, AAFRC members were left to their own resources to

train their new recruits. Because of the high stakes and highly structured nature of the

campaigns these firms undertook, trusting that a recruit had been properly taught the

basics of campaigning in their prior engagements was not an option. Firms like Will,

Folsom & Smith took the precaution of training each recruit according to the firm’s

particular methods and standards. Other than being trainable and unmarred by having

learned bad or ineffective practice elsewhere (which likely was why those with prior

campaign experience were not necessarily sought after), little else was required. Folsom

noted that a real problem in the profession is that he did not believe that fundraising had

found

any reliable source from which to enlist personnel. The main difficulty

from his [Folsom’s] point of view was the lack of a definition of essential

qualifications…. No particular educational or business record has been

found to provide the essential background fulfilling the necessary

qualifications.

John Crosby Brown of Tamblyn & Brown was the sole person to touch on the

topic of women in the fundraising profession during this discussion of personnel. He

AAFRC Minutes, 18 January 1937, 4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 18 January 1937, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

said, “The question of women has not been mentioned. The difficulty of getting men is

grave and will continue. It is somewhat less difficult to get women of ability…. They

[Tamblyn & Brown] have one woman who is regarded as the equal of anyone….”

the time, Tamblyn & Brown had three women conducting campaigns. Brown noted that

his firm would not have been able to cope with the volume of work without the female

consultants, most of whom worked on campaigns for women’s organizations such as the

YWCA.

Despite the presence of several female consultants, most women in

fundraising were generally limited to support roles or to working with women’s

organizations.

Professional Boundaries and Community Sanction

While lifting the standards of the fundraising profession was certainly a clear aim

of the AAFRC, so was advancing the business interests of AAFRC member firms. As

the business of fundraising grew, so did the number of practitioners, many of whom

AAFRC saw either as compromising the profession or posing unfair competition to the

legitimate firms represented by AAFRC’s members. These questionable elements

included fundraisers who accepted percentage-based compensation, freelancers, and

amateurs.

From the beginning, AAFRC members sought to distance themselves from

fundraisers who were compensated on a basis of a percentage of funds raised. In fact,

this prohibition is one of the few early tenets of AAFRC that still appears in

contemporary codes of ethics for fundraising professionals. At the AAFRC meeting held

AAFRC Minutes, 18 January 1937, 5, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

on December 16, 1935, at the Advertising Club of New York, the guest speaker, Mr.

Markel, Sunday Editor of the New York Times, noted that it was his opinion that when

publicity notices for charity fundraising campaigns were composed, the name of the

fundraising firm engaged as counsel should appear. He noted, “Failure to make this clear

raises some distrust and suspicion in the minds of the men working in the editorial room

[because] there is a general impression among newspaper men that firms, such as the

principal firms of the Association, do their work on a commission basis.”

He also

shared the insider information that placing undue pressure on the City Editor to publish a

charity fundraising announcement was counterproductive, as that makes him “sore as

hell.”

While it is unknown whether AAFRC members modified their approaches to the

City Editor in the wake of Mr. Markel’s address, they certainly took to heart the need to

elevate the status of the fundraising profession in the eyes of the press and the public. To

that end, the AAFRC Publicity Committee proposed to draft a communication to go to

newspaper publishers and city editors that would “set forth briefly the nature of the

Association, the ideals which govern its members, the basis of compensation for our

services, etc.” The result of this effort was a piece providing the first overview of the

AAFRC. It included the date of the AAFRC’s founding, member organizations, and

officers; the principles of the AAFRC; and qualifications for membership. What is

perhaps most striking about this document is the amount of space devoted to the

qualifications for membership, which occupies the entire second page. These

qualifications are:

AAFRC Minutes, 16 December 1936, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 16 December 1936, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

1. The active executive head of the member organization shall

have had a continuous experience of at least ten years as professional

counsel in the fund-raising field.

2. The members must have a record of consistently successful

work, and of repeated calls to serve the same clients or others involving

the same constituency.

3. They must show satisfactory references, both from clients and

from one or more banks or trust companies.

4. They must conform to the minimum standard of assigning as

executive-in-charge only those members of their staffs who have served as

associates on six or more campaigns, or who have been continuously

employed as staff members or a period of at least one year.

5. Membership in this Association shall be confined to those

organizations which do business on a fee basis only, and which make no

profit, directly or indirectly, from disbursements for account of clients.

The criteria for admission to AAFRC can be boiled down to two key factors: experience

and good character. By requiring applicant firms to demonstrate longevity in their

leadership and management personnel, AAFRC effectively was requiring a minimum

level of experience. Further, while “successful work” was a criterion for admission to

AAFRC, quantifiable standards by which to measure success were not defined. Instead,

it can be inferred that AAFRC equated “success” to repeat business, suggesting that what

AAFRC was really trying to determine with this criterion was the experience and good

character of the applicant firm—that clients thought the firms knowledgeable enough and

professional enough to ask for repeat engagements. The emphasis on references also

underscores the importance of good character as a criterion for admission to AAFRC, as

does the insistence on working on a fee basis only, which was a factor that distinguished

AAFRC firms from others, as AAFRC saw percentage-based compensation as “harmful

to the prestige” of the fundraising profession.

While experience and good character

provided something of a measuring stick by which to judge those seeking admission to

AAFRC Minutes, “Not for Publication”, n.d., 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Cutlip, 342.

AAFRC, specific criteria for judging each were generally lacking. This left much

discretion to those charged with reviewing an applicant firm’s petition. Perhaps the most

telling statement, however, regarding what AAFRC hoped to do by instituting these

qualifications lies in the last sentence of the document, which states, “The relationship of

members of the Association to clients is more analogous to that of the lawyer than it is to

that of the advertising man”—a very clear effort to elevate fundraising out of the arena of

public relations and sales, both occupations for which there were no prerequisites, and

into the realm of a bona fide profession with barriers for entry.

It is important to consider this list of qualifications because it marks a significant

point of growth in professional maturity, as it is a first formal effort by the fundraising

profession to set community sanction—that is, minimum criteria to determine who is

accepted as a professional. Given the profession’s lack of a formal path of study to

distinguish qualified practitioners from lay people—and, in fact, the lack of any sort of

professional education except on-the-job training—limiting AAFRC membership to firms

which possessed sufficiently experienced staff, a record of successful client work, a good

reputation, and fee-based compensation provided a set of professional parameters that put

boundaries around the profession to a certain extent.

While AAFRC had a list of qualifications for membership, the organization did

not have a formal list of items that would disqualify a candidate from

membership. However, there was an informal vetting process in place at AAFRC for

determining who was eligible for membership in AAFRC and who was not. The case of

the firm of Dwight Folsom provides an illustration of the vetting process in

AAFRC Minutes, “Not for Publication”, n.d., 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

action. Dwight Folsom, Jr., the firm's principal, had formerly been associated with

AAFRC member firm Will, Folsom & Smith. (He was, in fact, Folsom Sr.'s son.) In

putting forward Dwight Folsom, Jr.'s request for membership, Cornelius Smith (who was

a partner in Will, Folsom & Smith and thus a colleague of Dwight Folsom, Jr.'s father)

noted that the younger man's "training and experience were technically adequate" but that

his firm's fees for service were too low.

The meeting minutes say that Smith had

very definite evidence that Mr. Folsom offers his services for fees which

are a small fraction of that which members of the Association regard as

necessary, if competent service is to be rendered in behalf of clients. This

would seem to be corroborated by statements made by Mr. Folsom to Mr.

Smith personally, to the effect that he regarded fees charged by member

organizations in capital campaigns as excessive and

unwarranted. Consequently, it appears he offers his services at rates

which would not conform to those we [the Association] consider essential

in order to render the right type of service.

Had this discussion of fees been made public, it is likely that AAFRC would have found

itself in hot water for potential violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, whereby it is

unlawful for associations to exclude otherwise qualified members due to “unpopular

business or professional views or practices of applicants (e.g., price discounting).”

it is, it points out an interesting question in terms of AAFRC’s position on fees: Were

AAFRC’s policies primarily meant to safeguard clients by admitting member firms

whose resources guaranteed they would provide superior service? Or were AAFRC’s

policies primarily meant to safeguard member firms’ profitability by giving community

sanction only to those firms who promised to uphold a specific pricing structure? There

AAFRC Minutes, 8 May 1939, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Jerald A. Jacobs, Association Law Handbook: A Practical Guide for Associations, Societies, and

Charities, Fifth Edition (Washington, DC: ASAE Association Management Press, 2012), 307.

are arguments to be made on both sides, with the realistic answer probably lying

somewhere in the middle.

Conveniently, a rotation in the composition of the AAFRC Membership

Committee was on the horizon, so the question of what to do with Dwight Folsom, Jr.'s

application for membership became the new Membership Committee's problem. They

took up the question again at the meeting of October 16, 1939, where Harold Seymour as

Chair of the Membership Committee moved for approval of Dwight Folsom, Jr.'s

application. The minutes reflect that

In the discussion which followed, it became very evident that there was a

need for establishing a definite code of ethics [emphasis mine] and

procedure as a basis for investigation of any applicant for membership. In

view of the fact that this was the first time the Membership Committee

had been called upon to function in a matter of this kind, it was considered

an opportune moment—in fairness to ourselves and future members—to

draw up a definite mode of procedure which could be applied in the

present and all future instances. In this connection, it was suggested that

where an applicant had previously been associated with a member of the

Association, it might be desirable for the applicant either to be nominated

or seconded by such member. It was also suggested that an applicant

might be considered elected if not more than one negative vote was cast

by members present at one of the regular meetings of the Association.

Seymour’s statement is of interest because it marks the first time in AAFRC records that

there is a direct call made for creating a formal code of ethics for the profession. While

the fundraising profession—and AAFRC itself—was still very young, it suggests that the

profession had grown beyond the point where its qualified practitioners were in

agreement on all points regarding the informal understanding of professional ethics under

which they had theretofore operated. However, AAFRC was not yet ready to fully

dispense with the criterion of good character, and in fact this importance was reinforced

AAFRC Minutes, 16 October 1939, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

by the suggestion that applicant firms be recommended by current members, who still

held the upper hand about who was admitted.

While it was a notable day for the profession, it was another frustrating day for

Dwight Folsom, Jr. Once again, the membership of his firm was deferred as the

Membership Committee was tasked with reviewing AAFRC by-laws "as they relate to

conditions of membership, and bring in any suggestions, as regards qualifications of

membership and procedure to be followed, at the next meeting."

Subsequently, in the

January15, 1940 meeting, Harold Seymour presented a new member application form

(called a "questionnaire" in the minutes) for approval by AAFRC.

The application form

was then passed unanimously at the 13 February 1940 meeting.

Attempts at Self-Policing

Subsequent events make clear that AAFRC took the statement of qualifications

and the effort to elevate the fundraising profession seriously. They also took seriously

the protectionist stance they had adopted toward their members. Typically, the

qualification standards themselves eliminated the key type of fundraiser that AAFRC

wished to keep out of the profession: individual practitioners, which at various times

AAFRC members referred to as “amateurs” or “freelancers.”

The most fulsome discussions of the vexations caused to fundraising firms by the

competition posed by individual practitioners began at the AAFRC meeting held on

August 5, 1940. Noting that fundraising firms were already hard-pressed due to the war

in Europe, a still-depressed economy, and “the long term trend of this [fundraising]

AAFRC Minutes, 16 October 1939, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 15 January 1940, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

A copy of the questionnaire is not included in AAFRC records.

business, which he thought was on the negative side,” Harold J. Seymour had a lot to

say.

Seymour was among the first to articulate an evolution in the field of professional

fundraising that would result in a bifurcation of fundraising professionals into two

distinct pools—those that were direct employees of nonprofit organizations and those that

were fundraising consultants. This trend was certainly of concern to AAFRC members,

who generally saw the movement of larger institutions to build in-house fundraising

functions as bad for business. Seymour’s comments at the AAFRC meeting on August 5,

1940, provide historical perspective on the way in which those active in fundraising from

the earlier days of mass philanthropy saw this development. As the minutes reflect,

Fifteen or twenty years ago, when he [Seymour] first came into the

business, there were not many people who knew much about fund-

raising. Nearly all Community Chest campaigns were run by professional

organizations [i.e., fundraising consulting firms]. The Social Agencies

seldom had campaigns. When they did, they engaged professional

assistance. We are now up against an entirely different situation. There

are a lot of fellows who have worked for our firms, or as Chest

Executives, or with clients, who have raised money. To-day [sic], Cornell,

Yale, and other educational institutions—164 in all—have money-raising

assistants.

Seymour went on to share yet more instances of the same trend in social agencies and

healthcare institutions, which in Seymour’s view tended to poach both qualified and

unqualified fundraisers as long as they could show experience with a respected

fundraising consulting firm. The profession was still young enough that fundraising

consulting firms felt that institutional fundraising expertise would potentially cancel the

need for AAFRC member firms’ services, when in fact history has shown the opposite

AAFRC Minutes, 5 August 1940, 5, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 5 August 1940, 6, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

trend: the more organizations there are that are trying to raise money, the more their

fundraising staff has need of fundraising counsel.

Seymour’s advice to his fellow AAFRC members regarding this situation

consisted of two points:

His first point was that he thought one of the things we [AAFRC]

have got to be a little more hard-boiled about is helping those institutions

[i.e., nonprofit organizations] to set themselves up so perfectly. He found

he had been helping a lot of people to get some fine jobs at their [his

fundraising consulting firm’s] expense…. His second point was that we

have got to be smarter than the free lancers, and that we have to sell

people on the fact that we can produce more. These free lancers are not

dumb people…and a few others are very smart and they are doing a good

job. We, therefore, have to hold up our standard of performance, as well

as the standards of our personnel, and the standards of our fees also. If we

take business by cutting fees to the point where we cannot provide the

right kind of personnel and supervisory service, we will be defeated.

Seymour’s tone was clearly protectionist, suggesting that AAFRC members might need

to keep their hard-won professional knowledge closer to the chest and further emphasize

quality of service. The tone of the meeting continued to be somber after this, with many

of those in attendance sharing stories of employees who were enticed to full-time

fundraising positions at nonprofit organizations, organizations such as Community Chests

and Councils who had embraced the in-house fundraising model, and other allied

conditions that are “eating things from under us,” as Seymour put it.

As the meeting

drew to a close, however, C. H. Dreshman of Ward, Wells, and Dreshman was true to the

sunny outlook of a fundraiser. As the minutes reflect, he

suggested we close the meeting on a note of optimism, and observed that

we have all been in business for a great many years and that it would be

well for us to take a little word out of Henry Ford’s book, to the effect that

AAFRC Minutes, 5 August 1940, 6, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 5 August 1940, 8, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

we forget politics and get down to business. We ought to be high-minded

among ourselves and with the client, and do a high quality of work.

Dreshman’s comments served as a welcome corrective, reminding those in attendance

that a focus on self-preservation was likely unneeded and did not reflect the higher ideals

to which AAFRC member firms aspired.

Nevertheless, the concerns about competition expressed at the meeting on August

5, 1940, continued to haunt AAFRC member firms. The discussion continued on

November 18, 1940, at the Harvard Club in New York City, when John Crosby Brown of

Tamblyn & Brown, Inc., presided over a meeting on the topic of “Convincing the Client

of the Full Value of the Services of a Campaign Firm.”

While a few firms saw little

reason to devote significant resources to “fighting the amateur,” the vast majority of those

participating in the discussion saw distinctive threats coming from freelance fundraisers,

who regularly undercut AAFRC member firms on the basis of pricing.

James E.

Almond of American City Bureau was one of those who was not overly worried about

the competition posed by individual consultants. Nonetheless, his own firm had

experience of what AAFRC members generally saw as unfair competition from this

quarter, as the meeting minutes indicate:

For instance, he [Almond] was in August, Ga., meeting with a client

having under consideration the raising of $250,000 for an advertising

campaign. There he met independent competition which he could not get

around because the independent used to be on the A.C.B. [American City

Bureau] staff. The independent simply stated that he had been a member

of the A.C.B. organization, knew their procedure, thoroughly appreciated

the fact that all he knew was learned from Mr. Almond, but that Mr.

Almond had nothing to offer that he could not offer personally—and

AAFRC Minutes, 5 August 1940, 9, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

climaxed this presentation by stating, ‘I will do the job for $1,500 less

than the fee quoted by Mr. Almond.’

Even more than being undercut on pricing, AAFRC member firms were likely more

worried about what was a gradually changing environment for their businesses: new

players with different, nimbler business models were entering fundraising consulting.

The other source of competition from individuals resulted in what was a fairly

recent phenomenon—organizations adding staff positions for full-time, paid

fundraisers. George Tamblyn, Jr., of Tamblyn & Tamblyn noted that “this question is

becoming more acute because some of our organizations are leaving the regular

campaign field and going into long-range service that requires only one man.”

Almond

agreed, saying, “There are 134 colleges which to-day [sic] have men who do nothing

other than raise money for the colleges.”

It was generally agreed, however, that

ultimately such institutions would still require the assistance of fundraising

firms. George Tamblyn noted that “where a man employed by the institution is entrusted

with a campaign, he cannot be as effective as where an independent firm assumes that

responsibility. Where a firm is employed, their representative’s position is of greater

importance and has more prestige with the institution, as well as with the Board of

Trustees.”

He continued by noting that “Men that are effective with a fund-raising

organization, once they are on the payroll of the client, lose—by reason of their

position—the influence with the College President and the Board.”

This phenomenon

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 8, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

echoes a problem still frequently seen in charitable organizations today: a lack of

engagement of the board and CEO in fundraising.

Fundraising professionals on the

staff of a charitable organization can wield some influence on a willing CEO but have no

power to enforce board and CEO engagement in the fundraising process. Fundraising

consultants, as organizational outsiders, generally wield considerably more influence.

Because they generally enjoy a relationship with the CEO and board that is more akin to

a peer relationship, the CEO and board are more likely to pay heed to a fundraising

consultant’s advice. In short, the fundraising professional wields less influence because

he is in an inferior position to the CEO and board within the organizational hierarchy. A

fundraising consultant, who exists outside the organization hierarchy, wields more

influence because while he is working on behalf of the organization, he is not beholden to

the organization.

The issue of competition from professional solicitors was mentioned as well, but

Mr. Lundy of Marts & Lundy asserted that he was “not worried about that kind of

competition,” citing a campaign conducted on behalf of Illinois Western University. That

campaign was conducted on a commission basis, much to the chagrin of the client, which

had to write off pledges to the tune of $600,000.

No matter what the source of competition from individual practitioners, the

common refrain from AAFRC members was that clients were constantly looking to

reduce fundraising expense by seeking assistance that did not have the sort of overhead

costs associated with fundraising firms. John Price Jones of The John Price Jones

Bell and Cornelius, 13-14.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 4-5, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Corporation, for one, saw the issue of overhead as an unwinnable battle. In words that

are still relevant to modern fundraising professionals, he said,

I have tired of fighting the question of overhead because the moment you

get into a discussion of it, I think it becomes simply useless to argue. You

do not get anywhere by arguing it. The fact is that any business man

knows he has an overhead cost, and should recognize the same to be true

in our business.

