Introduction

This unit focuses on the fundraising role and understanding the organisational relationships that surround it. It assumes that you have some involvement in fundraising, but anybody with a role which faces external customers (such as marketing or public relations) will find paralells with their experience here. Organisations with a dedicated fundraiser or bigger ones with a substantial separate fundraising department may find that tensions and dilemmas emerge around the place of fundraising and its relationship to the wider organisation. These tensions are also likely to be present in smaller organisations – perhaps not so evident as organisational issues, but more ones of role conflict. Teasing out what are effectively organisational tensions is useful in understanding why some aspects of fundraising are difficult to achieve. This unit will help you to explain how the activities associated with winning resources and support fit into your own organisation.