Fundraising as organisational knowing in practice: Evidence from the arts and higher education in the UK

Marta Herrero,Simone Kraemer

doi:10.1002/nvsm.1673

Abstract

This paper argues for the centrality of organisational practices in occupational learning with a case study of fundraising in the non‐profit UK's arts and higher education sectors. Despite the need to increase charitable giving to non‐profit organisations, little is known about the work, fundraisers must do in order to carry out their jobs. We argue that fundraisers develop strategic understandings and competences within organisational environments, which they put into practice in their relationships with stakeholders within and outside the organisations where they work. Our findings suggest that one of the main ways in which fundraisers learn is by negotiating and surmounting obstacles both internally, within their organisational environments and externally, around the perception of fundraising as a profession. We thus argue for the importance of establishing a “fundraising culture” within organisational environments; a shared organisational competence where fundraising is practiced as a legitimate and strategic type of practice.

Highlights

The aim was to investigate an understudied area within the field of non-profit fundraising; the fundraisers and how they learn about their occupation through their practice in specific organisational and sectorial environments
We conceptualised fundraisers' everyday work practices as examples of “knowing-inpractice” and focused on some of the challenges they faced in two sectors, the arts and higher education
In the arts fundraisers developed practices to cope with government cuts to their funding and in higher education fundraisers established parameters to help them implement government-led policy to incentivise giving

Summary

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Fundraising as organisational knowing in practice: Evidence from the arts and higher education in the UK. This paper argues for the centrality of organisational practices in occupational learning with a case study of fundraising in the non-profit UK's arts and higher education sectors. Despite the need to increase charitable giving to non-profit organisations, little is known about the work, fundraisers must do in order to carry out their jobs. We argue that fundraisers develop strategic understandings and competences within organisational environments, which they put into practice in their relationships with stakeholders within and outside the organisations where they work. We argue for the importance of establishing a “fundraising culture” within organisational environments; a shared organisational competence where fundraising is practiced as a legitimate and strategic type of practice. KEYWORDS arts, fundraising, higher education, knowing-in-practice, professionalisation

| INTRODUCTION

HERRERO AND KRAEMER

Fundraising knowing constituted in the practice

Selected data

Investing in individual skill development through ongoing external networks

Selected data fundraising as a professional practice

Findings

| DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION