Fundraising Programs Offer Professional Outlook For the Field

When you are a child, you may fundraise for a field trip with your class or for new basketball hoops for the school gym. As you get older, you may get involved in fundraisers for different organizations and projects. If your interest in fundraising continues, you may want to consider attending Centennial College’s fundraising courses to learn the know-how to be successful in this increasingly popular field, which in Canada sees an estimated161,000 non-profits and charities raise billions of dollars each year. These organizations employ close to two million Canadians.

This Fundraising program is offered through Centennial College’s Continuing Education Distance Learning, which means it is geared towards mature learners who are comfortable with online fundraising courses that were designed with flexibility in mind. These courses offer a form of instructor-led study allowing students to work through material and assignments in their own time and space, with 24- hour access to the online classroom.

The focus of the Fundraising program is to help students plan projects and future fundraising needs, develop goals and strategies and promote their work through developing media and press relations. This offering consists of seven mandatory Fundraising courses: Introduction to Fundraising (provides students with an introductory understanding of the fundraising sector, principles, ethics and practices of professional Fundraising, and more); Methods of Fundraising (presents the issues and processes involved in planning and organizing special events); Entrepreneurship (covers a wide range of topics that a student should be aware of if he/she were to start and operate a small business); Strategic Management of Campaigns (examines the elements of a successful fundraising campaign); Donor Relationships in Fundraising (students learn the needs and motivations of donors and what sustains long-term partnerships with the non-profit sector), Fundraising as Management Process (provides students with an introductory understanding of the importance and role of volunteers in the fundraising process, as well as marketing and public relations and the financial management of fundraising); and Volunteer Management (students learn about the uniqueness of volunteerism and the spirit that is created by a strong core of volunteer support and the successful components of a volunteer program and the tools to make it happen).

For more information (including tuitions costs), visit the fundraising program’s Web page.

Once students complete their Fundraising courses, they may enter various careers in the field. One option is to become a fundraising consultant who researches potential sources of funding, including grants, past contributors, new donors, corporate contributors and foundations. He or she also comes up with short and long-term fundraising plans that are presented to boards or executive directors of the companies for which they work. Once plans are approved, the consultant with Fundraising program training may recruit, train and manage paid staff and volunteers to implement the plan. Other aspects of the consultant's job include creating all promotional materials and liaising with members of the external community.