Overhead costs in the philanthropic sector remain misunderstood and a source of

contention to this day. Efforts to dispel concerns about overhead remain equally

unsuccessful for the most part.

Others, however, suggested that what was needed was attention to client

education about “the reasons why a firm provided a service which no individual could

offer.”

To this end, Mr. Sherwood had put together this list:

1. The firm provides a counseling and planning service

2. The Director is backed up by the accumulated experience of the firm

3. The firm, through its executives, has a bird’s-eye view of the campaign

field at any given time

4. The client has the benefit of group, rather than individual, experience

5. Because of the known reputation of the organization, the client risks

little.

Experience and risk mitigation were the clear selling points for hiring an AAFRC

member firm according to Mr. Sherwood’s list. However, as Sherwood was quick to

admit, keeping such considerations top of mind among clients required work on the part

of the firm through the following means:

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 6, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

GuideStar, “BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, and GuideStar Join Forces to Dispel the

Charity ‘Overhead Myth,’” last modified June 17, 2013, https://learn.guidestar.org/news/news-

releases/2013/2013-06-17-overhead-myth.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

1. By visits of officers of the firm before and during the campaign

2. Assignments of Directors who are executives, or high ranking men who

have absorbed all the principles of campaigning

3. Circularization [sic] of printed materials, with implications that men

assigned are following methods based upon definite principles worked out

by the firm.

In other words, relationship building, education, and assignment of a suitably prestigious

lead counsel were all factors needed to keep clients engaged. More succinctly, John

Crosby Brown asserted, “Overhead is experience [and] overhead is information.”

support this, he noted that “The average length of service of the 45 men of Tamblyn and

Brown is eleven years. Clients pay for service at such times as they have need of it;

whereas, the firm has to pay the salaries of the men the whole year round.”

He further

enumerated the overhead costs of Tamblyn and Brown, which ran at 100%. As the

minutes note:

The overhead figures cover salaries of departmental heads, library

research directors, etc. Other indirect charges include salaries of staff

during the summer. It was only by paying salaries on an annual basis that

they [Tamblyn and Brown] are able, as an organization, to maintain a

permanent, competent staff—and the rental of headquarters must be

considered. The accuracy of the 100% overhead was confirmed by

auditors. In fact, they thought it should be revised upwards.

Brown’s description provides an interesting but brief window into the workings of an

early fundraising consulting firm, pointing out the labor-intensive nature of the work. It

also points to a competitive advantage enjoyed by AAFRC member firms: the ability to

attract and retain high-quality staff through solid compensation, which continues to be a

concern of the philanthropic sector today.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 19 November 1940, 5, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Bell and Cornelius, 9.

Given all these factors it is little wonder, then, that AAFRC took the vetting

process for members very seriously, as they sought to preserve not only professional

excellence but also financial viability for fundraising consulting firms. Despite this, it

took some time before AAFRC acted to formalize member application procedures. (This

may in part have been due to World War II, as AAFRC records show the organization

mostly halting its activities during and immediately after the War because their attention

and that of the nation was focused elsewhere.) Meeting minutes from June 10, 1947,

show the AAFRC approving a formal process for accepting members:

A prospective new member may be nominated by one member

firm and seconded by another member firm:

This nomination to be considered by the Executive Committee on

the basis of the standards set forth by the By-laws.

If approved by the Executive Committee the prospective new

members will be then invited informally by the nominator to present a

written application for membership.

The foregoing will be presented for final action at the next meeting

of the Association.

These procedures largely allowed the AAFRC to avoid future cases like that of Dwight

Folsom, Jr., as the procedures in essence guaranteed that only firms meeting the

AAFRC’s criteria would apply for membership. These membership standards and

procedures were sufficient enough that the AAFRC did not revisit the issue broached in

1940 of creating a formal code of ethics for the fundraising profession. In fact, the

AAFRC found itself occupied with another issue as the 1950s approached: a changing

cultural understanding of philanthropy and fundraising, accompanied by legislative

efforts to regulate the business of fundraising.

AAFRC Minutes, 10 June 1947, 4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

CHAPTER FOUR

CERTIFICATION AS A RESPONSE TO REGULATION (1950-1959)

If mass philanthropy and the promise of mobilizing every citizen in the

achievement of the common good were the hallmarks surrounding the birth of the

fundraising profession, distrust of fundraising and its practitioners was perhaps the

hallmark of the profession’s “coming of age” years. The methods and systems that

allowed fundraising to evolve as a profession during the early twentieth century were also

capable of being hijacked by the less-than-scrupulous, whose only objectives were the

lining of their own pockets with profit. As the power of mass philanthropy grew and

America entered “the golden age of mass fundraising” in the 1950s, the need to define the

place of philanthropy in America grew as well.

Along with this came not only

fundraising innovations such as workplace giving but also an increased focus by state

governments on the appropriate way to provide oversight and consumer protections

related to fundraising.

Prior to the 1950s, the fundraising profession was largely focused

on laying the foundation for the profession. Starting in the 1950s, the records of AAFRC

indicate that the fundraising profession was largely (and out of necessity) focused on

defending fundraising from excessive regulation and government interference caused by

concerns about charity fraud. Not surprisingly, these are also the years when mentions of

licensure or certification for the fundraising profession first appear.

Pennsylvania Solicitation Act of 1951

In the early 1950s, the AAFRC began keeping a watchful yet rather passive eye

on state legislation meant to curtail, constrain, or otherwise regulate charitable

Zunz, 177.

Zunz, 178.

fundraising. The first instance of such legislation noted in the records of AAFRC is the

Pennsylvania Solicitation Act.

Enacted in 1951, the Pennsylvania Solicitation Act

stipulated that “no person or firm engaged in professional fund-raising shall be paid for

its services more than fifteen percent of the funds collected up to the time of termination

of the person’s or firm’s services.” Later interpretation emphasized the funds collected

and diminished the role of a specific timeframe.

In response to the Pennsylvania Solicitation Act, AAFRC created a Committee on

Pennsylvania Legislation. The committee was chaired by A. L. Aderton of AAFRC

member firm Aderton-Johnson Associates. At the direction of AAFRC President Dr.

Arnaud C. Marts, Austin V. McClain of Marts & Lundy was appointed as chair of a

special subcommittee working under Aderton. The purpose of this subcommittee was to

work with Pennsylvania legislators to formulate an outcome advantageous to those in the

fundraising profession generally and to AAFRC member firms in particular, who would

be harmed were the strict interpretation of compensation levels to stand.

Despite having a dedicated Committee on Pennsylvania Legislation, AAFRC

remained relatively hands off with its efforts, choosing to hire an attorney to lobby on

AAFRC’s behalf regarding the Pennsylvania Solicitation Act. The attorney was Sterling

G. McNees of the law firm McNees Wallace & Nurick.

It was McNees who was onsite

in Pennsylvania, and it was he (or sometimes another member of his firm if he were not

available) who regularly reported to Aderton on the situation in Pennsylvania. McNees’s

report to Aderton, which was included in the June 15, 1953 meeting minutes of AAFRC,

AAFRC Minutes, 5 October 1952, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 15 June 1953, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

gives an interesting portrait of the realpolitik and/or legislative inertia faced by AAFRC

as McNees and his associates attempted to shape lawmakers’ opinions in a way that was

favorable to the interests of AAFRC member firms. It also gives insight into just how

unformed the regulatory framework for charitable fundraising was in the early 1950s, as

even legislators were unclear exactly on where that function rightly belonged.

A brief timeline extracted from McNees’s report to AAFRC reveals that when the

Pennsylvania Solicitation Act was passed in 1951, enforcement of the Act was first

assigned to the Pennsylvania Department of Welfare and then subsequently turned over

to the Pennsylvania Department of Instruction.

The reason for this change in

enforcement authority is not clear; however, it does illustrate that while the regulation of

fundraising was something that was a concern of the time, how and by whom regulation

should occur was still naturally fluid because the charitable sector itself was still fluid and

relatively ill-defined in terms of the regulatory environment. It was only in November

1952, once the Pennsylvania Solicitation Act was under the purview of the Department of

Public Instruction, that the Superintendent of Public Instruction asked the Attorney

General of the State of Pennsylvania for guidance in interpretation of Section 7(b) of the

Act, which dealt with compensation for fundraisers. McNees was quickly at work on

AAFRC’s behalf and in December 1952 secured a meeting with Pennsylvania’s Deputy

Superintendent, who had the joy of being delegated the task of dealing with interpretation

of the Act. At that meeting, McNees was able to extract an agreement from the Deputy

Superintendent that “the Department [of Public Instruction] would explore the possibility

of remedying the association’s [AAFRC’s] difficulties through a new ruling from the

AAFRC Minutes, 15 June 1953, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Attorney General. If that could not be accomplished, then conferences would be held

looking toward corrective legislation.”

The work of McNees on behalf of AAFRC was truly exhaustive. As a follow up

to this December meeting, McNees Wallace & Nurick sent the Deputy Superintendent a

memorandum containing “the history of the Solicitations Act, amendments to it, and

court interpretations bearing upon it…. We also supplied copies of an earlier

memorandum prepared earlier in 1951 outlining the structure of the act, the problems of

interpretation involved, and the difficulties of administration created by the language,

together with reasons in support of a re-interpretation by the Attorney General.”

McNees Wallace & Nurick also prepared two proposals on behalf of AAFRC—a redraft

of the Act and a draft of amendments to the existing act that would ameliorate the

conditions found unacceptable by AAFRC members and others working as professional

fundraising counsel. When the Deputy Superintendent agreed with the proposals but

refused to move them forward because of political inexpediency, McNees consulted with

a sympathetic legislator, Mr. Stoner, who had the power to add the provisions into House

Bill 42 (a sales tax bill that was a priority piece of legislation) that was being considered

by the Pennsylvania legislature. Ultimately, the proposals were not in the bill, and at that

point McNees lobbied to have the bill altered on the floor, again to no avail. When the

bill passed the Pennsylvania House and went to the Senate, McNees once again tried to

work with a legislator, this time Senator Wagner, to get the proposals included. Wagner

was sympathetic and suggested a further redrafting of the proposals, with which McNees

AAFRC Minutes, 15 June 1953, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

complied. The end result, though, was that the bill died in the Senate.

McNees had a

very clear-eyed understanding of why this attempt to alter legislation in AAFRC’s favor

had failed: first, the Pennsylvania legislature was entirely focused on its sales tax

legislation; and second, any new legislation in such a climate made “legislators wary for

fear that the new will contain hidden provisions of subtle language, the full import of

which they might fail to detect.”

To support the inertial nature of the Pennsylvania

legislature at this time, McNees noted, “Illustrative of this situation is the fact that

through May 20, 1953, twelve bills were passed, none of which were controversial in

nature and only a couple of which were of any significance.”

Given the lack of success in altering or clarifying the Pennsylvania Solicitation

Act despite every effort, McNees provided the following legal advice to AAFRC:

Another matter which we discussed with you at our conference

was the use of contracts applicable to the two phases of the activities of

members of the association [AAFRC]. It is our opinion that during the

initial portion of your work, in which no fund-raising activities are carried

on, members could quite properly enter into contracts for public relations

services. Separate contracts would be used to cover services in connection

with fund-raising activities, applicable to furnishing the plan for,

managing, directing, or supervising solicitation.

It seems to us that the functions of members of the association may

properly be segregated in this manner. The preliminary work which

precedes the actual undertaking of the fund-raising campaign would seem

distinguishable from the latter and not to be within the purview of the

Solicitations Act. Such an arrangement would not be a device to increase

fees, but would enable your members to receive compensation for work

done prior to commencement of fund-raising activities. As you know, if

the entire engagement is considered as one of fundraising, then members

are faced with the present, though we think erroneous, interpretation of the

statue as prohibiting receipt of any partial compensation which exceeds

fifteen per cent of the proceeds received up to the time of payment.

AAFRC Minutes, 15 June 1953, 3-4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 15 June 1953, 4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

You may want to discuss with others of the association the

possibility of using separate contracts and obtain their views as to whether

there is a line which can be drawn between services which are and those

which are not concerned with furnishing the plan for, managing, directing

or supervision of solicitation of funds.

In suggesting this contractual arrangement, McNees likely helped AAFRC member firms

to start thinking in ways that separated strategic fundraising counsel from professional

solicitation. This separation would later prove valuable in Tompkins Committee hearings

in New York, where AAFRC was at pains to point out the differences between the

services that they provided and those provided by professional solicitors.

Left with the inability to influence or alter legislation that set an arbitrary cap on

compensation for fundraising services, the AAFRC was left to determine an appropriate

remedy that met the conditions of the legislation while allowing member firms to

maintain financial viability and profitability. Their attorney, while unsuccessful as a

lobbyist on AAFRC’s behalf, nonetheless proved his value by offering an acceptable

legal work-around to the dilemma. The setting of arbitrary caps on compensation,

overhead, fundraising expenses, and other such items by legislative or watchdog entities

are concerns that the nonprofit sector and fundraising in particular continue to face to the

present day.

Tompkins Act of 1954

While the AAFRC failed to influence the Pennsylvania Solicitation Act, it appears

that the AAFRC did learn something important from the failed effort: the necessity of

early and proactive engagement with any legislation having the potential to have an

impact on regulation of professional fundraising counsel. They did not make the same

AAFRC Minutes, 15 June 1953, 5, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

mistake in their response to the Joint Legislation on Charitable and Philanthropic

Agencies and Organizations of the State of New York, a.k.a., the Tompkins Committee.

While mainly ignored by histories of philanthropy, the Tompkins Committee

provides interesting insight into what fundraisers of the day saw as a real potential threat

to the well-being of the fundraising profession. And, in fact, the Tompkins Committee

provided the impetus for the establishment of AAFRC’s first central office with paid

staff.

The New York state legislature created the Tompkins Committee on March 31,

1953, through a concurrent resolution. Senator Bernard Tompkins led the Committee,

the charge of which was to investigate fraudulent fundraising practices. The final report

of the Committee, which was released on February 15, 1954, required charitable

organizations engaged in fundraising to register with the state. It also required reporting

by professional solicitors.

Coming at a time when what we now term the nonprofit sector had not yet truly

been solidified as such, the Tompkins Committee was operating somewhat within terra

incognita. As the Tompkins Committee noted in what can be interpreted both as an

apology and justification for its work, “The sparsity of data on the activities of organized

charity tends to make this field a playground for the unscrupulous.”

To somewhat

address this sparsity, the public portion of the Tompkins Committee was structured as

three solid days of testimony, starting with testimony on “improper practices in fund-

raising, then from organizations for which funds are raised, and finally from our

Cutlip, 343.

As quoted in Cutlip, 441.

Association [AAFRC] and others.”

Despite this dearth of data, the Tompkins

Committee came up with findings that were shocking at the time: their best estimate was

that 97 percent of charitable contributions went to either “well-intentioned, well-

administered” charities or to “well-intentioned, poorly administered charities,” but

unfortunately there were no means to distinguish between the two. The remaining three

percent of all charitable contributions went to fraudulent causes.

The Tompkins

Commission Report concluded, “The generosity of our citizens has been consistently and

flagrantly abused by a small minority of frauds operating as ‘charities’ which have

mulcted New Yorkers out of an annual amount probably in excess of $25,000,000.”

The Tompkins Commission further noted that most fraud took the following forms:

misrepresentation of programs; fraudulent sponsorships, which consisted of unauthorized

celebrity endorsements; inadequate records that permitted easy diversion of funds;

supposed charities which were nothing more than fronts for businesses who reaped

profits from providing fundraising-related services; and excessively high administrative

and fundraising costs.

Particularly egregious examples of fraud cited by the Tompkins

Committee included the National Kids’ Day Foundation, Inc., which exploited an

unauthorized endorsement by Bing Crosby and collected nearly $4,000,000 over five

years, spending every penny on administration. Not a single dollar was used to help

needy children. Disabled American Veterans (DAV) was another case of charity fraud

cited in the report. The DAV raised approximately $21,500,000 from 1950-1953 through

AAFRC Minutes, 7 December 1953, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

Cutlip, 442.

Cutlip, 443-444.

Cutlip, 444.

the mailing of premiums, with 91 cents on the dollar being paid to its fundraising

contractors.

This was the legislative fray into which the AAFRC was thrown. To its credit,

and to the credit of AAFRC President Dr. Arnaud C. Marts, the AAFRC met the

challenge head on, taking an active role in presenting its case and serving as an expert

witness regarding fundraising fraud and the advisability of possible remedies.

The records of AAFRC include both a draft and final report to the Joint

Legislation Committee on Charitable and Philanthropic Agencies of The State of New

York. Scheduled for discussion at the AAFRC’s Executive Committee meeting on

December 7, 1953, the undated, nine-page draft reveals the main points and arguments

that would be made by Dr. Arnaud C. Marts in his invited testimony to the Tompkins

Committee.

The ten-page final document differs little from the draft, with the biggest

exception being the addition of all AAFRC member firms as signatories at the end.

While Marts was the AAFRC spokesman testifying to the Tompkins Committee, AAFRC

records show that the written statement was drafted by Chester E. Tucker and David

Church of John Price Jones Company.

Clearly not wishing to engender ill will, the official statement to the Tompkins

Committee begins with the note that “The Association [AAFRC], and I personally, wish

to congratulate you upon the important public service which you are rendering in your

endeavor to protect the giving public in the name of charity. We pledge you our fullest

Cutlip, 445-450.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 1-10, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 7 December 1953, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

support.”

This is more than a bit of flattering puffery, as throughout Marts’ testimony

he was at pains to place AAFRC on the side of all that was right and good, which in this

case was the Tompkins Committee.

At this time in the development of the fundraising profession, terminology had

not yet solidified around what are now considered to be established divisions within the

fundraising profession: “fundraising professionals,” who are staff employees of charities;

“fundraising consultants,” who are for-profit contractors providing strategic services to

charities such as fundraising plan development and campaign feasibility studies, and who

in this capacity do not directly solicit donors on behalf of a charity; and “professional

solicitors,” who are for-profit contractors providing tactical services to charities, with a

focus on directly soliciting donors via direct response methods. Throughout the

Committee’s work, AAFRC was at pains to separate fundraising consultants from

professional solicitors, who were the culprits behind the most notorious fundraising fraud

cases. As Marts testified to the Tompkins Committee, AAFRC was happy to serve as an

expert observer or witness regarding fraud in the field:

The members of the America Association of Fund-Raising Counsel have

no relation to or with so-called ‘charity racketeers.’ We refuse to serve an

institution that arouses our own suspicions, and we refuse to hire a fund-

raiser who violates our code of ethics. However, we are in position to

observe ‘charity rackets,’ just as the medical and legal professions are in

position to observe ‘ambulance chasers’ and ‘quacks’ in their fields. We

will, therefore, present our observations on ‘charity rackets’ for your [the

Tompkins Committee’s] consideration.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 1-10, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

Marts further emphasized the distinction by saying that “Members of the Association

[AAFRC] do not solicit funds directly and, therefore, are not ‘fund-raisers.’”

Marts

further shared that AAFRC member firms “do not initiate campaigns.”

Per the

collective wisdom of AAFRC member firms, Marts also made sure to omit any

“references to excessive advertising and percentage fees” so as not to invite comparison

with professional solicitors.

Marts’ testimony included a brief overview of the genesis of the fundraising

profession. While relating the facts of how the mass philanthropy generated by the

World War I era had created the fundraising profession, Marts again deftly used the

opportunity to point out the difference between high-minded fundraising consultants like

AAFRC member firms and low-minded professional solicitors. He noted,

Like every new enterprise, it [the fundraising profession] attracted men of

high, low and average ability. It attracted men who wished their lives to

be of service to their nation and to their fellow-men and, unfortunately, it

also attracted men who were money-hungry and alert for the “quick buck.”

It attracted men with high ideals of public responsibility, and others with

negative or selfish standards.

Marts was also quick to note that as an exemplar of the more noble aspects of the

fundraising profession, AAFRC had had greatness thrust upon it and accepted the mantel

of “a responsibility for setting ethical standards and for ‘policing’ those standards in a

voluntary way in order to try to protect the giving public from unethical or inefficient

practitioners in this new field.”

Again showing his rhetorical skill, in this statement

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 7 December 1953, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

Marts not only managed to extol the ethos of AAFRC but also succeeded in subtly

inserting the idea of self-regulation of fundraising as being a viable alternative to

legislation. He further pressed this point indirectly as his testimony continued, noting

that “The ethical standards which this Association [AAFRC] has established for the

protection of the generous giving public are along the lines of your Committee’s own

study and objective.”

Key factors noted that supported the alignment between the goals of AAFRC and

the goals of the Tompkins Committee included the refusal of AAFRC member firms to

serve unworthy or fraudulent causes; the refusal AAFRC member firms to accept

percentage or commission-based compensation; the requirement that all firms accepted as

AAFRC members must be led by a fundraising professional with a minimum of ten years

of continuous experience in the field; and the discouragement of AAFRC member firms

from making exaggerated claims regarding their prior achievements, past fundraising

results, or overly rosy promises regarding future results.

The observations that AAFRC proceeded to present to the Tompkins Committee

were ones that could likely be made today and addressed (though not explicitly) the crux

of most efforts to regulate fundraising: to what extent is it advisable to create legislation

to regulate or otherwise control fundraising in the charitable sector, given the small

amount of fraud that actually occurs? Marts’ observations start with the estimate that at

the time, Americans contributed $4 billion to charity. Of that amount, the AAFRC

estimated that approximately 2.5 to 3 percent of the annual total went to “charity

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 3-4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

rackets,” with the vast majority of the money donated going to worthy causes engaged in

reputable fundraising. While acknowledging the unacceptability of any amount of money

going to charity fraud and the way in which “racketeering in charity is one of the most

flagrant forms of criminal activity, for it exploits the finest impulses of the human heart,”

the question underlying Marts’ subsequent remarks attempts to lead the Tompkins

Committee inquiry away from outrage at any sort of fraud and back to issues of utility:

what sort or degree of regulation would efficiently serve the end of eliminating the 2.5 to

3 percent of fraudulent activity taking place?

In answering his own underlying question, Marts makes several important points

that remain relevant today. First, in the most egregious cases of charity fraud (as when

professional solicitors create “paper charities,” the fundraising for which primarily serves

to line the professional solicitor’s pockets), Marts makes the observation that such fraud

can be prosecuted using existing laws, so additional legislation is unnecessary to deal

with these cases. Indeed, Marts notes that in an effort to catch the bad actors engaged in

outright fundraising fraud, government may end up harming the conscientious charities

and fundraising consultants who are operating in good faith. As Marts notes, “It appears

to us [AAFRC] that it is difficult to draw up laws and controls at the state level which

will set fund-raising standards that can be legally administered with fairness to all the

varied philanthropic interests in a state.”

As an example, Marts uses the Pennsylvania

legislation which the AAFRC failed to remedy (but without referencing it by name),

noting that

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 4, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 5, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

One large state [Pennsylvania] has had in effect for several years a law

which requires each institution which employs a fund-raiser or counsel,

and each fund-raiser or counsel to obtain a license. The renewal of that

license each year is based almost solely upon one criterion—did the fund-

raiser get less than 15 per cent of the fund raised. If not, his license is

revoked, even if his compensation was 16 per cent, due to disappointment

in the returns. Of course, this revocation could embarrass, even ruin, the

conscientious, decent fund-raiser and the cause for which he labored, but

does no harm to the racketeer, who has no reputation to lose, and who

darts off to another community to put on a high-pressure benefit from

which he will gather in 50 to 80 per cent of the take before the Bureau at

the state capitol hears of it.

In highlighting the arbitrary nature of the 15 percent figure, Marts suggests more broadly

the difficulties of trying to put in place narrow legal controls for fundraising, which may

be neither accurate nor appropriate and which may end up hurt legitimate charities and

fundraising consultants while not rectifying problems or abuses.

To address charity racketeering, the AAFRC statement suggested that what was

needed was not the licensing of fundraising professionals but rather an information

clearinghouse on charities and fundraising in order to increase transparency and help

institutions, fund-raisers, and donors great and small become informed consumers. The

State Commission for Registration and Information on Philanthropic Institutions and

Fund-Raising was to “be made up of leading citizens representative of the public in

general, contributors, accredited fund-raising firms [a.k.a., AAFRC members], and

private institutions for which funds are raised.”

The Commission was to oversee

mandatory annual registration of all charities seeking donations from the public as well as

all professional solicitors or fundraising consultants operating in the State of New York.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 5-6, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 6, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

Questions to be answered annually by each professional solicitor or fundraising

consultant seeking registration or re-registration were to include the following:

A. How much money did you help raise from the public in New York

State?

B. What methods did you use? Mail – Intensive Campaign – Benefits –

Sale of unordered merchandise – other

C. What was the fund-raising cost?

D. Was compensation by salary, fee or percentage?

E. What fund-raising or counselling do you contemplate for the coming

year?

These were criteria on which AAFRC member firms would perform well, as the criteria

favored knowledgeable, established firms with ongoing business. However, it was also

the case that AAFRC believed “bringing the power of public opinion to bear on the

‘charity racketeers’” would be the most important outcome of the proposed Commission

for the simple reason that there was “no official agency in this State to which the public

can look for leadership in the war on ‘charity racketeers,’ although certain voluntary

groups, such as the Better Business Bureau and the National Information Bureau, are

very helpful.”

In addition to hearing the general testimony provided by Marts on behalf of

AAFRC, the Tompkins Committee also requested answers to six specific questions

dealing with fundraising costs and licensure issues:

1. What are the actual cost figures for raising funds by organized

campaign methods?

2. Should the Committee recommend to the Legislature a law which

restricts the cost of fund-raising campaigns?

3. Should legislation ban campaigns on a percentage basis?

4. Should fundraisers be licensed?

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 7, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

5. Should agencies which ask for funds be licensed?

6. Should legislation deal with the distribution by charity organizations

of unordered merchandise?

Clearly, the Tompkins Committee was seeking advice from AAFRC for forming

quantifiable means for shaping fundraising regulation. In answering these questions,

Marts was clear that AAFRC recommended self-regulation of the fundraising profession

and registration over licensure. His responses regarding the costs of fundraising echo the

same points made today in discussions of charity overhead, namely that one size does not

fit all, and costs for fundraising vary according to the size of the organization, with larger

charities achieving economies of scale that cause their fundraising costs to be overall

lower when measured according to return on investment. His recommendations

regarding registration versus licensure do not go beyond the points raised earlier in his

testimony, which is understandable but perhaps unfortunate from a historical perspective,

as they leave out some very interesting thinking of the AAFRC on this point. As noted

by the AAFRC during private discussions preceding Marts’ testimony before the

Tompkins Committee, AAFRC members viewed registration as preferable to licensure

but still not ideal, as it could lead to the imposition of additional future restrictions:

Some [AAFRC member firms] felt that what is needed in New York is a

commission of intelligent people to observe and to register, but not to

license. Others felt that as soon as a commission is set up it has to be fed

and that sooner or later controls never intended develop. It was agreed

that if a registration system should result from the hearings, it would be

better operated and controlled by a separate commission of topranking

[sic] citizens than by a governmental agency or someone politically

appointed. A warning was also expressed that [if] the committee attempts

to remedy the present situation, they be careful not to put a fence around

the whole world.

AAFRC Minutes, Final Statement to the Tompkins Committee, n.d., 8-9, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC

Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 7 December 1953, 1-2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC members were naturally wary of fundraising activities being constrained by

either the government or the citizenry, both entities which were generally

unknowledgeable about fundraising and philanthropy. However, if an oversight body

were needed, AAFRC clearly preferred that the group be comprised of citizens rather

than the government, as citizens could advise but not regulate.

The Tompkins Committee and its report resulted in New York State legislation

known as the Tompkins Act, which was enacted in 1954. The Tompkins Act, which was

meant to protect donors to charities, required all charities to register with the State of

New York. Charities needed to provide:

(1) The name under which the charity intends to solicit contributions, (2)

the names and addresses of the charity’s officers and directors, (3) the

names and addresses of any fund raisers or professional solicitors who will

act on behalf of the charity, (4) the charity’s purpose, (5) the purposes for

which the contributions will be used, and (6) any other information

necessary for the protection of contributors.

These were basic facts for purposes of transparency and no doubt were meant to provide

donors with at least some sense of the charity with which they were dealing. Also, by

providing the names and addresses of the charity’s officers and directors, the Tompkins

Act put additional emphasis on the board members’ legal duties of care and obedience in

matters of fundraising.

There were also annual reporting requirements for charities,

who were to give a financial statement to New York’s Department of Social Welfare.

Charities who were found in violation of Tompkins Act legislation could have their

Scott L. Cagan, "Charitable Fraud in New York: The Role of the Professional Fund Raiser,” New York

Law School Law Review 33 (1988): 429.

BoardSource, “Board Responsibilities and Structures—FAQs,” accessed October 18, 2017,

https://boardsource.org/resources/board-responsibilities-structures-faqs/.

fundraising activities curtailed, their charity registration canceled, or their charter

revoked.

The outcome, while not a complete victory for AAFRC, nevertheless avoided a

key AAFRC concern, which was the licensure of fundraising professionals—something

that Senator Tompkins had reported to AAFRC as being his preference but that he later

amended publicly.

Tompkins also expressed his feeling that AAFRC should be

engaged in more policing of the fundraising profession.

At this point, AAFRC was thrust into greatness. Named as the voice of reputable

fundraising during Tompkins Committee hearings and given the expectation thereafter to

provide oversight for the professional’s self-regulation, AAFRC could no longer function

simply as an exclusive grouping of a small number of large, well-established consulting

firms. It is clear from AAFRC records, however, that his situation had the beneficial side

effect of forcing AAFRC to think bigger. One of the big ideas to result from the

increasing pressure the AAFRC felt to defend fundraising as a reputable profession was

the realization that there is strength in numbers, and that it was time “that consideration

be given to a substantial increase in [AAFRC] membership.”

Strict membership

requirements such as the one stipulating that “the executive head of a member

organization [of AAFRC] must have had continuous experience of at least ten years as a

professional counsel in the fund-raising field” were noted as something that “should be

redefined” so as not to exclude otherwise worthy firms.

The heretofore heretical idea of

Cagan, 430.

AAFRC Minutes, 28 January 1954, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC; AAFRC Minutes,

Press Release, 28 January 1954, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 28 January 1954, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 7 December 1953, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

the admission of individual fundraising consultants (the so-called “freelancers” that

AAFRC had specifically blackballed since its beginning) was floated. Fundraisers who

were employed as charity staff, however, were still to be excluded.

To its credit, AAFRC embraced these challenges, noting “we should accept the

challenge these hearings have placed before us, and should constantly publicize the

standard of [AAFRC], and should increase the membership of [AAFRC] without

reducing these standards.”

However, AAFRC also noted the challenges of acting as a

leader in the self-regulation of the fundraising profession, observing that “it would be

difficult to determine the methods by which we might in a practical way police our

membership.”

It may also have been, however, that in addition to having the collective

disposition to embrace the future, AAFRC saw a chance to position itself at the forefront

of American fundraising. In a same-day AAFRC press release of Senator Tompkins’

remarks to a meeting of AAFRC, Senator Tompkins’ exhortation to AAFRC is reported:

To supplement his propose legislative action, Senator Tompkins

recommended that the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel,

the only nationally recognized group of fund-raising firms, take the lead in

‘policing its own profession’ and attempt to persuade others to adopt its

‘code of ethics.’

‘Would it not be feasible to welcome additional agencies into your

membership, so that, in a sense, you would become the association which

represents this important machinery of philanthropy?’ he asked. ‘You

would then be in a strategic position to raise the standards for the entire

field and to secure a greater understanding by the public for the important

work that you do.’

Clearly, Senator Tompkins’ reported remarks reflect steps that AAFRC had already

determined to take.

AAFRC Minutes, 7 December 1953, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 28 January 1954, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, Press Release, 28 January 1954, 1, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

By February 1954, the Executive Committee of AAFRC had voted to establish a

national office, hire an executive director to assist the president, and enlist other firms to

join AAFRC. AAFRC would also take in freelancers not associated with a firm as

associate members. However, AAFRC would not offer membership to persons who were

full-time staff fundraisers for charities.

It is also around this time that the first mention of the possibility of certification

for fundraising professionals appears in AAFRC documents. A description of far-

reaching plans related to the establishment of AAFRC’s first office notes that

It has been pointed out that licensing [of fundraising professionals] is of

little avail without policing—and by those engaged in the business—as in

the cases of the medical and legal professions…. Closely allied to such a

service is the question of accreditation used effectively in life insurance

(C.L.U.), accounting (C.P.A.), and in many other callings.

Certification—which is what AAFRC meant by the term “accreditation”—was seen as a

potential means of enhancing the self-regulation ability of the fundraising profession.

In addition, AAFRC had “a powerful motive” for evolving into a more inclusive and thus

more influential organization with a national office. As notes from the time indicate,

under the present dynamic circumstances, some centralized authority in

fund-raising is almost certain to spring up shortly. As Senator Tompkins

pointed out, ‘…if [AAFRC] does not take the initiative in establishing

some agency to control [self-regulation of fundraising], some other group

is very likely to do so.’

Senator Tompkins’ words were prescient. AAFRC did in fact go on to establish its first

national office in 1955 and from that time forward has been a force for good in American

AAFRC Minutes, 24 February 1954, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, Plans for National Office, n.d., 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

“C.L.U.” stands for “Certified Life Underwriter.” “C.P.A.” stands for “Certified Public Accountant.”

Individuals may become certified; organizations or programs may become accredited. The two terms are

often—and incorrectly—used interchangeably.

philanthropy, with the current incarnation of the group, The Giving Institute, being

perhaps best known for Giving USA, an annual report on American philanthropy that has

been published continuously since 1956. The group’s continued monitoring of

regulations affecting fundraising continues to be seen in the regularly published Giving

USA: Annual Report on State Laws Regulating Charitable Solicitations. However, in

choosing to exclude fundraising professionals employed full-time by charities, AAFRC

essentially abandoned the issue of certification for fundraising professionals and in the

long run also ended up ceding its aspirational position as the leading voice for the

fundraising profession. That mantel—and the task of professional certification—was

eventually taken up by the National Society of Fund Raisers (the precursor of the

Association of Fundraising Professionals), which was founded in 1960.

CHAPTER FIVE

PRELUDE TO CERTIFICATION (1960-1976)

At the end of the 1950s, the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel

(AAFRC) was the premier association for the fundraising profession, and it was setting a

course to take advantage of its position as the voice for the fundraising profession that it

had achieved as a result of its role in the Tompkins Committee hearings on “charity

racketeering.” Setting a goal of substantially increasing its membership, AAFRC voted

in 1954 to invite other fundraising counsel firms to join its ranks as well as “free-lance

fundraisers not associated with a firm,” who were to be entitled to associate

membership.

The tenure length for the head of a member firm also was reduced from

ten years’ experience to six.

Further, AAFRC was exploring the advisability of creating

a “Board of Consultants,” the purpose of which would be to forge ties with other

organizations concerned about philanthropy and thus elevate AAFRC to the position of

being a recognized leader in philanthropy and not simply fundraising.

However, the one

thing that AAFRC decided not to do was to admit fundraising professionals who were

employed full-time by nonprofit organizations and institutions. That measure was

defeated by a vote of nine to three.

Origins of NSFR

It took another six years before a few enterprising fundraising professionals in

New York became discontent with the few loose, local associations available to

fundraising professionals employed by institutions. It was from this void that the

AAFRC Minutes, 20 February 1954, 2, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, 4 June 1954, 3, Series 1, Roll 1, AAFRC Records, RLASC.

AAFRC Minutes, A Report from the Study Committee, Second Draft, 9 March 1954, 1, Series 1, Roll 1,

AAFRC Records, RLASC.

National Society of Fund Raisers (later the National Society of Fund Raising Executives

and now the Association of Fundraising Professionals) was born. The beginning of

NSFR marked a new yet familiar cycle in fundraising professionals’ elusive search for

professional respect. Founded on June 21, 1960, in New York by Benjamin Sklar of

Brandeis University, William R. Sims of the National Urban League, and Harry Rosen of

the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (Dr. Abel Hanson of Columbia Teacher’s

College was later added as a fourth founder), NSFR was envisioned as a national

association for fundraisers.

NSFR’s purposes as outlined in its articles of incorporation

included being a support to fundraisers in their practice, a network for exchange of ideas,

a unifying body for fundraising, a voice for explaining the many facets of the fundraising

profession to the public, a promoter of high standards, and a promoter of study and

research for fundraising.

Hanson, who served as NSFR’s first president, expressed in the first issue of

NSFR’s Newsletter themes that sound very familiar as the justification for the founding

of NSFR. He noted that it was “probably too early to identify fundraising as a true

profession,” echoing a regularly recurring theme across the decades.

However, for the

first time in the profession’s history, Hanson brings a greatly expanded vision of

fundraising to the fore. Placing fundraising clearly within “the history of philanthropy,”

Hanson emphasizes that “philanthropy is national in scope.”

Because “giving to worthy

NSFR’s founders were associated with organizations largely serving causes related to the Jewish

community and civil rights. While it might be possible to conjecture that these individuals formed NSFR

because they were excluded from other fundraising associations because of their diversity, there is nothing

in NSFR’s records suggesting any discrimination by other associations.

Association of Fundraising Professionals, AFP: The First 50 Years (Arlington: Association of

Fundraising Professionals, 2010), 4 (hereafter cited as AFP: The First 50 Years).

AFP: The First 50 Years, 4.

causes” is “a historic characteristic of the American people,” NSFR is needed so that

“fundraisers may increase their understanding of giving in a free society.”

