---
title: "Fundraiser"
description: "Organize activities to raise funds or otherwise solicit and gather monetary donations or other gifts for an organization. May design and produce…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/fundraiser"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Fundraiser

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-1131 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-1131.00

Organize activities to raise funds or otherwise solicit and gather monetary donations or other gifts for an organization. May design and produce promotional materials. May also raise awareness of the organization's work, goals, and financial needs.

Also advertised as: Contract Grant Writer; Development Associate; Development Officer; Direct Response Consultant; Fundraising Consultant; Grant Coordinator; Philanthropy Officer; Principal Gifts Officer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $72,550 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $34.88/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $46,630 to $115,820, with the middle half between $57,480 and $92,180
- **Total US employment:** 111,040
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 10,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 37/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 111,040 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $46,630 |
| 25th | $57,480 |
| 50th (median) | $72,550 |
| 75th | $92,180 |
| 90th | $115,820 |
| Mean (average) | $77,200 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $80,840 | $73,557 | 2,350 |
| NY | $80,540 | $74,629 | 11,600 |
| MD | $79,780 | $76,011 | 2,010 |
| CA | $79,710 | $71,992 | 12,860 |
| MA | $79,060 | $74,756 | 6,160 |
| WA | $79,000 | $73,823 | 3,870 |
| CT | $77,730 | $75,022 | 1,350 |
| NJ | $77,170 | $70,925 | 1,950 |
| MN | $76,910 | $77,985 | 3,190 |
| ND | $76,040 | $85,478 | 340 |
| RI | $75,410 | $73,729 | 1,000 |
| CO | $74,440 | $72,235 | 2,470 |
| VA | $72,610 | $71,817 | 4,010 |
| VT | $72,530 | $74,042 | 510 |
| LA | $72,030 | $81,660 | 330 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/fundraiser/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/fundraiser.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 140,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 148,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 7,800 jobs, or +5.5%. Faster than average: 5.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 10,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 90.5% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 4.8% |
| Master's Degree | 4.8% |

## What the work involves

- Identify and build relationships with potential donors.
- Write and send letters of thanks to donors.
- Develop strategies to encourage new or increased contributions.
- Direct or supervise fundraising staff, including volunteer staff members.
- Explain the tax advantages of contributions to potential donors.
- Write speeches, press releases, or other promotional materials to increase awareness of the causes, missions, or goals of organizations seeking funds.
- Develop fundraising activity plans that maximize participation or contributions and minimize costs.
- Solicit cash or in-kind donations or sponsorships from individual, business, or government donors.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Persuasion — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Enterprising (E), Social (S), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 6.03 |
| S — Social | 4.23 |
| C — Conventional | 4.07 |
| A — Artistic | 3.22 |
| I — Investigative | 2.02 |
| R — Realistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 78.7 |
| ESFJ | 76.2 |
| ESFP | 70.2 |
| ENFP | 65.1 |
| ENTJ | 63.6 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Fundraising Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fundraising-manager) — median $125,470
- [Public Relations Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-specialist) — median $74,750
- [Advertising and Promotions Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-and-promotions-manager) — median $133,660
- [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) — median $80,390
- [Meeting, Convention, and Event Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/meeting-convention-and-event-planner) — median $61,160
- [Public Relations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-manager) — median $146,910
- [Financial Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-advisor) — median $105,070
- [Market Research Analyst and Marketing Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/market-research-analyst-and-marketing-specialist) — median $78,760
- [Marketing Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/marketing-manager) — median $166,790
- [Sales Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-manager) — median $148,270

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/fundraiser