Looking to Lead? Try Your Hand at Fundraising First, Experts Say

At the age of 22, Matthew vandenBerg set his sights on becoming a college president. The idea came from working closely as a student with his own president at Michigan’s Alma College.

“She said, ‘Matt, I have a feeling in 20 years from now — which is when you’d be likely to get a presidency at the earliest stages — I have a feeling the only thing they’ll be talking about is money,’” vandenBerg says. “She was holding a crystal ball.”

Two decades later, vandenBerg is president of Ohio Wesleyan University, a private liberal arts college in central Ohio. Fundraising experience, as his mentor predicted, has become a top consideration not only for higher education leaders but also for executives across all nonprofit organizations.

“Every move I have made in my career has been in service to that goal of getting to exactly where I am right now,” vandenBerg says of his trajectory, which included stints as a fundraising executive and a head of alumni relations. Before becoming president of Ohio Wesleyan, he also served as president of Presbyterian College in South Carolina. “I use all the skills I have developed as an advancement professional every single day in this role.”

For people looking to take on demanding leadership roles, nonprofit executives and consultants interviewed by the Chronicle agreed that fundraising experience is key to success. They say candidates unfamiliar with fundraising may find themselves ill-equipped to handle positions that often call for frequent interactions with prospective donors as well as meeting big funding goals. Fundraisers also tend to have ample experience working diplomatically as part of a team and meeting tight deadlines — two skills that many say are fundamental to being an effective leader.

Lots of Time Raising Money

Don Hasseltine of Aspen Leadership Group says fundraising ranks among the top three skills his firm looks for when assessing job candidates for senior executive positions.

“When you think about expectations on an executive director or CEO of a nonprofit, a vast majority of their responsibility is generating enough revenue for them to function year to year,” says Hasseltine, who has held leadership positions at five colleges and universities. “Anywhere from a quarter to half their time is spent on raising money.”

Fundraising helped vandenBerg hone his financial acumen, build coalitions, become resilient, and work well under pressure. “You develop a source of bravery and sense of momentum,” he says. “Your job is to hear every no, every request for more time as another step towards getting to yes.”

As president of Sweet Briar College in Virginia, Mary Pope Maybank Hutson knows firsthand the importance of fundraising. Next year marks the 10th anniversary of a successful campaign spearheaded by Hutson and other alumnae to save the women’s school from closure.

From 2015 to 2023, Hutson helped Sweet Briar raise more than $140 million as senior vice president for alumnae relations and development. When she took over as president in November, she was also the first alumna to serve in the role since the college was founded in 1901.

“The business models of many small colleges are a challenge today,” Hutson says. “I think business, nonprofit leadership, and higher education all blended together and prepared me for taking on the challenges of really running a business — and that’s what running a college is all about; it’s really a business.”

Fundraising continues to be a major part of Hutson’s role as president and includes meeting regularly with donors and alumnae. “Half of your time should be spent on the continued cultivation of those relationships,” she says.

Outside of his work on campus, vandenBerg leads career-building workshops and programs for aspiring college presidents. He says that during these meetings, a top concern from prospective leaders is asking for money and getting rejected.

“Fundraising and advancement work tend to be the greatest source of consternation,” he says. “Without that experience, a lot of people tend to think of fundraising as a zero-sum game as opposed to thinking of advancement and philanthropy as what it’s intended to be, which is an exchange of value.” Donors, he says, get the chance to make a positive impact for a cause they care about, and in return, organizations get needed resources as well as closer ties with stakeholders.

Leading without fundraising experience can be an extremely difficult hurdle to overcome, Hasseltine says. “When a CEO hasn’t had fundraising experience, oftentimes they do not understand the fundraising process and therefore create unrealistic expectations,” he says. That can be demoralizing and result in organizational churn — a pattern Hasseltine has seen a lot in his work consulting with nonprofits.

Nearly 40 percent of leaders surveyed by the Chronicle earlier this year cited fundraising demands as a reason for job dissatisfaction. A third of participants also told the Chronicle they would likely leave their jobs within the next two years, mirroring a larger turnover crisis within nonprofit leadership.

‘This Job Will Eat You Alive’

Despite his early drive and careful strategizing, vandenBerg admits there’s no preparation for being a president other than being a president. “If you don’t have a deeply embedded sense of vocation, a sense of purpose about this work, if you’re not doing this job for the right reason — this job will eat you alive.”

Sweet Briar’s Hutson agrees. Leadership roles are “not for the faint of heart,” she cautions. “It’s got to matter to you. You’ve got to have the passion for it.”

Since taking the helm in July 2023, vandenBerg has announced a bevy of initiatives aimed at diversifying Ohio Wesleyan, including a tuition-free program and partnerships with a local community college and a historically Black college.

In August, Ohio Wesleyan announced a program with the Constructive Dialogue Institute to make civil-discourse training available to all students, faculty, and staff to help navigate polarizing topics amid a contentious election and the ongoing war in Gaza, which has sparked protests nationwide across campuses.

“Most of my time is spent on diplomacy, and advancement work is really, in a sense, about diplomacy,” vandenBerg says.

Maybank Hutson is also using diplomacy skills honed during her past roles in fundraising and leadership. Sweet Briar recently made national headlines when it announced it would no longer accept transgender students, setting its admissions policy apart from women’s colleges that have more inclusive guidelines. The decision sparked outcry from students, faculty, and alumnae — some have threatened to stop donating to the college.

Hutson says her approach as president has been to foster public comment and hold public meetings to allow people to share diverse viewpoints. She notes that alumnae response to the admissions policy has been mixed, with some in favor of the change and others against. Ultimately, Hutson says, the decision was based on upholding donor intent — in this case, an original will drafted in 1900 that set aside the land for Sweet Briar as a women’s-only college.

So much of being a leader, Hutson says, is “making sure you’re patient when you’re listening and making sure you’re doing things proactively to prepare for difficult conversations that may be brought up.” Her advice to others in charge: Ask a lot of questions, understand what you’re promoting, stay true to your mission, and “just be bold.”