Effectively,

Hanson provided a new rallying cry for respect for the fundraising profession: if

philanthropy is historically American, and giving is a hallmark of America’s free society,

then those whose work to increase giving—fundraising professionals—are part of the

backbone of America.

Dedicated to the creation of an association serving individual fundraising

professionals, NSFR’s leadership created an ambitious recruitment scheme for the young

organization, sending 400 to 500 invitations to fundraising professionals in the New York

area. The invitations offered membership for a $10 annual dues fee. Clearly there was

demand because NSFR received a 95 percent response rate to its initial attempt to acquire

members.

While the early attendees of NSFR formational meetings were predominantly

from Jewish charities such as B’nai B’rith, the Federation of Jewish Agencies, National

Jewish Hospital, and Israel Bonds, the leadership made it clear that NSFR was an

organization for all fundraising professionals, from whatever faith or sector, saying “this

organization [NSFR] would be non-sectarian. It is important for us to ready all fund-

raisers in the community.” Further, the founders defined NSFR as

an organization which would set up a code of ethics and publicity to give

the fund-raiser the prestige due to him. The fund-raiser is not well known

AFP: The First 50 Years, 4.

Minutes of the Board of Directors of the National Society of Fund Raisers/National Society of Fund

Raising Executives (NSFR Minutes), 20 March 1961, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, Association of

Fundraising Professionals, Records 1960-1998 (AFP Records), Ruth Lilly Special Collections and

Archives, University Library, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (hereafter cited as

RLASC). In 1977, the National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR) changed its name to the National Society

of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE). This change happened mid-year and was not a material change for

the organization.

in the community. He performs a most important function in the

community, and does not receive the recognition. The Society will have

as its minimum requirement five years of service as a full-time

fundraiser.”

In short, NSFR has as its goal the same sorts of issues—increasing the prestige of the

fundraising profession and increasing understanding of the function of fundraising in

society—that AAFRC had been pursuing since its founding decades earlier. The

leadership of NSFR also from the first had the vision of a national organization. In an

early recruitment letter dated August 9, 1961, they expressed this forthrightly: “The

National Society of Fund Raisers has been chartered for the purpose of advancing the

best interests of fund raisers and the organizations they serve on a nationwide basis.”

Beyond being national in scope, NSFR also wanted to be a voice for good in the

seeming perpetual quest to raise understanding of and respect for the fundraising

profession. As Joseph F. McNee, Senior Vice President of the National Foundation,

noted at the official opening meeting of NSFR on November 15, 1961,

The public image of the professional fund raiser is not a good one. With

the constant harassment of the whole area of fund raising, the public is

beginning to believe that all fund raising is of the ‘bucket shop’ variety….

The fund raiser must, through organizations such as the National Society

of Fund Raisers, do all in his power as an individual and as a member of

an agency or association to improve this image….The National Society of

Fund Raisers can become an excellent vehicle to (a) set standards of fund

raising; (b) help train fund raisers; (c) attract top caliber young men and

women into the field; (d) launch a public relations program to bring about

a proper understanding of the needs and accomplishments of this field.

NSFR Minutes, 20 March 1961, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC. The note of the

minimum requirement of five years of service is important because it is likely the original source of the

requirement that CFREs have a minimum of five years of experience. This requirement for the CFRE

credential stood until 2016, when it was lowered to three years of experience because of the greatly

expanded array of educational resources available to fundraising professionals.

NSFR Minutes, Recruitment Letter, 9 August 1961, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 13 March 1963, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

In noting these issues and goals, McNee was perhaps unknowingly repeating the litany of

issues that had plagued fundraising professionals from the beginning and that AAFRC

had pointed out in its early days as problems to be solved and points to be addressed.

These issues would only continue to grow over the years as the scale of giving in the

United States grew and the philanthropic sector expanded, as documented by Giving

USA, which was started by AAFRC.

However, NSFR was prepared to build on the

base of those who had gone before to add two more building blocks to the foundation of

the fundraising profession: It was NSFR that suggested—and ultimately pursued—a

code of ethics and standards for fundraising professionals as well as the addition of

formal training and educational opportunities for fundraisers. Both of these elements

were vital precursors to certification.

NSFR Ethics Committee

To facilitate the creation of a code of ethics and standards, NSFR set up an Ethics

Committee fairly early on. While the exact date of formation of the Ethics Committee is

not documented, it was in existence by July 30, 1964.

Chaired by Barnet Deutch of the

American Red Cross, the Ethics Committee worked diligently and was able to distribute a

draft Code of Ethics and Standards at the NSFR Board of Directors meeting on June 11,

1965.

At that time, Deutch asked that NSFR Board members submit any suggested

changes in writing within a week. The question was broached of whether Board approval

The Giving Institute, Giving USA 2017 (Chicago: The Giving Institute, 2017), 40.

NSFR Minutes, 13 November 1964, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

“Paid Notice: Deaths DEUTCH, BARNET M.,” New York Times, May 24, 2002,

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/24/classified/paid-notice-deaths-deutch-barnet-m.html?mcubz=1; NSFR

Minutes, 11 June 1965, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

was sufficient in order to adopt the Code of Ethics and Standards or whether approval by

the general membership was needed, with the decision being deferred to a later date.

Ultimately, the NSFR Code of Ethics and Standards appears to have been adopted

with little fuss, as no further mention is made of it in the minutes of NSFR’s Board of

Directors. The Code did become a centerpiece of membership in NSFR, as the first

extant example of a complete application for membership in NSFR features the Code and

requires all applicants to sign in confirmation that they will adhere to NSFR’s Standards

of Practice, which were as follows:

As Members of the National Society of Fund Raisers, Inc. we share a

responsibility for upholding the character and reputation of our profession.

Accordingly, we will adhere to the following principles and practices:

• We will associate ourselves only with organizations and agencies

employing ethical fund raising methods and whose purposes contribute

to the preservation and enhancement of a free society.

• We will work professionally only on a salary or retainer fee basis.

• We will cooperate with fellow practitioners in curbing malpractice.

• We will encourage and support educational and training programs for

fund raising practitioners.

• We will encourage our members to share ideas, experiences and

practices so as to (a) increase the common pool of knowledge about

fund raising, and (b) benefit the organizations and agencies they serve.

• We will pursue our professional responsibilities always concerned

with protecting the best interests of the giving public and the causes

and people for which they give.

Only by living up to these principles and standards will we be meeting our

responsibilities for making the profession in which we are engaged worthy

of continued public confidence.

It is likely that the development of NSFR’s Code took so little time and warranted

so little discussion because in many ways, its core principles did not differ

significantly from those developed by AAFRC in terms of NSFR members

working only with ethical organizations, avoiding fee-based compensation, and

doing a certain amount of self-policing to uphold the integrity of the fundraising

profession. Throughout, an emphasis on maintaining the good character of the

profession was maintained.

Professional Education Programs for Fundraisers

Something that took more time—and significantly more time at that—was

NSFR’s stated goal of developing educational programs for fundraising professionals.

On this matter, NSFR and AAFRC undertook a formal agreement to work together

through a Joint Committee on Careers in Fundraising. Established on June 22, 1965, the

Joint Committee on Careers in Fundraising was to consist of five representatives from

AAFRC and four representatives from NSFR, with work to be funded by a $1,500

donation from AAFRC. The Committee’s stated purpose was to “study the extent to

which a program of mutual cooperation might be established between the AAFRC and

the NSFR with respect to common problems pertaining to individuals in the profession of

fundraising, both of an immediate and long-range nature.”

By August 13, 1965, this

nascent effort had been formalized through a joint resolution of NSFR and AAFRC for

the Joint Study on Careers in Fund Raising, which noted:

Whereas there is a common objective on the part of both

organizations to establish meaningful professional standards of

performance, capabilities and training; and

Whereas there is a need for developing professional standards and

definitions of job titles, responsibilities and functions as they pertain to

individuals employed in the field of fund raising; and

Whereas, the American Association of Fund Raising Counsel and

the National Society of Fund Raisers are the recognized organizations in

their fields;

It is therefore resolved that the American Association of Fund

Raising Counsel and the National Society of Fund Raisers authorize

NSFR Minutes, Resolution of the Executive Committee of AAFRC, 22 June 1965, n.p, Group 2, Part 1,

Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

independently the formation of a joint committee to study the above areas

of common interest as they pertain to individuals who compose the fund

raising profession.

Most interesting is the way in which this resolution indicates an admission by NFRS and

AAFRC that former standards of practice, which were based primarily on undefined

measures of experience and good character, were not enough. As the profession matured,

it needed to quantify professional standards to some degree, and this resolution

acknowledges that fact. Members of the Joint Study on Careers in Fund Raising were

AAFRC representatives A. C. Podesta of Tamblyn & Brown, who chaired the Joint

Study; Edwin E. Armstrong of Ward, Dreshman and Reinhardt; George A. Brakeley, Jr.,

of G. A. Brakeley & Co.; Austin V. McClain of Marts & Lundy, Inc.; and Raleigh L.

Smith of Will, Folsom and Smith. Jess W. Speidel II of the American Cancer Society;

Abel A. Hanson of the Teacher’s College at Columbia University; Ben Sklar of Brandeis

University; and Harry Rosen of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies represented

NSFR.

It is interesting to note that NSFR loaded its representation with heavy hitters,

as the current NSFR President (Speidel), the former NSFR President (Hanson), and two

founding NSFR members (Sklar and Rosen) were included. Unfortunately, despite the

high-profile volunteers and funding afforded to the project, it appears to have produced

little in the way of results. The only further mention of its work occurs as a short note in

1968, where it is reported that “an ad hoc committee comprised of representatives of

NSFR and AAFRC [met] to discuss education, recruitment, accreditation and

NSFR Minutes, “NSFR and AAFRC Joint Study on Careers in Fund Raising,” 13 August 1965, n.p,

Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, “NSFR and AAFRC Joint Study on Careers in Fund Raising,” 13 August 1965, n.p,

Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

classification of fund raisers.” A draft pamphlet from AAFRC entitled “For You—New

Career Opportunities in a Growing Profession” was distributed to the NSFR Board of

Directors, presumably as a sample publication related to the ad hoc committee’s work.

Despite a philosophical commitment to promoting educational opportunities for

fundraisers, NSFR’s records show that its efforts to professionalize fundraising further by

providing training opportunities for its membership went in fits and starts at best. The

bulk of the organization’s efforts during the 1960s and 1970s went towards growing its

membership (by the end of 1976, membership in NSFR was estimated to be at more than

1,300 nationwide) and growing affiliations through creating of new chapters or

absorption of independent groups into the NSFR chapter structure.

As a testament to

NSFR’s tenacity in the area of chapter growth, by the end of 1976 there were 20 NSFR

Chapters across the United States and Canada: New York, Washington DC Metro Area,

Massachusetts, Greater Atlanta, Greater Los Angeles, Greater Houston, Greater

Philadelphia, Minnesota, Greater Toronto, Golden Gate, Maryland, Mid-America,

Greater Milwaukee, New Jersey, San Diego, St. Louis Regional, Miami-Dade County,

Chicago, and Mahoning-Shenango. NSFR’s presence was strong on the East Coast, West

Coast, and Midwest but weak in the South. Interestingly, the Chicago chapter of NSFR

had formally been an independent association, the Chicago Society of Fund Raising

Executives (CSFRE). It was CSFRE’s concern that if a merger were to occur with

NSFR, that there would need to be a “name change to reflect executives [and] managers.”

NSFR Minutes, 5 April 1968, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 17 September 1976, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

Once the merger between NSFR and CSFRE was effected, NSFR became known as the

National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE).

However, during this same period, training and education for fundraising

professionals languished at NSFR. In 1966, “training programs” were listed as a “service

function” that could be “undertaken in fulfillment of the Society’s central purpose, as it

relates to the membership of the Society, to the profession generally, and to the public at

large.”

Toward that end, Barnet Deutch—who prior to this had been chair of NSFR’s

Ethics Committee—made an impassioned argument for “a training program to attract

qualified personnel to the fundraising profession.”

Deutch noted that large nonprofit

organizations—including some of those represented on the NSFR board—had training

programs already. He believed that NSFR needed its own training program in order to

serve both individual members and chapters. Deutch volunteered to set up a training

program for NSFR, a suggestion which was well received.

By February 1967, Deutch

was chair of NSFR’s Committee on Training.

Nevertheless, it appears that training and

education for fundraisers outside of NSFR’s annual conference was mostly aspiration

and/or ad hoc, as the Committee on Training was not among the standing committees

listed in the NSFR minutes of March 24, 1967.

By 1968, however, more interest was

starting to be expressed at by the NSFR Board of Directors about how to encourage

fundraising professionals to seek education in fundraising. The existence of a “course in

fund raising” at the New School for Social Research in New York City caused the NSFR

NSFR Minutes, 10 December 1976, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 12 October 1966, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 12 October 1966, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 6 February 1967, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 10 March 1967, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

Board of Directors to note that “Since so little is known about the formal [fundraising]

courses being given at various educational institutions, and since there are demands by

both experienced professional and the beginner for formal educational training to serve

his own needs,” an article “outlining what is available and perhaps what should be

available to the profession” would be helpful.

The mention of courses in fundraising offered by academic institutions seems to

have set off a spark of sorts in terms of jumpstarting NSFR’s consideration of supporting

educational opportunities for fundraising professionals. Around this time, NSFR began

to discuss setting up a foundation “to receive grants to further the purpose of the

Society.”

Maurice G. Gurin, head of the New York consulting firm Bowen, Gurin, &

Barnes, Inc. and chair of NSFR’s Legislative Committee, was at the same time having

conversations with the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation was interested in

providing funds to NSFR to train African-American fundraisers at historically black

colleges and universities (HBCUs), though at the time different nomenclature was used.

As Gurin expressed in a letter to James W. Bryant, Project Specialist at the Ford

Foundation, the project was for “the recruitment, training, and employment of Negroes

for fundraising assignments with predominantly Negro colleges.”

The need for the

project was described like this:

Direct foundation support for the predominantly Negro colleges will never

be sufficient to bring these important institutions to the levels that we hope

they will achieve. Challenge grants, which must be matched, are not the

answer either because these colleges do not have the requisite alumni,

parent, and community support. The solution is the training of competent

NSFR Minutes, 9 February 1968, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 14 June 1968, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, Maurice G. Gurin to James W. Bryant, 1 July 1968, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP

Records, RLASC.

development officers and the establishment of effective development

offices for these institutions. Only through this approach can their

potential sources of support be adequately developed.

With foundation support and direct constituency support being judged as insufficient, the

program description implied that engagement of individual philanthropists on a grand

scale would be needed, and for this a dedicated cadre of fundraising professionals for

HBCUs needed to be trained. NSFR was not the only organization proposing the training

program. AAFRC; NSFR’s New York affiliate, the Association of Fund Raising

Directors; the National Public Relations Council; the American Alumni Council; and the

American College Public Relations Association were also invited to participate. The

Ford Foundation’s endorsement of the program “could expedite organizational

cooperation on the program.”

It could also potentially provide NSFR with sorely-

needed funding for developing training programs.

The program, while momentous in terms of scope, did not occupy much

discussion at the leadership level at NSFR if the association’s minutes are any indication.

NSFR minutes in late 1968 mentioned that a committee of five had been nominated to

carry out the program under Ralph E. Chamberlain, who was President of NSFR at the

time, and promised NSFR’s full cooperation and resources.

However, it was late 1969

before there was another brief mention of the program in a confidential memorandum

from George A. Brakeley, Jr., to NSFR leaders Robert V. Donahoe, Ralph E.

Chamberlain, and Robert E. O’Brien. In discussing possible advantages to discuss with

NSFR Minutes, Maurice G. Gurin to James W. Bryant, 1 July 1968, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP

Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, Maurice G. Gurin to James W. Bryant, 1 July 1968, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP

Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 8 November 1968, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

the Chicago Society of Fund Raising Executives (CSFRE), which NSFR was trying to

secure as an affiliate, Brakeley noted, “the intern program for development officers from

a number of the ‘black’ higher educational institutions, sponsored by Ford” was

something that CSFRE should know about.

It appears at this point that AAFRC had

taken the role of lead partner in the Ford Foundation project, which may explain why

there is little further mention of it in NSFR’s records.

NSFR Education Committee

However small the specific impact of the Ford Foundation program on NSFR

training efforts, it appears that NSFR’s initial championing of and later involvement in

the program acted as a catalyst for NSFR efforts to create its own training programs. In

1972, NSFR created an Education Committee. The Education Committee’s charge was

to “investigate and recommend to the Executive Committee and Board programs in

education in two areas: for the neophyte or trainee and that for the professional and

practicing professional fund raiser.” The Education Committee was chaired by NSFR

founder William R. Simms (New York), and the vice chair was L. Lawrence Dixon

(Northern California). It is clear that in forming the Education Committee, NSFR was

working to have a blue-ribbon panel of trainers and educators. Members of the

Education Committee included James Bryant (New York), the Ford Foundation specialist

involved in the HBCU training program; Richard Carroll (Massachusetts), a former

teacher currently employed by the Harvard School of Dental Medicine; Harold Ifft (New

York), National Business Director of Junior Achievement, who was responsible for that

NSFR Minutes, George A. Brakeley, Jr., to Robert V. Donahoe et al, 15 September 1969, 2, Group 2,

Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, George A. Brakeley, Jr. to Robert V. Donahoe et al, 15 September 1969, 2, Group 2, Part

1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

organization’s fundraising and training programs; Howard Mirkin (New York),

coordinator of the Association of Fund Raising Directors’ training course at the New

School for Social Research; Robert Duncan (Massachusetts), who was formerly president

of John Price Jones, a recognized trainer, and current seminar leader at Harvard; Jess W.

Speidel II (New York), former NSFR president and experienced trainer; and Dr. Abel

Hanson (New York; in a consulting role), NSFR founding president and retired from the

Columbia University Teachers College.

Within its charge, the Education Committee

saw three primary questions to be answered: “1. What are the problems in training fund

raisers? 2. Why is the fund raising field not attracting the young people? 3. Can we

compile information on the professions from which the more successful fund raisers

come?” Unsurprisingly, these questions are ones to which the fundraising profession

continues to seek answers.

As a start to its work, the Education Committee decided to focus on four primary

activities:

1. Career counseling—to develop an outline for those interested in

fund raising as a career.

2. NSFR Chapter participation—the Committee will prepare an

outline of seminars and courses for distribution to Chapters and

urge them to establish a relationship with a local college or

university and assist the Chapter in further development of their

own program. Continue to provide Chapters with information on

newly developed and ongoing training programs sponsored by

other organizations.

3. NSFR Seminars—the Committee will explore the possibility of its

members and/or other NSFR members traveling to Chapter areas

to conduct seminars or workshops.

4. Catalogue—investigate the possibility of publishing a NSFR

Catalogue of all fund raising courses offered around the country.

NSFR Minutes, 14 July 1972, 4, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 14 July 1972, 5, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

What is perhaps most interesting about the Education Committee’s proposed course of

action is the way it illustrates the dearth of educational options available to fundraising

professionals in 1972 with the exception of on-the-job training. In assigning itself the

role of program aggregator, the Education Committee illustrates clearly that training for

fundraising professionals was still operating at a local level, if any programs at all were

available. There was no defined career pathway at that time for fundraisers. The little

training that was available was offered by experienced practitioners. It is unclear whether

the Education Committee’s inclusion of local colleges and universities as a source for

assistance in developing programming was an acknowledgment of the academy as a

source of knowledge, as a source of teaching expertise, or both. In all of this, NSFR

conceived its role as an aggregator of resources, which was still something of an

ambitious goal given the multiple and largely uncoordinated pockets of activity for

fundraising education.

By late 1972, the Education Committee had made some progress on a course in

fundraising fundamentals, noting that there was a course for neophytes being offered in

NSFR chapters in New York and Boston. However, the course was not written down.

The plan was for the course to be “committed to outline” and then shared with all NSFR

chapters “for use in cooperation with the local college or university,” thus indicating that

NSFR very much likely had in mind a model of education delivery similar to that of the

fundraising course that had been offered in the past by the New School of Social

Research in New York.

No progress had been made on a training program for

experienced professionals, though the Education Committee did report that its initial

NSFR Minutes, 6 October 1972, 5, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

thoughts were running in the direction of seminars and workshops on topics such as

“foundation approach, deferred giving, capital campaigns, special gift development,

etc.”

The august Dr. Hanson noted that “ideas for the education of fund directors are

not easy to come by” and that Columbia University, which had offered a fundraising

course during his tenure, had not yet been able to find a successor to teach it.

Further

complicating the Education Committee’s work was its geographical dispersion.

Operating in an era before e-mail, free conference calls, and other modern tools for

collaboration, the Education Committee keenly felt what it called “the handicap of wide

geographical spread.”

This is noteworthy because it provided a learning experience for

NSFR leadership. A “chapter as committee” approach was used in the subsequent

development of the CFRE credential.

By early 1973, NSFR’s Education Committee had distributed a course outline for

new fundraisers to all NSFR chapters, and plans for a course outline for experienced

fundraising professionals was underway.

A False Start for Certification

Concurrently with NSFR’s early efforts to establish educational programs for

fundraisers, initial discussions about certification for fundraisers started to occur. The

first notes about certification in NSFR’s records show the organization was approached

on the topic in October 1970 by A. Creed Barnett, president of the American Association

of Fund Raising Counsel. Barnett “announced that his organization [AAFRC] is

considering a program to establish standards for accreditation of professional fund raisers

NSFR Minutes, 6 October 1972, 5, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 6 October 1972, 4-5, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

100

on staff of their member firms, and invited NSFR to collaborate with AAFRC.”

The

proposed partnership between AAFRC and NSFR on certification went nowhere. The

word “accreditation” may provide a clue to the difficulties, as accreditation is awarded to

an organization or institution, and AAFRCs members were all corporate bodies.

Certification, on the other hand, is awarded to individuals, and individual fundraisers

were NSFR’s base. Accreditation and certification have different requirements, with the

former focusing on adherence to established standards and procedures by organizations

or programs and the latter to assessment of individuals. Therefore, it is possible that

discussions between AAFRC and NSFR showed that while each supported the idea of

enhanced professional standards, the professional standards they sought to establish were

sufficiently different to warrant separate conversations. It is just as possible—and

perhaps more likely—that the organizations were incorrectly using “accreditation” and

“certification” interchangeably, as the distinction between the two is not something that

most individuals outside the credentialing profession instinctively understand.

However, once brought up, the idea of the importance of certification stayed with

NSFR. In January 1971, NSFR introduced a resolution “for establishment of an

accreditations committee to establish standards and procedures for accreditation of

professional fund raisers.”

NSFR President Robert V. Donahoe appointed Robert

Girmscheid, Jr., as chairman of the Standards and Accreditation Committee. The

Committee’s charge was to create recommendations about certification for the

consideration of NSFR’s Board of Directors.

In October 1971, Girmscheid proposed to

NSFR Minutes, 21 October 1970, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 21 January 1971, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

101

conduct a survey of NSFR membership regarding their thoughts on a certification

program, and the NSFR Board of Directors asked him to report results at their April 1972

meeting.

There is no record of Girmscheid reporting any polling results to the NSFR

Board of Directors in April 1972. The next mention of certification occurs in January

1973, when Girmscheid reported that the Accreditation Committee planned a “two-phase

program” for certification:

The first, to begin immediately, would be to set up a code of ethics and

practice ‘with teeth’—this would entail a major change in the NSFR By-

laws, and eventually would provide for a grievance procedure and a

provision for revoking membership. The second phase would be a long

term project, directed toward the eventual establishment of a voluntary

certification program for NSFR members.”

What is perhaps most interesting about the “two-phase program” is the way in which it

shows how fundraisers conflated ethics and certification at the time. Certification did not

appear again in NSFR records until the March 1976 report of the Ethics Committee.

Indeed, records show that at this point in its history, NSFR leadership understood

that there were important connections among educational programs for fundraisers,

fundraising ethics, and the nascent idea of certification for fundraisers. The challenge

was in setting boundaries that defined how each of these areas stood in relation to the

others in terms of imparting authority to the profession (educational programs), right

relations among stakeholders of the profession (ethical codes), and community sanction

(certification). The other challenge occurred in how to fund such programs, none of

which really flourished until the founding of the NSFR Institute of Continuing Education

(NICE).

NSFR Minutes, 29 October 1971, 1-2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 25-26 January 1973, 6, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 10 March 1976, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

102

NSFR Institute of Continuing Education (NICE)

NSFR was an association with an ambitious agenda. It was not, however, an

association of significant means. In 1972, NSFR’s cash on hand was $29,220.15 (the

equivalent of $165,994.16 in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2017), and its expenditures for

the year were $28,531.43 (the equivalent of $162,080.00 in inflation-adjusted dollars in

2017). NSFR started 1973 with just $689.02 in cash on hand (the equivalent of

$3,914.15 in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2017).

Recognizing that its efforts to

professionalize fundraising through improved education, ethics, and certification would

require outside funding, NSFR established the NSFR Institute for Continuing Education

(NICE) as a 501(c)3 organization in 1973. NSFR records note that NICE would allow

NSFR to solicit gifts and grants, provide a vehicle that education programs could be “run

through,” establish a tax-exempt arm, and in the process make NSFR as a national

association “more viable.”

It was the

‘research organization or some such appendage to receive tax-free gifts’

that the founders had discussed at NSFR’s first annual meeting back in

February 1961. The institute also provided the society with the means to

renew its commitment to one of its founding principles: education in the

fundraising field.

By stating the relationship between NSFR and NICE in this fashion, NSFR was able to

claim the new entity as a fulfillment of NSFR’s historic plans.

NSFR records show that the formal structure for NICE was put in place before

NSFR had entirely defined who would govern it and what exactly its programs would be.

The first NICE Board essentially consisted of the NSFR Education Committee, which

NSFR Minutes, 25-26 January 1973, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 15 June 1973, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

AFP: The First 50 Years, 11.

103

noted that “NICE board members should be other than NSFR board.”

It was reiterated

by the ersatz NICE Board (a.k.a. the NSFR Education Committee) that training curricula

for beginner and advanced fundraisers were still needed, as were a strong case for NICE

and a formally constituted NICE Board. Robert Pierpont, who would later serve as the

chair of the NSFR Certification Board, agreed to chair a nominations committee for the

NICE Board that would include Lawrence Dixon, Cyrus Liberman, Laurence O. Pratt, C.

Wilson Schroeder, Byron Welch (NSFR President from 1975-1978), and Norman C.

Smith (NSFR President from 1971-1973). Further, the Education Committee voted that

NSFR give a grant of $1,000 to NICE to give it an auspicious start.

By December 1974, Pierpont reported that the NICE Task Force was pursuing an

ambitious plan: “a model curriculum and concept for a half of a master’s degree

program.”

The program would cover subjects related to fundraising, would be

developed over the course of a year (July 1, 1975, through June 30, 1976), and would

require approximately $100,000 in funding (roughly three times NSFR’s annual budget).

The program was presented as a joint venture between NSFR and the Academy for

Educational Development (AED), which had an interest in U.S. education and workforce

development. The plan was for members of the NICE Task Force to contact unspecified

potential partner organizations to provide funding for the program.

While the NICE Task Force was composed of expert fundraisers, their expertise

perhaps did not extend to grantsmanship. The first funder approached for the

NSFR/AED curriculum development project was the U.S. Department of Health,

NSFR Minutes, 15 March 1974, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 13 December 1974, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

104

Education, and Welfare—an unlikely match for such a relatively small project, given the

potential funder’s purview and resources. At the time, NSFR President Hank Goldstein

remarked that “lessons are being learned.”

He also noted his frustration with the “lack

of progress in moving ahead on the professional education program” during his tenure.

Later notes on the proposed curriculum project show that the formal proposal to

the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was for $121,000 and called for

NICE and AED “to work with 10 or so universities in developing a certificate program

for fund raiser management.”

At the same meeting, the Education Committee discussed

actions that NFRS should pursue regarding training opportunities such as seminars and

workshops around the United States without reaching any resolution.

By September

1975, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare had turned down NICE’s

proposal, and Pierpont was regrouping by creating a new prospect list that included key

foundations and also by rewriting the proposal. Rather than focusing on fundraising

management per se, the proposal was being adjusted to aim toward “philanthropic

financial management.”

It is hard to tell whether this was a true refining of direction or

simply the substitution of a phrase with a loftier connotation. It may be as well that the

substitution was a sign of the times, as a mention of the Filer Commission at the same

meeting noted that one of its early findings was that “basically the public at large has no

understanding of the role of philanthropy and the impact it has on American life.”

As is

NSFR Minutes, Annual Meeting, 10 March 1975, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, Annual Meeting, 10 March 1975, 2, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 12 March 1975, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 12 September 1975, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

105

still the case today, philanthropy and fundraising are often conflated with or confused for

each other.

By December 1975, a new draft proposal for the NICE/AED curriculum project—

now for $140,000—was underway. By March 1976, NICE had submitted the proposal

entitled “Proposal to Develop an Educational Program in Philanthropic Financial

Management” to the Henry Luce Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, and

the Sloan Foundation and planned to make simultaneous submissions to the Carnegie

Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, and A.W. Mellon Foundation.

It was only after

having submitted the proposal that the NICE Ad Hoc Committee considered that there

was a need for letters of intent from colleges and universities who were interested in

being academic partners for curriculum development.

This oversight was noted by the

potential funders. By June 1976, the proposal had been refused by the Sloan Foundation,

the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the A.W.

Mellon Foundation, and the Xerox Foundation. While the NICE Ad Hoc Committee did

eventually receive a letter of intent from the University of Chicago to be a partner in

curriculum development, by then it was too late. Potential foundation funders made it

clear that they felt that “rather than a NICE proposal it should be an educational

organization proposal.”

By December 1976, the NICE Ad Hoc Committee had decided

to abandon fundraising for the NICE curriculum development proposal, stating that

NICE’s structure “is not [the] proper vehicle for developing [the] academic curriculum

NSFR Minutes, 10 March 1976, 4, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFR Minutes, 17 September 1976, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

106

desired.”

NICE further suggested that any responsibility for continuing education

should be shifted to the Education Committee, thus finally making something of a clear

delineation between the role of the Education Committee and NICE’s role.

From this

point onward, NICE focused on two key projects: a study of fundraising costs at U.S.

charities and the long-deferred development of a certification program for fundraising

professionals.

NSFR Minutes, 10 December 1976, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

AFP: The First 50 Years, 12, 14.

107

CHAPTER SIX

THE CERTIFIED FUND RAISING EXECUTIVE CREDENTIAL (1977-1985)

Having abandoned its ambitious plans at the end of 1976 to create an academic

curriculum for fundraising professionals, NSFRE turned its sights to creating its

certification program.

The time was right for work to commence. The move of

NSFRE’s headquarters from New York to Washington, D.C., was seen as “symbolic of

the growing national scope of the organization,” and the establishment of NSFRE’s first

paid presidency in 1977 was an indicator of NSFRE’s growing resources—resources that

were necessary if programs such as certification were to take hold and flourish.

addition, NSFRE was feeling greater pressure from inside and outside fundraising to raise

professional standards. NSFRE members were cognizant of the need to “assure the

public and the institutions we serve about the competence and quality of practitioners in

the field.”

Members also felt the “growing certainty of more regulations of charitable

solicitation by the states and the Federal government, and the imposition of external

controls over the qualifications and performance of fund raising practitioners.”

During

the Carter administration in the late 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission pursued legal

action against the American Medical Association, the American Bar Association, and

other professional groups over antitrust issues related to fees and services.

A few years

In 1977, the National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR) changed its name to the National Society of Fund

Raising Executives (NSFRE). Because this change happened mid-year and does not have a material

bearing on the development of the certification program, NSFRE is used throughout this chapter for ease of

reference.

AFP: The First 50 Years, 12.

Minutes of Ad Hoc Committee on Certification of the National Society of Fund Raisers/National Society

of Fund Raising Executives (NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification), n.d., 1, CFRE International,

Alexandria (hereafter cited as CFRE).

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, n.d., 1, CFRE.

“The Feds Take on the Professions,” San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, May 7, 1978, Section A, 4.

This article was included as Attachment C in the NSFRE Ad Hoc Committee on Certification’s report to

the NSFRE Board of Directors on 7 December 1978, CFRE.

108

later, Lyle E. Cook, the NSFRE volunteer leader who was the driving force behind the

development of the CFRE credential, made the case for certification for the fundraising

profession in this way:

…the rise of consumerism and demands for accountability have

increased the attention given to charitable solicitation, the ways in which it

is done, and the management of philanthropic organizations....

Investigative reporting about philanthropy has focused on flagrant abuses,

but only occasionally do the communications media show understanding

of the subject.

Attorneys general regularly discuss how to protect the public from

abuses, and legislation regulating at least some aspect of fund raising has

been passed in 34 states and proposed in most of the others….

This interest and attention, if based on understanding of fund

raising and the role of professional management in it, can be a strong,

positive force in strengthening the philanthropic sector. For this to come

about, there must be standards which can be applied in judging the

competence and performance of fund raising executives.

As a profession familiar with the challenges posed by prior government regulation

efforts, fundraising took seriously both the unfriendly environment for fundraising and

the important role the profession had to play in raising its standards. It was under these

circumstances that NSFR sealed its commitment to creating a certification for fundraising

professionals.

Initial Work on the Certification Program

Work on certification began in earnest in March 1977, when the NSFRE Board of

Directors established an Ad Hoc Committee on Certification.

The Committee was

chaired by Lyle E. Cook, a member of NSFRE’s Northern California Chapter and co-

founder of The Fund Raising School.

The membership of the Committee was wide-

Lyle E. Cook, “Certification of Fund Raising Executives: A Step on the Road to Professionalism,”

NSFRE Sightlines, no. 2 (1980): 2.

Certification Program: Chronology of Development (Chronology of Development), n.d., 1, CFRE.

Dwight F. Burlingame, Philanthropy in America: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1

(Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO), 169.

109

ranging and included Donald A. Campbell (Chicago), Clifford L. Culp (Baltimore),

Warren Gould (Dallas), George V. Hill (Southern California), Sam Naparstek

(Milwaukee), Laurance O. Pratt (Massachusetts), John J. Schwartz (New York), and I.

Brewster Terry (Washington). Ex officio members were Richard J. Crohn, chair of

NSFRE’s Education Committee; Dorothy L. Sutherland, Chair of NSFRE’s Ethics

Committee; Byron Welch, Chair of NSFRE’s Board of Directors; and Fletcher Hall,

NSFRE’s President.

While the Committee was named in April 1977, Cook did not

contact the Committee to get started on its work until November 1977. Cook squarely

took responsibility for the delay, noting that work demands “and, to be honest, some

procrastination” had prevented him from getting in touch with Committee members for

around six months.

Nevertheless, he hoped that “this time lapse has not diminished the

uniformly high enthusiasm” for the Committee’s task.

The Committee’s charge was “to develop standards and criteria for and methods

of implementing a program for certifying the competence and experience of fund raising

and development professionals, and for maintaining certification.”

They estimated that

a solid two years of work would be required to develop the certification program but

acknowledged that “actions by legislative bodies and regulatory agencies may require a

shortening of that time.”

Cook posited that there would be four stages to the Committee’s work and gave

the Committee a tight schedule, perhaps in part to make up for the delay in getting

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, 7 April 1977, 1, CFRE.

Lyle E. Cook to Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, 11 November 1977, 1, CFRE.

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, n.d. (circa 1977), 1, CFRE.

110

started. Stage I was the development of criteria for certification and certification

maintenance. This staged involved determining what practitioner knowledge and

experience was to be evaluated, how testing would be accomplished, what levels of

achievement would be certified, how to weight certification criteria, and what the

requirements would be for the certified individual to maintain certification. (It also

would involve determining the cost for the assistance of the professional testing agency

required in Stage II and submitting a funding request to the NSFRE Board of Directors.)

The estimated completion date for Stage I was February 1978—less than a year since the

formation of the Ad Hoc Committee on Certification. Stage II was to focus on designing

and testing instruments for measuring achievement and would require the assistance of a

professional testing agency. Curriculum vitae (for reporting on a candidate’s education,

experience, and other achievements), written exams testing both knowledge and

application of knowledge, and interviews or oral examinations were all listed as

possibilities. Stage II was slated to end by August 1978.

Concurrently with Stage II,

Stage III would be completed. Stage III was to focus on developing procedures for

certification, including the establishment of a certification board or commission and

appropriate administrative procedures. Cook noted that “a key question in establishing a

[certification] board or commission is ‘Who is to certify whom?’ Should certification be

a peer review or should qualified persons from other fields or organizations

participate?”

Stage IV was to focus on the adoption and implementation of the

certification program. This stage included the adoption of the certification by the NSFRE

Board of Directors, the roll out of the certification program to NSFRE members, the

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, n.d. (circa 1977), 1-2, CFRE.

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, n.d. (circa 1977), 2, CFRE.

111

announcement of the certification to fundraisers and to the general public, and some

initial testing and evaluation of the certification program. With Stage IV completed by

February 1979, Cook anticipated that the first group of individuals would be certified by

June 1979.

The description of subjects and questions for Stage I showed the enormity of the

task at hand. In addition to deciding what formal education and practical experience

would be counted by the certification program, the Committee would need to create some

sort of an outline of the body of fundraising knowledge that would be tested. Cook’s

notes to the Committee show that the early knowledge outline included two main

categories: fundraising vehicles such as the capital campaign, annual giving, direct mail,

deferred gifts, special projects, and grants; and ancillary skills such as fundraising

communications, volunteer relations, government relations, and program management.

Handwritten notes on Cook’s copy of the work plan show the difficulty of demarcating

where fundraising knowledge ends, as he added items such as accounting, oral and

written communication, economic and business trends, taxes, the role and function of

voluntary organizations, and long range and institutional planning as addition areas that

might be considered for testing.

Fundraising performance, ethics and standards of

conduct, service to the profession and the philanthropic sector, and awards and

achievements were also items that Cook thought might figure into the certification

program.

Finally, Cook proposed that there might be different levels of certification

considered, with the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) certification forming the

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, n.d. (circa 1977), 2, CFRE.

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, n.d. (circa 1977), 3, CFRE.

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, n.d. (circa 1977), 3-4, CFRE.

112

baseline certification. The advanced levels suggested were the Diplomat [sic] of NSFRE

and Fellow of NSFRE. In Cook’s handwritten notes, a refinement of these advanced

levels was recorded as Member of the Academy of Fund Raising Executives (AFRE) and

Fellow of the Academy of Fund Raising Executives (FAFRE). This suggests that despite

having been frustrated in earlier efforts to establish academic programs for fundraising,

NSFRE had not entirely given up on the idea of an added level of expertise beyond

baseline practitioner knowledge.

Cook requested that the Committee share comments on the work plan. One

surviving set of comments from Laurence O. Pratt notes some of the very practical

difficulties facing the Committee in doing its work. Cook had noted in the work plan that

the wide geographic dispersion of the Committee, coupled with no travel budget and no

paid support staff, made the Committee’s work challenging. Pratt suggested that it might

be helpful for Cook to appoint “a small kitchen cabinet” in the Northern California

Chapter (of which Cook was president) that could meet regularly to do the actual work of

hashing out requirements for certification. The work of the “kitchen cabinet” could then

be reviewed and approved by the Committee.

Pratt also gave Cook additional practical advice in thinking through the proposed

work plan for the CFRE certification program. Noting that “we all recognize that we are

working under the gun of outside pressures and that the timetable [for development of the

certification program] must therefore be unrealistic,” Pratt noted that cataloguing the

knowledge of the fundraising program was “extremely difficult.”

Further complicating

NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, n.d. (circa 1977), 4, CFRE.

Pratt to Cook, 21 November 1977, 1, CFRE.

113

the cataloguing of the body of knowledge was the fact that “there is no present system of

accrediting the training programs available to [fundraisers], and many are proprietary in

nature.”

In short, the knowledge that was available could not be validated by an

objective third party and/or was someone else’s intellectual property. Pratt was also

dubious about offering levels of certification, saying, “but isn’t our first and most vital

chore to work out a basic certification scheme? Diplomats [sic] and Fellows would

merely be the frosting on the cake. The really good development directors don’t need

this kind of recognition.”

Cook heeded Pratt’s advice—and presumably also advice received from other

Committee members. Cook’s notes from December 1977 show his intention to establish

working groups on certification within NSFRE chapters both to facilitate the “widest

possible participation” and to overcome problems in having widely dispersed individuals

trying to work together.

He mentions that some of this had already begun, with

certification working groups existing in the Southwest, Southern California, Chicago, and

Northern California chapters of NSFRE.

Cook further records that Henry A. Rosso, his

fellow co-founder of The Fund Raising School, had offered the aid of The Fund Raising

School’s faculty and students in “defining the body of knowledge essential for

competence in fund raising.”

One thing Cook makes clear: the Committee’s

commitment to making baseline certification “accessible to as many as possible.”

Pratt to Cook, 21 November 1977, 1, CFRE.

Pratt to Cook, 21 November 1977, 3, CFRE.

Cook Notes, 9 December 1977, 1, CFRE.

114

Early Polling on Certification

To gain a greater understanding of NSFRE member attitudes and

recommendations regarding certification, the Committee enlisted the NSFRE Northern

California Chapter in an October 1978 grassroots workshop on opinions on who should

be responsible for standard setting, criteria for certification, and who should certify.

Partly this was an effort to expand the conversation, but partly it was also likely because

after initial Committee discussions, the sheer enormity of the task at hand was

increasingly evident. As one of Cook’s early notes indicates, the “farther we get into this

[the] more complexities we find.”

Workshop results show the wide variance of opinion

regarding the value and purposes of certification. When asked, “What does accreditation

[sic] mean to you,” answers were mostly positive and included “professional

recognition—a peer endorsement that you have ‘earned your spurs,’” “public recognition

of an individual’s knowledge (but not competence),” “prestige,” and “establishment of

minimum standards of competency.” The one naysayer’s response to the question was a

succinct “not much.”

Another noteworthy question asked in the Northern California Chapter workshop

was, “How heavily do you weigh experience as a factor in determining whether or not a

person is qualified to be an ‘accredited fundraiser’?” The consensus, unsurprisingly, was

that experience was weighted very heavily, with the accompanying acknowledgment that

on-the-job experience was still the way fundraisers learned their craft. However, what is

interesting about the responses is the acknowledgment by several that experience was not

Chronology of Development, n.d., 1, CFRE.

Cook Notes, 9 December 1977, 1, CFRE.

NSFR Survey, n.d., 1-2, CFRE.

115

everything. A few noted that experience cannot be equated to expertise, while others

noted that until the profession developed a credible certification, experience was the only

measuring stick available.

Answers to remaining questions explored at the Northern California Chapter

workshop show little consensus, other than asserting that ideally a certified fundraiser

would have a baccalaureate degree and five years of experience.

Responses regarding

the individuals or entities who should be charged with administering the certification

were particularly varied, with answers ranging from NICE; NSFRE in cooperation with

other major associations such as AAFRC, the Council for Advancement and Support of

Education (CASE), and the National Association for Hospital Development (NAHD,

which in future would be renamed the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy); a

National Accreditation Board; regionally approved colleges or universities; top people in

the field; NSFRE Chapters; and a testing service in conjunction with a certification

board.

What makes the answers of the Northern California Chapter particularly

noteworthy is the Chapter’s heavy concentration of fundraising leadership. At around

this time, the Board of Directors of the Norther California Chapter included all three

founders of The Fund Raising School (Lyle E. Cook, Joseph R. Mixer, and Henry A.

Rosso) and two future presidents of NSFRE (Robert C. Blum and Barbara H. Marion,

who was NSFRE’s first female president).

Their answers, and their points of consensus

NSFR Survey, n.d., 3-4, CFRE.

NSFR Survey, n.d., 6-7, CFRE.

NSFR Survey, n.d., 10-11, CFRE.

Cook to NSFR Ad Hoc Committee on Certification, 11 November 1977, 1, CFRE.

116

and disagreement, show the challenges that even thought leaders faced when considering

how to structure and implement certification for fundraisers.

Investigation of Comparable Certification Programs

The Northern California Chapter workshop immediately spurred one key piece of

work: the investigation of certification schemes used by other associations. By

December 1978, the Ad Hoc Committee on Certification had identified the certification

programs of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), the International

Association of Business Communications (IABC), the National Association for Hospital

Development (NAHD), and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) as

potentially comparable to what NSFRE wished to create. These certification schemes

were reviewed on four points: whether they were voluntary or mandatory, the form of

the examination, responsible parties (who administered the certification, and to whom

administrators reported), and fees.

Interestingly, the certification scheme used by NAHD ultimately had the most

influence on application criteria developed for NSFRE’s CFRE certification program.

NAHD’s application criteria required achievement in education (continuing education in

fundraising), professional practice (experience as a fundraising professional), and

professional performance (success in raising funds), and service to NAHD. The level of

achievement was measured using a points-based system, and the number of points

awarded per accomplishment was weighted to favor senior professionals. For instance,

the unit of measurement for accomplishment in actual funds raised was $100,000.

Directors were awarded 5 points for raising $100,000, while associate directors received

Ad Hoc Committee on Certification Meeting Agenda, 7 December 1978, Attachment E, CFRE.

117

only 2 points and staff members received only 1 point for raising the same amount.

There appears to have been no debate about this inequity, likely because it was already an

accepted model in use by a respected association. It is also possible that the model was

seen as being appropriately weighted to accommodate the additional, time-consuming

leadership and management responsibilities of senior professionals—duties that might

not necessarily translate directly into the senior professional’s actual funds raised.

However, it was ASAE’s form of examination that appears to have had the most

impact on NSFRE’s certification program. NAHD’s certification had no examination

component at the baseline credential level. ASAE required personal data on

achievement, a written examination, and an optional interview.

It was ASAE’s overall

certification format that ultimately was adopted by the NSFRE certification program as

the best means of quality control for the CFRE credential.

White Paper on Certification

After making a preliminary report to the NSFRE Board of Directors in December

1978, the Ad Hoc Committee on Certification formally presented a white paper to the

Board in March 1979. The Committee was forthright in noting that

In adopting a Certification Program, there are two somewhat contradictory

objectives. One is to make certification possible for a maximum number

of persons without their putting in years of work and incurring great

expenses. The other is to assure that certification will have significance

within the profession and, more importantly, to those who judge fund

raisers—boards of institutions, legislators, government regulators, and the

concerned public.”

Ad Hoc Committee on Certification Meeting Agenda, 7 December 1978, Attachment H, 4, CFRE.

Ad Hoc Committee on Certification Meeting Agenda, Attachment E, CFRE

Ad Hoc Committee on Certification White Paper (White Paper), 3-4 March 1979, 3, CFRE.

118

To reflect this, two levels of certification were recommended: the Certified Fund Raising

Executive (CFRE), which as the baseline credential would “be granted to those who meet

the minimum eligibility requirements of the Certification Program” and which would be

implemented immediately; and Fellow Status (FAFRE or FCFRE), which would mark

“extensive experience and achievement” and be implemented at some unspecified time in

the future.

The white paper stated that the certification program was to be self-

supporting, first through gifts and grants and then through certification fees. The

program would be led by a volunteer Certification Board supported by NSFRE’s

Executive Vice President (as the paid CEO of NSFRE was termed at the time).

The Committee proposed that a candidate pass through four stages to achieve

certification. While the stages were well developed, particularly given that the white

paper was the first attempt to articulate the overall concept of the proposed certification

program, the content of the stages showed that there were still contradictions that needed

to be resolved. The development process continued and further refinement was brought

to the certification scheme.

The first stage of the proposed CFRE certification process was determining

eligibility. To be eligible for certification, candidates would need to have five

consecutive years of experience as a member of fundraising staff for a nonprofit

organization or as a fundraising consultant working with nonprofit organizations.

Candidates would also have to pledge in writing that their professional conduct

comported with the NSFRE Code of Professional Practices. Finally, candidates needed

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, 3, CFRE.

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, 1, 4, CFRE.

119

to be “an active senior member of NSFRE.”

The third criterion pointed to two as yet

unresolved tensions: The first was the conflation of a baseline credential with senior-

level recognition, as the CFRE certification was designed to acknowledge attainment of

the minimum standards expected of a competent practitioner, not to denote senior status.

The second was the role of CFRE certification for the profession. By limiting eligibility

to NSFRE members, the certification would have significance only within the association

rather than within the overall fundraising profession. Ultimately, NSFRE chose not to

require NSFRE membership as a condition for certification, though all candidates were

required to pledge that they conducted their fundraising activities in compliance with the

NSFRE Code of Professional Practices.

Upon determination of eligibility, the second stage of the proposed CFRE

certification process was completion of the formal application. This consisted of a

weighted, points-based application that documented a candidate’s experience,

performance, academic education, continuing education in fundraising, service to the

profession, professional stance, and awards and recognition. While the categories were

straightforward, the proposed means of calculating the points was not. The Committee’s

points system retained NAHD’s convention of weighting points by task according to a

candidate’s job title, with senior individuals receiving more points than their junior

colleagues for accomplishing the same tasks. However, the Committee’s points system

then complicated things further in three significant ways. First, each subcategory had a

range of minimum and maximum points allowable. Second, each subcategory was

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, 3, CFRE.

Committee on Educational Standards and Certification, Report to the NSFRE Board of Directors, 6

December 1979, 4, CFRE.

120

allotted a certain percentage of the overall points available, which further complicated the

math. Third, several items (such as continuing education seminars and workshops,

professional stance, and teaching under service to the profession) were to be assigned

points according to “R&J”—“review and judgment” by the Certification Board.

This

last point was particularly problematic, as it practically guaranteed the impossibility of

providing consistent ratings for candidates in the areas of the points-based application

that were designated as “R&J” judgment calls.

The third stage of the proposed CFRE certification process was “a written

examination on fund raising principles, practices, techniques, ethics and related

disciplines, and laws and regulations affecting fund raising.”

The Committee further

specified that “because of the wide range of knowledge and techniques used in fund

raising, the examination should permit the candidate to choose questions and subjects.

Some questions will be required of all candidates.”

While a worthy attempt to

acknowledge the complexity of the fundraising profession, the exam structure suggested

shows a lack of awareness of conventions for standardized exams on two counts. First,

changing the test content to suit candidate knowledge areas means that candidates would

not be evaluated on the same knowledge, thus compromising the ability of the exam to

provide a level playing field for candidates and make consistent distinctions between

qualified and unqualified candidates. Second, the long timeline (generally two years)

between the time an exam item is written, pretested, and then included as a scored item

on an exam means that timely questions (such as those related to laws and regulations,

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, Exhibit I, p. 1-3, CFRE.

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, 4, CFRE.

121

which can on occasion change fairly rapidly) become problematic. However, the

Committee was aware of the need for professional assistance in the design of the

examination instrument, and noted that funding for this work should be sought by

NSFRE through NICE.

The fourth stage of the proposed CFRE certification program consisted of

community sanction of the candidate, with the Certification Board responsible for final

decisions on candidate certification. The names of candidates who had proven their

eligibility, met application requirements, and passed the exam were to be published. Any

NSFRE member who “believes there is just cause for withholding certification” from a

candidate had 30 days in which to contact the Certification Secretary (a.k.a. NSFRE’s

Executive Vice President). Candidates thus affected were to be notified and would be

granted a hearing in front of the Certification Board. Alternately, if the Certification

Board had any concerns about the candidate, the Certification Board could request a

personal interview with the candidate. The fact that a candidate could meet all eligibility

and application criteria, pass the exam, and still not be granted certification was a

problematic part of the white paper outline for the CFRE certification program. A prime

concern of the Committee was that “if we are to be recognized as professionals, we must

be able to assure the public and the institutions we serve about the competence and

quality of practitioners in the field.”

Another key concern was that the CFRE

certification was meant to “contribute to the acceptance of NSFRE as the leading national

organization of professional fund raising executives.”

This last review of the candidate

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, 5, CFRE.

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, 1, CFRE.

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, 2, CFRE.

122

by the Certification Board and the opportunity for community comment was no doubt

meant to assure that no unqualified candidate slipped through the process, thus

potentially sullying the reputation of the CFRE certification and the association

bestowing it. In particular, it was probably the last opportunity to identify those few

candidates whose professional ethics may not have been up to snuff, as a candidate’s

attesting to following the NSFRE Code of Professional Practices during eligibility

determination would not necessarily validate that the candidate was indeed fulfilling that

obligation. However, this last step in the certification process also meant there was

potential for lack of impartiality in evaluating candidates. It would make it possible for

an otherwise qualified candidate to be denied the CFRE based on potentially nebulous

reasons, given the last stage essentially consisted of the Certification Board’s judgment

call regarding the candidate’s fitness based on a loosely structured review of the

candidate’s “Personal Record.”

In a later questionnaire on requirements for the CFRE

certification, NSFRE members remarked on this review and noted that those

administering the certification should “take care to avoid [the] possibility of lawsuits”

that might be engendered by an adverse personal review.

Despite some elements needing additional refinement, the white paper of the Ad

Hoc Committee on Certification is a remarkable achievement by the members of the

Northern California Chapter of NSFRE led by Lyle E. Cook. The NSFRE Board of

Directors affirmed the white paper at its March 1979 meeting, thus paving the way for the

CFRE certification program to proceed. The NSFRE Board of Directors further signaled

White Paper, 3-4 March 1979, 5, CFRE.

Committee on Educational Standards and Certification, Questionnaire Results (Questionnaire Results), 9

August 1979, 5, CFRE.

123

its commitment to certification by renaming the Ad Hoc Committee on Certification as

the Educational Standards and Certification Committee, thus making it a standing

committee. The new standing committee did additional surveying of membership to

refine the points-based application, distributing a questionnaire on certification to the

NSFRE Board of Directors, chapter presidents and representatives, and Chapter Boards

in June 1979. A noteworthy feature of the Educational Standards and Certification

Committee’s approach was to continue testing assumptions with NSFRE members during

the continued refinement of proposed processes for CFRE certification. Cook estimated

that “During the design period, over 5% of the NSFRE membership participated in the

project. Some served on committees, others participated in chapter and small group

discussions or responded to questionnaires and surveys.”

The 1979 questionnaire

received 62 responses, with 17 coming from the Wisconsin Chapter, 13 from the Chicago

Chapter, and 32 from other individuals. Donald K. Ross of Donald K. Ross & Company

tabulated the results and summarized responses, while Lyle E. Cook and Curtis W.

Roberts, Vice Chair of the Educational Standards and Certification Committee, analyzed

the results.

The questionnaire showed the Committee wrestling with not only the categories

of knowledge to be tested but also how those categories should be tested (multiple choice

and/or true/false questions for testing for general knowledge or essay questions for testing

application of knowledge) and the level of knowledge (in-depth knowledge,

understanding of principles, or ability to apply knowledge) that should be expected of

candidates. Not surprisingly, the results of this part of the survey are difficult to evaluate

Cook, “Certification of Fund Raising Executives,” 3.

Cook to J. Richard Wilson, 9 August 1979, 1, CFRE.

124

to any great degree, as no definitions were provided to indicate what was meant by the

levels of knowledge listed. However, there did seem to be at least some consensus that

for baseline certification, testing knowledge rather than asking for application of that

knowledge was desirable, which may be part of the reason the CFRE certification

eventually settled on using multiple choice exam questions, which are best suited for

examinations that seek to evaluate a candidate’s mastery of a broad field of knowledge.

The questionnaire also showed consensus that related disciplines and skills such

as writing, editing, oral expression, the role of nonprofits, and the history of philanthropy

were considered important, as these skills mostly received ratings of 4 or 5 on the Likert

scale used by the questionnaire. It is interesting that questionnaire respondents were

strongly in favor of a generalist certification, believing that those working mostly in sub-

specialties such as direct mail and deferred giving needed to “demonstrate knowledge of

the basic principles of fund raising and meet experience and performance

requirements.”

There was a strong sense that “people are [not] fund raisers if they are

only specialists.”

Questionnaire respondents also agreed on the need for a recertification

requirement in order to maintain CFRE certification, with most preferring a

recertification period of 3 or 4 years.

Also striking is the fact that respondents were

very open to the idea that “participation in activities of other professional societies should

earn credit toward certification,” with 85 percent responding positively.

They noted

Questionnaire Results, 9 August 1979, 2, CFRE.

Questionnaire Results, 9 August 1979, 3, CFRE.

Questionnaire Results, 9 August 1979, 4, CFRE.

Questionnaire Results, 4, 9 August 1979, CFRE.

125

that “participation in NSFRE should be a ‘plus’ [and] earn points but not [be]

mandatory.”

However, 57 percent indicated that membership on the Certification

Board should be “limited to senior members of NSFRE” and should not include any who

were not NSFRE members, saying “it is our show and we should totally control it.”

Perhaps the biggest piece of work to come out of the questionnaire was a

resolution of the complicated points-based application system contained in the original

white paper. The structure suggested by the questionnaire allotted approximately 40

percent of points to experience and performance; 40 percent to education and knowledge;

and 20 percent to “other” such as professional behavior, service to the profession, and

awards.

Certification Task Forces

The questionnaire aided the Committee in refining the mechanisms for

certification while also affirming the basic principles contained in the March 1979 white

paper. Knowing that they were heading in the right direction and were in step with the

thoughts of NSFRE membership, the Committee formed three task forces in September

1979 to refine further the evaluation point system, the application form, and

administrative procedures for the certification.

To speed work, Cook selected task force

chairs who then worked with members of their local AFP chapter to get the jobs done.

Speed was important for another reason as well: unrest within NSFRE. During this

period, the organization was undergoing structural change. It had grown by leaps and

bounds, with 27 chapters by the end of 1979; 10 more were added the following year.

Questionnaire Results, 4, 9 August 1979, CFRE.

Chronology of Development, n.d., 1, CFRE.

126

The complexity of NSFRE and its programs meant that its Board of Directors could no

longer effectively function as a committee of the whole, and Donald A. Campbell,

NSFRE’s President from 1978-1980, installed a “more effective and efficient governance

system” market by a four-division structure that included “professional education,

membership activities, public affairs, and marketing.”

It must have been an interesting

time at NSFRE. Campbell recalled,

I will never forget a very significant board meeting we had—in June of

1979, I think—when Wilson Schroeder and I attempted to ‘railroad’ about

six major bylaws changes through the board…. The motions were tabled,

and members of the board made it very clear that they wanted policy and

practice recommendations to come up through the committees rather than

down through the chair. This was a significant step for the long term, for

the board had demonstrated real maturity in terms of governance.”

In the short term, however, what the governance changes produced were hard feelings.

Robert C. Blum, the Northern California Chapter member who would succeed Campbell

as President of NSFRE’s Board of Directors, wrote to Cook in September of 1979. He

noted,

There is a great deal of excitement regarding the certification program.

Unfortunately, there is also a great deal of unrest regarding the timing of

the implementation of the program. For the success of NSFRE and the

healing of much of the divisiveness in the organization, an early show of

activity may help the organization more than the actual certification

program itself.

While Blum does not specifically identify the source of divisiveness within NSFRE, the

timing suggests it was the governances changes that Campbell had introduced. Blum

recommended that the certification program continue apace so it could be implemented as

soon as possible. The need for speed was underscored by his comments on engagement

AFP: The First 50 Years, 13.

Blum to Cook, mid-September 1979, 1, CFRE.

127

of a testing service. He noted that the service with the “highest prestige might be the

most helpful” but that if that mean delaying the timetable, “then prestige may not be

worth it as we all feel the implementation of the program as soon as possible is critical.”

Another reason that quick implementation of the certification program was critical was

because AAFRC and CASE were interested. Blum pointed out that having AAFRC and

CASE affiliated with NSFRE’s certification program “would mean we [NSFRE] truly

become the base fundraising organization throughout the country.” However, while

NSFRE wanted AAFRC’s and CASE’s affiliation with the certification program, NSFRE

did not want their input. Blum noted NSFRE’s certification guidelines could “be debated

as far as possible changes, but neither AAFRC or CASE should be included in the

decision making process of developing the guidlines [sic] and the matter of working.”

The CFRE certification program was very much NSFRE’s property, and the best way of

protecting NSFRE’s position was to have finished certification program guidelines that

made the program essentially a fait accompli.

Cook asked Donald K. Ross of the Wisconsin Chapter to head the task force on

the points system.

Ross then engaged selected members of the Wisconsin Chapter as

task force members. These individuals were Bob Anthony, Vice President, United Way

of Greater Milwaukee; Bob Flahive, Executive Vice President, Cardinal Stritch College;

John Gmeindl, Director of Development, Salvation Army; Gerry Janoseck, Vice

President, Milwaukee Children’s Hospital; Bill Murphy, Executive Director, United

Performing Arts Fund; Sam Naparstek, Vice President, Mount Sinai Medical Center; and

Blum to Cook, mid-September 1979, 2, CFRE.

Blum to Cook mid-September 1979, 1, CFRE.

Cook to Ross, 7 September 1979, 1, CFRE.

128

Dick Wilson, Boy Scouts and National NSFRE Board Member and Chairman of

NSFRE’s Education Committee.

The Task Force included representation across

subsectors, and Ross noted that both Janosek and Naparstek were past vice presidents of

NAHD and therefore presumably were familiar with NAHD’s certification program.

The Task Force worked swiftly and gave a two-page report to Cook on October

26, 1979, containing their recommendations on the point system used in the application.

They largely accepted the point system that came out of the questionnaire, offering only a

few tweaks. These included adding an “Other” category under “Experience” to account

for “executives of charities who have responsibilities in addition to fundraising” as well

as to allow for the experience of paid professionals who began as “professional

volunteers.” The Task Force was not fond of this latter category “yet believe it should be

provided for.”

Further tweaks included omitting “Sustaining Funds” under

“Performance” because the term was unclear; giving points only for college degrees

achieved (as opposed to attempted); and rearranging the listing of positions under

“Service to the Profession” so that they were grouped by local chapter and then national

responsibilities. Of all the changes made, the only substantive one was the deletion of

“Professional Stance” as a category for evaluation. Ross reported that “as desirable as

this might be, we believe this is presumptuous and impractical to judge on a point system.

A bad apple simply should not be certified.” The Task Force recommended adding the

five points from this dropped section to the weight of the exam.

Ross to Cook, 26 October 1979, 1, CFRE.

Ross to Cook, 26 October 1979, 2, CFRE.

129

Joseph T. Greco of the St. Louis Regional Chapter was named to the Committee

on Educational Standards and Certification and subsequently tapped to draft eligibility

and application forms. With the letter requesting Greco’s help, Cook enclosed samples

of application forms from NAHD and ASAE to aid Greco in his task.

On November

14, 1979, Greco returned completed, print-ready eligibility and application forms for the

CFRE certification program. However, it is likely Greco’s biggest contribution to the

CFRE certification program was suggesting Professional Examination Service (PES) as a

possible professional testing agency for development of the CFRE exam. Dick Kirk of

the American College of Hospital Administrators recommended PES to Greco, as the

College used PES to develop its exam.

PES was selected as the CFRE certification

program’s testing agency in 1980 and remained in that capacity until 2015.

Cook turned to his own Northern California Chapter as the Task Force on

Certification Program Procedures. He invited Barbara G. Anderson, Doreta W. Chaney,

Richard Eastwood, Neil R. Farmer, James W. Graves, Patrick J. Guibao, William

Lerrigo, Barbara Marion, R. J. McRostie, Hal Nappan, L. Earle Shipley, and Nick W.

Stamos to serve, as each had expressed prior interest in assisting with the certification

program.

The Task Force met on November 20, 1979, to review work accomplished to date

on the certification program and to review procedural points that had yet to be fully

defined. A point of particular interest to the Task Force was the membership of the

Certification Board. While the draft procedures indicated that Certification Board

Cook to Greco, 11 September 1979, 1, CFRE.

Cook to Prospective Members of the Certification Program Procedures Task Force, 12 November 1979,

2, CFRE.

130

members were to be CFREs (except for the initial board, whose members would become

certified as soon as possible), it did not specify that the Certification Board needed to be

composed solely of NSFRE members. The Task Force recommended that the “counsel

and membership of others be sought,” even suggesting that a “quasi-independent body”

might be desirable.

The other concern of the Task Force dealt with any potential legal liability to

which NSFRE might be exposed by the denial of certification to an individual. The

proposed practice of publishing the names of candidates 30 days prior to official

certification so that NSFRE members would have a chance to share just cause why an

individual should not be certified was worrisome to the Task Force. While not

articulating their concern precisely, their comments indicate they seemed to detect a

conflation of certification with grievance processes with the addition of the review

period.

Task Force members also questioned whether it would be legal to deny

certification to a candidate who met eligibility and application requirements and who had

passed the exam, but who for some reason did not pass muster with the members of the

Certification Board. There was a concern that this could cause a problem with the

Federal Trade Commission given that agency’s recent pursuit of antitrust enforcement

within the professions.

The Task Force also made the recommendation that certification fees be paid

personally by candidates, not by their employers. This stipulation was a moot point while

the CFRE certification was being developed. However, it oddly became a real bone of

Committee on Educational Standards and Certification, 20 November 1979, 1, CFRE.

Committee on Educational Standards and Certification, 20 November 1979, 2, CFRE.

Committee on Educational Standards and Certification, 20 November 1979, 3, CFRE.

131

contention once the CFRE certification program was officially getting underway.

Cook

and others involved in the development of the certification program believed CFRE

certification was a personal commitment to professionalism, and therefore argued

strongly that the fee for certification was an individual’s investment in his professional

development rather than something for which an employer should pay. Others did not

share this view, and at the June 1981 NSFRE Board meeting a motion was seconded and

carried that dropped the requirement that candidates pay their certification fee via

personal check.

Executive Vice President J. Richard Wilson pointed out that the choice

to accept payment by employers was a practical matter more than anything, given that

returning an employer’s check would likely cause embarrassment or have other negative

impacts.

Barbara Marion also chimed in, noting that accepting corporate checks would

reduce a potential barrier to certification. Still, she acknowledged the “vitriolic reaction”

to the discussion at the NSFRE Board of Directors meeting and suspected that board

members were acting out other unnamed frustrations.

Cook believed in retrospect that

the heated discussion was due to certain “pettifoggers” who were determined to maintain

the NSFRE Board of Direcctors as a “committee-of-the-whole” despite the switch to a

divisional structure.

Funding the CFRE Certification Exam

Within a space of three short months at the end of 1979, Cook and the three

certification task forces managed to create a detailed report on the proposed CFRE

Committee on Educational Standards and Certification, 20 November 1979, 4, CFRE.

NSFRE Minutes, 27 June 1981, 5, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

Wilson to Cook, 15 July 1981, 1, CFRE.

Marion to Cook, 5 August 1981, 1, CFRE.

Cook to Marion, 11 August 1981, 1, CFRE.

132

certification program that included a program summary, eligibility requirements,

administration procedures, a point scale for evaluating applications, draft forms, and the

need for funding to engage a professional testing service. The NSFRE Board of

Directors reviewed all materials at its meeting on December 7, 1979, and passed a

resolution that approved the Educational Standards and Certification Committee’s report

with minor amendments; authorized NSFRE’s Executive Committee to select members

of a Certification Board, subject to approval by the NSFRE Board; and authorized the

Executive Committee to approve certification fees as set by the Certification Board.

While much hard work had already been accomplished on the CFRE certification

program, the next challenge was likely to be particularly daunting: finding the requisite

funding to underwrite the creation of the CFRE exam. With the exception of the Ford

Foundation grant to train HBCU development officers, NSFRE had not been successful

in prior efforts to fund ambitious professional education programs. Ever the optimists,

the developers of the CFRE certification program were determined that this time would

be different.

The Educational Standards and Certification Committee’s original estimate was

that hiring a professional testing service to construct the CFRE exam would cost

anywhere from $20,000 for eight months of assistance to $100,000 for 18 months of

assistance.

By June 1980, the estimate had risen to $120,000 for the first year’s work.

By September 1981, the total needed was $130,000.

While the certification program

NSFRE Minutes, 7 December 1979, 6, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

Committee on Educational Standards and Certification Report to the NSFRE Board of Directors, 6

December 1979, 5, CFRE.

NSFRE Minutes, 6 June 1980, 4, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

NSFRE Minutes, 9-11 September 1981, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

133

was intended eventually to be self-supporting through revenue generated from

certification fees, outside funding would be needed to develop the first CFRE exam. The

Educational Standards and Certification Committee decided to take a slightly different

approach from what had been tried before for funding for educational programs. Rather

than seeking a sole funder for CFRE exam development, the Educational Standards and

Certification Committee cast its net wide. At the behest of Charles A. Johnson, Vice

President for Development for Lilly Endowment Inc., Lilly Endowment Inc. became the

first funder and the major funder for CFRE exam development, giving NICE a grant of

$50,000 for the project in September 1980.

The payment schedule for the grant was

$10,000 in October 1980; $20,000 in January 1981; and $20,000 in January 1982.

Fundraising efforts continued for several years after the award of the grant from Lilly

Endowment Inc. in order to raise the remaining $80,000 required, and a variety of

approaches were used. The Greater Washington D.C. Chapter of NSFRE issued a

challenge grant, promising an outright gift of $2,000 and an additional $2,000 challenge

grant, provided that other NSFRE chapters raised a total of $20,000 for the certification

program by the end of 1981. The Northern California Chapter of NSFRE made a gift of

$2,000, giving special recognition to their member Lyle E. Cook, who had spearheaded

development of the certification program. By July 1982, the certification program had

accumulated more than 40 donors and was successfully funded. In addition to Lilly

Endowment Inc. and NSFRE chapters, donors included AAFRC, Don Campbell &

Chronology of Development, n.d., 1, CFRE.

Cook to Committee on Educational Standards and Certification, 23 September 1980, 1, CFRE.

134

Company, the Institutional Development Council, the Grace Foundation, and numerous

members of NSFRE’s leadership.

Development of the CFRE Exam

With initial funding secure, the Educational Standards and Certification

Committee was able to proceed with contracting with a professional testing service.

While the Committee briefly considered using the services of the American College

Testing Service and the Educational Testing Service, neither was selected. The American

College Testing Service was taken out of contention because it had declined to submit a

proposal, and the Education Testing Service was ruled out because the Committee found

the cost to be too high and the timeline too long for NSFRE’s purposes.

The Committee decided to contract with Professional Examination Service (PES),

the testing agency first identified by Application Task Force Chair Joseph C. Greco.

PES’s contract with NSFRE was executed in October 1980, and an Examination

Committee was selected the following month.

The members of the Examination

Committee, which PES recommended consist of seven to nine members, were to be the

subject matter experts advising the development of the CFRE exam.

Maureen McArdle

Kaley, Ph.D., was the PES Division Director in charge of CFRE exam development.

Exam development followed a course typical for practice-based examinations. In

December 1980, the Exam Committee began its work with a task analysis resulting in a

role delineation. The purpose of the role delineation was to “clarify the role(s) of the

Report to Lilly Endowment Inc., 27 August 1982, 4, CFRE.

Agenda of the Committee on Educational Standards and Certification, 4 September 1980, 1, CFRE.

Chronology of Development, n.d., 2, CFRE.

PES proposal to NSFRE (PES Proposal), January 1980, 3, CFRE.

PES Proposal, January 1980, ii, CFRE.

135

fund raising executive and to identify the competencies expected of fund raising

executives in ‘on the job’ situations.”

Competencies were to be presented as task

statements, with the knowledges and skills needed to perform the tasks following. In

February 1981, the role delineation was sent to a diverse group of approximately 50

NSFRE members for review and critique. As part of this work, the reviewers rated each

task on

a) important (how important is performance of this task in an assessment

of the fundraising executive);

b) frequency (how frequently does the fund raising executive perform

this task);

c) discrimination (the extent to which competency in this task

differentiates between the acceptable and unacceptable performance of

fund raising executives), and

d) criticality (the extent to which the fund raising executive’s nonmastery

of this task results in errors with critical consequences).

This rating scale is interesting in that it reveals what would now be considered a

conflation of role delineation and pass point processes. As part of role delineation, which

is now more typically termed a “job analysis,” professional testing agencies typically ask

about the importance of a task, the frequency of the task, the criticality of the task to

fundraising success, and the knowledge used to perform the task.

Questions of

differentiation between the qualified and barely qualified practitioner are left to the

process of determining the appropriate examination pass point score.

In March 1981, the Examination Committee examined the results of the role

delineation review and prepared final test specifications for the CFRE exam. The test

PES Proposal, January 1980, 6, CFRE.

“Creating Test Blueprints Through Job Analysis,” Pearson, accessed October 18, 2017,

https://home.pearsonvue.com/Documents/Security/pearson_vue_test_blueprints_US.aspx.

136

specifications enumerated “the number of items to be generated to measure each task

adequately and the knowledge and skill statements from which test items will be

generated.”

During this same period, an Item Writing Task Force prepared

approximately 250 questions to be tested for use on the 200-item CFRE exam.

The

CFRE exam was pre-tested by NSFRE subject matter experts at three sites on May 29,

1981: Dallas/Fort Worth, San Francisco, and Washington/Baltimore. After a final

Examination Committee review in June 1981, the CFRE exam was readied for its first

administration on October 3, 1981, in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.

A total of

166 individuals took the first CFRE exam.

Administration and Promotion of the CFRE Certification Program

Concurrently with the development of the CFRE exam, the Certification Board

was formed. The NSFRE Board of Directors proposed seven individuals for the

Certification Board: Robert Pierpont, Robert Means, John Tabor, Phyllis Tritsch, Wilson

Schroeder, Byron Welch, and Lyle E. Cook. Alternates were Donald A. Campbell, Jr.,

Ralph E. Chamberlain, Henry Goldstein, Sam Naparstek, Henry A. Rosso, Dorothy

Sutherland, and a Mr. or Ms. Powell.

100

During discussion, it was decided to appoint

only six individuals to begin with so that the seventh position could be filled by

“someone to represent the black community;” Shirley Brown, a member of NSFRE’s

Board of Directors, was asked to help the Board identify a suitable candidate.

101

PES Proposal, January 1980, 7, CFRE.

Chronology of Development, n.d., 2, CFRE.

Chronology of Development, n.d., 3, CFRE.

“Milestones,” CFRE International, accessed 30 September 2017, http://www.cfre.org/about/milestones/.

100

NSFRE Minutes, 11 March 1980, 4, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

101

NSFRE Minutes, 11 March 1980, 4, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

137

Members of the initial Certification Board were also required to earn their CFRE

certification within 12 months of the start of the program.

102

At the first meeting of the Certification Board in December 1980, Robert Pierpont

was elected its chair.

103

The Certification Board had multiple tasks. It formally adopted

the procedures created by the Task Force on Certification Program Procedures and

recommended fees.

104

However, its primary function was to evaluate and certify CFRE

candidates.

105

Lyle E. Cook noted that he thought it important that the Certification

Board be “a rather autonomous body,” saying

I think the degree of independence of the Certification Board will

influence the credibility and acceptance of the program among people

outside of NSFRE. I wouldn’t do so now, but I could argue persuasively

for having non-members of NSFRE on the Board at some future time. For

the present, I think we have to give evidence to those not in the Society

that the Certification Program is soundly conceived, professionally valid

and credible on its evaluation procedures, and fairly and objectively

administered. Hence, the implications of semi-autonomy of the

Certification Board from NSFRE.

106

Cook’s comments were prescient. Today, some AFP members serve on the CFRE

International Board of Directors, but they do not constitute a majority. CFRE

International was spun off from AFP in 2001 to gain independence as a precondition to

its achieving accreditation from the National Commission for Certifying Agencies

(NCCA) in 2009. In 2017, the CFRE credential achieve international accreditation under

ANSI/ISO/IEC 17024 standards for certification of personnel. Accreditation assures that

a certification program meets high standards for “development, implementation, and

102

NSFRE minutes, 11 March 1980, 4, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

103

NSFRE Minutes, 3-5 December 1980, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

104

Chronology of Development, n.d., 2.

105

Chronology of Development, n.d., 3.

106

Cook to Donald K. Ross, 3 April 1981, 3-4, CFRE.

138

maintenance of certification programs.”

107

It is likely that Cook would have appreciated

the evidence of the soundness of the CFRE credential that accreditation provides.

Shortly after the formation of the Certification Board, the Educational Standards

and Certification Committee was dissolved and reformed as two separate groups: the

Certification Operations Committee and the Certification Marketing Committee. The

Certification Operations Committee dealt with the necessary but often humdrum details

of the CFRE certification program, including setting exam dates and times and

recommending that personal liability coverage be secured for volunteers and staff

involved in the certification program.

108

The Certification Marketing Committee had by

far the more interesting and more challenging job: promoting CFRE certification to

NSFRE’s general membership.

The Certification Marketing Committee identified four early priorities: providing

information on CFRE certification to other national organizations (being a member of

NSFRE was not a requirement for CFRE certification), making sure NSFRE chapters

presented CFRE certificates during chapter meetings, mailing information about CFRE

certification to NSFRE members and non-members, and getting earned media placements

in “major philanthropic publications.”

109

The Certification Marketing Committee was

helped in this effort by Lyle E. Cook, whose essay on “Certification of Fund Raising

Executives: A Step on the Road from Apprenticeship to Professionalism” composed the

content for the second issue of NSFRE’s Sightlines newsletter in 1981. Chair William

107

Institute for Credentialing Excellence, “NCCA Accreditation,” accessed October 18, 2017,

http://www.credentialingexcellence.org/ncca.

108

NSFRE Minutes, 27 June 1981, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

109

NSFRE Minutes, 4 December 1981, 4, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

139

Freyd noted that there were three main reasons for certification that the Committee

needed to “sell:” the value of NSFRE, the recognition of individuals by society as

professional fundraising executives, and ego or pride.

110

In support of CFRE

certification, Thomas G. Sanberg, CFRE, Chair of the NSFRE Board of Directors,

pledged the support of the Executive Committee, which decided as a goal that all

members of the NSFRE Board of Directors should be certified as CFREs.

111

Recertification Requirements

In June 1982, the increasingly complex work associated with the CFRE

certification was consolidated into the Certification Council. William McDanel was

named chair of the newly formed Certification Council, which had a dizzying number of

task forces: Task Force on Re-Certification and Additional Levels, Task Force on Exam

Revisions, Task Force on Redesign of the Application Form & Evaluation of Categories,

Task Force on Examination Site Coordination & Review, and Task Force on Recognition

Policies.

112

The last major structural piece of the CFRE certification program that the

Certification Council produced was the recertification requirements for the credential.

Recertification was seen as a desirable feature. It meant that CFREs would need to

continue to grow in their fundraising knowledge and competence, their professional

performance, and their service to the profession. Because certified individuals would

require additional continuing education to remain certified, there was also the perceived

opportunity for the profession to work more closely with “experts in higher and

110

NSFRE Minutes 16 March 1982, 6, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

111

NSFRE Minutes, 4 June 1982, 1, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

112

NSFRE minutes, 4 June 1982, 3, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

140

continuing education.” It was hoped that this propinquity would result in the creation of

more academic courses and research in fundraising and related fields.

113

In essence,

perhaps certification could be the gateway to creating an academically validated

knowledge base for the profession and more robust educational pathways for

fundraisers—two elements of a profession that fundraising was still sorely lacking and in

which NSFRE had not experienced great prior success.

While the work that went into the development of initial certification

requirements for CFRE certification had included a significant amount of polling of

NSFRE members, the creation of the recertification requirements was much simpler and

more straightforward. While the Certification Council noted the need to develop

recertification requirements as early as September 1982,

114

a full description of proposed

recertification requirements was not reviewed by the Certification Council until March

1984, which was less than a year before CFREs in the Class of 1981 needed to

recertify.

115

This did not leave much time for discussion or debate.

The recertification requirements were relatively simple: CFREs were required to

recertify every three years in order to maintain their certification. They would need to

show evidence of their continuing education in fundraising, their employment as a

fundraiser, their service to the profession, and successful performance as a fundraiser.

No exam was required for recertification. NSFRE would notify candidates six months

prior to the expiration of their CFRE certification; candidates would then need to turn in

their recertification application 90 days prior to their certification lapse date. The

113

Cook, “Certification of Fund Raising Executives,” 4.

114

Certification Council Minutes, 12 September 1982, 4, CFRE.

115

Certification Council Minutes, 3 March 1984, 4, CFRE.

141

Certification Board would then review the recertification application to make sure the

candidate had met requirements and verify the candidate’s status as recertified. In the

event that an individual’s certification lapsed, the individual had 12 months from the

lapse date to submit a recertification application and request reinstatement.

116

The Certification Counsel presented the recertification requirements to the

NSFRE Board of Directors in March 1984.

117

Oddly, it appears the NSFRE Board of

Directors never formally approved the recertification requirements, and there also

appears to have been no significant discussion of the recertification requirements or

expressions of concern. What likely happened was that with the very short timeline

between the creation of the recertification guidelines and when the guidelines would need

to be used by the first class of recertifying CFREs, there was simply insufficient time to

complete formal processes for approval. With no concerns or objections expressed, the

CFRE recertification requirements leapfrogged from draft into practice. The solidity of

the proposed recertification requirements is attested to by their longevity, as they have

remained essentially unchanged to the present day.

118

By the time the first class of CFREs were due to recertify in 1985, there were

1,206 CFREs.

119

The typical CFRE was male, 41-45 years old, and white.

120

He had a

baccalaureate degree, had been out of school for 16-20 years, and had 10-14 years of

116

Certification Council minutes, 3 March 1984, 4, CFRE.

117

NSFRE Minutes, 4 March 1984, 19, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

118

In 2016, the CFRE International Board of Directors updated application requirements for initial

certification and recertification by eliminating volunteer service as a separate category. Applicants now

receive credit for volunteering as service learning within the professional education category.

119

PES, NSFRE Summary of Responses on the Biographical Questionnaire 1981-1985 (Biographical

Questionnaire, n.d., 5, CFRE.

120

Biographical Questionnaire, n.d., 1. CFRE.

142

fundraising experience.

121

He was most likely to work for an educational institution, a

fundraising consulting firm, a healthcare institution, or a social service agency and hold

the title of Vice President of Development or Director of Development.

122

He supervised

four to six staff members and had 100 to 149 volunteers assisting the fundraising

program.

123

Ninety-one to 100 percent of his work day was spent on fundraising. His

program raised between $1,000,000 and $1,999,999 annually. Allowing for inflation, the

typical CFRE of today is not too dissimilar to the CFRE of over 30 years ago, with one

major exception: Today, 74 percent of CFREs are female.

124

Perceptions of the Fundraising Profession in the Early 1980s

The CFRE certification program was developed to assure the minimum

knowledge and competence of fund raising professionals. Certification was part of

NSFRE’s larger effort to increase the overall professionalism of fundraising and to

increase the public’s understanding of and respect for the profession. A study

commissioned by NSFRE in 1983 on perceptions of fundraising professionals showed

there was still much work to do in the larger effort to make the profession better

understood.

NSFRE’s Public Relations Committee commissioned the study, which was

conducted by the Rutgers Interfunctional Team at Rutgers University. A mail survey

went to 3,000 addresses, and 120 telephone interviews were conducted with three target

groups: organizations that depended on fundraising for a significant part of their support,

121

Biographical Questionnaire, n.d., 2, CFRE.

122

Biographical Questionnaire, n.d., 3, CFRE.

123

Biographical Questionnaire, n.d., 3-4, CFRE.

124

Red Argyle to author, Dashboard: CFRE Fast Facts as of 9/30/2017, September 30, 2017.

143

donors, and legislators or media representatives. The results of the study were

summarized as follows:

1) the public is not aware of what fund raising executives do—there

exists a widespread misunderstanding of the function of a fund

raising executive;

2) there is inadequate compensation for fund raising as a profession;

3) fund raising executives have a low self image because of how they

are perceived by the public;

4) the term “fund raising” has a negative connotation;

5) the public does not regard fund raising as a profession on a par

with other professions (such as corporate executives, physicians,

engineers, etc.);

6) the public does not recognize the positive impact of fund raising

activities on the budgets of various social institutions and agencies;

7) the public thinks fund raising costs are too high;

8) the public is not aware of special skills and abilities that are

required to be an effective fund raising executive;

9) state legislation and regulations negatively affect fund raising

executives and activities;

10) the public thinks fund raising executives do not belong to a self-

controlling profession;

11) philanthropy needs fund raising executives to be effective;

12) media projects a poor image of fund raising executives;

13) all these factors make it difficult to recruit top members of a

graduating class to the fund raising profession.

125

The findings of this 1983 study were true of the modern fundraising profession at the

start of the era of mass philanthropy in the early twentieth century, and many are still true

of the profession today. Many of the same challenges—issues such as fundraising’s

negative connotation, a lack of public understanding of fundraising, concerns about

overhead costs, and the difficulty of attracting and retaining fundraising professionals—

remain in evidence. The CFRE credential was developed as a partial answer to

addressing a number of issues of perception and practice that continue to persist—both

inside and outside fundraising—in what seems to be a perpetually emerging profession.

125

NSFRE Minutes, 6 November 1983, 15-16, Group 2, Part 1, Roll 1, AFP Records, RLASC.

144

CHAPTER SEVEN

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This study examined the development of the CFRE credential within the context

of the development of fundraising as a profession. It looked at fundraising through the

lenses of philosophical and sociological definitions of professions in order to identify the

role of certification within fundraising as an emerging profession. To understand

fundraisers in their own words, extensive use was made of archival material consisting of

records of major fundraising associations that played a role in the development of the

profession generally and certification specifically. This chapter offers a summary of the

study, discusses findings and themes, and considers implications for fundraising as an

emerging profession.

Summary of Study

Using a traditional historical methodology and a postmodern theoretical

framework that understands text as performative utterances that are used to construct a

desired reality, the study examined the professionalization of fundraising in the era of

mass philanthropy with an emphasis on aspects of professionalization relevant to the

creation of the CFRE credential. The study relied primarily on an analysis of archival

materials from the records of AAFRC, AFP, and CFRE International. The study showed

how the leadership of the fundraising profession adopted a sociological understanding of

professionalism, with each generation contributing to the development of systematic

theory, authority, community sanction, ethical codes, and the culture of the fundraising

profession. This sociological understanding of professionalism in fundraising has its

counterpoint in the philosophical understanding of professionalism, which frames

professionalism in terms of personal calling and commitment to mission. The CFRE

145

credential is an outgrowth of the sociological understanding of professionalism, which

helped formalize professional expectations regarding minimal standards of knowledge

and competence.

Discussion

The study demonstrates that the fundraising profession continues to face many of

the the same challenges generation after generation. The general public does not

understand the role of philanthropy in American life, continues to perceive fundraising

negatively, and does not respect fundraising in the same way that more established

professions are respected. Fundraising divisions in nonprofit organizations experience

high turnover, may not offer sufficient compensation, and lack opportunities for

professional development. Legislators and charity monitoring organizations continue to

worry about charity fraud and overhead. Fundraisers themselves remain conflicted about

the profession, at once desiring a greater level of respect for their knowledge and

expertise and yet remaining leery of mechanisms such as certification, which most

professions use as a marker of formal entry into a profession.

The fundraising profession also continues to be driven by protectionism. Change

in the profession tends to be driven by perceived threats to the economic viability of the

profession, with periodic efforts by federal and state governments to regulate the

profession answered by increased attention to mechanisms for self-policing. In addition

to the development of codes of ethics and professional practice for fundraising, the CFRE

credential to date perhaps one of the fundraising profession’s most definitive statements

of its voluntary efforts to serve and protect the public interest.

146

Nevertheless, the fundraising profession still exhibits an overall ambivalence to

certification. This ambivalence may hearken to the divide between philosophical and

sociological conceptions of the profession. Those who see fundraising from the

sociological viewpoint of professions are more likely to see the need for certification as

an important building block of a profession, whether or not they specifically endorse the

particular elements of a certification scheme. Those who see fundraising from the

philosophical viewpoint of professions are more likely to judge professionalism

according to the strength of an individual’s calling or pursuit of mission rather than to

any specific knowledge or competence base. However, when used exclusively, it is this

philosophical view of professionalism as a calling that comes from the heart that

ultimately undermines the profession’s efforts to grow in respect.

The philosophical conception of professionalism is essentially self-referential,

requiring no community sanction to decide who is eligible to be considered a

professional. While clearly offering imperfect tools for determining professionalism, the

sociological conception of professionalism offers a gift that the fundraising profession

sorely needs: standards that are created through some sort of iterative, consensus-

building process of a wider community. The strength of community consensus is at the

core of professionalism, and fundraising still has a long way to go in this area. As part of

this discussion, it is also worthwhile noting that while philosophical and sociological

approaches to professionalism are different in what they prioritize, they are not mutually

exclusive and in fact are complementary. There is no reason that a fundraising

professional cannot simultaneously be motivated by a strong sense of mission or calling

147

and still benefit from committing to growing as a professional through traditional

mechanisms such as belonging to a professional association and becoming certified.

A second possible reason for ambivalence toward certification is that a large

number of fundraisers implicitly or explicitly define fundraising as an occupation (which

is task-oriented) rather than as a profession (which requires familiarity with a defined

base of knowledge). This would explain the strain of debate among some fundraisers that

fundraising is solely about the end (raising money) and not the means (knowing the

science behind possible pathways to take to accomplish the goal of raising funds).

Contributing to this may be the anecdotal observation that many fundraisers have

extraverted personalities.

Extraverts tend to focus on the outer world rather than their

inner world. They hone in on “people and things” rather than “ideas and images.”

They

enjoy “moving into action and making things happen.”

A bias for action may mean that

fundraisers fitting the extravert mold are inclined by nature to view fundraising as an

arena in which it is solely the results that count.

A third possible reason for ambivalence toward certification is the fundraising

profession’s lack of knowledge of its own history. The only definitive history of

fundraising was published in 1965; most other major studies of fundraisers are two

decades old, and rarely are they being refreshed.

The vast majority of the history of the

“The Difference between ExtrAversion and ExtrOversion,” Scientific American, accessed October 19,

2017, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-difference-between-extraversion-and-

extroversion/. The spelling “extravert” rather than “extrovert” is used because “extravert” is the preferred

spelling of personality researchers and the Myers & Briggs Foundation.

“MBTI Basics,” Myers & Briggs Foundation, accessed October 11, 2017,

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/extraversion-or-introversion.htm.

See Cutlip, Fund Raising in the United States, which was published in 1965. As an example of an

updated study, Nathan and Tempel’s “Fundraisers in the 21st Century” (2017) offers an update of Duronio

and Tempel’s Fundraisers: Their Careers, Stories, Concerns, and Accomplishments (1997).

148

fundraising profession lies in archival materials—association records and collections of

personal papers—that few will likely ever read. Santayana noted that “Those who cannot

remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Perhaps this accounts for the slow,

recursive nature of the evolution of the fundraising profession. Each generation of

fundraisers discovers the same problems anew and, with only limited historical

perspective, the profession builds itself through accretion and secures a never-ending

status as emergent. In this way fundraising is much like the larger philanthropic sector,

which also tends to find itself dealing with each new generation of philanthropists

offering new ideas for solutions to old problems. From this perspective, certification is

significant not only as a milestone in the profession’s development but as something on

which future generations working in the philanthropic sector will build.

Implications for Future Research

This study intentionally ends with the initial development of the CFRE credential.

More than 35 years have passed in the interim. During that time, one of the most

significant trends within the CFRE community has been the way in which the CFRE

population has moved from being predominantly male to predominantly female. Like the

fundraising profession as a whole, CFREs are now predominantly female, accounting for

74 percent of the more than 6,000 CFREs worldwide.

Future research might investigate

how changing demographics have affected the CFRE credential and the place of

certification within the fundraising profession, with a particular emphasis on the roles of

“George Santayana (1863-1952),” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed October 1, 2017,

http://www.iep.utm.edu/santayan/.

Red Argyle to author, Dashboard: CFRE Fast Facts as of 9/30/2017, September 30, 2017.

149

women and diverse populations in shaping the fundraising profession generally and the

CFRE credential specifically.

A further possibility for future research lies in an analysis of the prevalence and

importance of CFRE certification by philanthropic subsector. Identification of subsectors

in which CFRE certification of fundraising professionals is most prevalent could reveal

new insights into the relative stage of development of fundraising professionalism in the

various subsectors. Cross-tabulating certification prevalence with subsector fundraising

results might further give some indication of the correlation between fundraising

professionalism and an ability to achieve success in fundraising.

Another direction for future research is the role of fundraising certification

globally. The CFRE credential was developed primarily for the North American

marketplace, which has a historic culture of philanthropy that is not shared worldwide. In

2013, the CFRE International Board of Directors made a conscious decision to grow the

CFRE credential as a certification that is internationally accredited and globally available.

Currently, there are 172 CFREs in 22 countries outside the United States and Canada.

Future research might investigate conceptions of certification and professionalism among

fundraisers in other countries and the relevance of the CFRE credential beyond the North

American market.

Another opportunity for future research is trends in the development of the body

of fundraising knowledge. Every five years, CFRE International conducts a formal job

analysis to identify the tasks that fundraisers perform, the frequency with which they

perform those tasks, the importance of those tasks to fundraising, and the knowledge

Red Argyle to author, Dashboard: CFRE Fast Facts as of 9/30/2017, September 30, 2017.

150

necessary to perform those tasks. A longitudinal analysis of changes reported by the

CFRE job analysis and the resulting CFRE test content outline could provide insight into

the ways in which fundraising strategies and techniques continue to change and evolve.

Closing Comments

The CFRE credential and the role certification plays in the fundraising profession

is not entirely well known nor well understood. This study seeks to provide a historical

context for the development of the CFRE credential that makes the case for certification

as a logical progression in fundraising’s slow journey to being recognized as a true

profession. Along the way, the study shows that the fundraising profession of today faces

many of the same challenges it faced a hundred years ago. So far, fundraisers have not

been able to address these challenges through educating the public. If there is an answer

to creating more respect and understanding for the fundraising profession, it may be that

it lies in fundraisers becoming more knowledgeable about the history of the profession to

which they belong. Certification—and the CFRE credential in particular—may be one

important step toward the goal of greater self-awareness and greater self-acceptance

among those in the fundraising profession.

Students also viewed