Scout Before You Sign: Assessing Fundraiser Candidates Before You Hire
My friend’s son plays on a team with a pitcher who was just drafted by a major league club. All season, you could tell when he was starting. As one mom put it: “When Tommy is on the mound, scouts flock.”
They already had his stats. They came to watch him pitch: how he handled a full count, how he bounced back after giving up a hit, whether he could take a correction and adjust on the next pitch.
That’s how great teams are built. Stats tell you what a player has done. Watching him play tells you what he’ll do for you.
And yet, when it comes to hiring development professionals, we often skip the tryout. We read the resume (the stats), call the references (the scouting reports), and go with whoever gives the best interview.
When someone makes a great impression, the thrill—or maybe just relief—can be overpowering. “Quick! Make an offer!”
And then the rush of the hiring process gives way to the day-to-day grind of the job. The butterflies of excitement turn into a pit in the stomach. This turned out not to be a good hire. What went wrong?
You wouldn’t judge a pitcher for how great they look when they walk up to the mound. But we often take for granted that development professionals’ polished anecdotes and lingo knowledge accurately reflects how they will approach their work.
You need a truer test.
Test The Work, Not The Talk
If applicants themselves describe their qualifications and experience, you’re receiving a subjective picture, like a selfie run through a flattering filter.
But candidates have to demonstrate what they bring if you give them a skills assessment.
If you’re thinking, “What’s a skills assessment?”, read on. If you’re thinking, “I really want to do that, but I haven’t gotten buy-in from HR,” here are some arguments you can use to make the case. And if you’re nodding your head in enthusiastic agreement, I’ll give you a few tips to make your skills assessments even more effective.
Every job requires certain definable skills more than others. An assessment is a short, realistic exercise that puts those skills to work.
So the first step is to get clear about the most important skills you’re looking for. If you foresee your new junior teammate being pulled in a lot of directions—a good bet—you need to know they can prioritize in real time. To assess that skill, give candidates a test case like this, and have them prepare a thorough answer on their own and send it back to you:
Five situations that arrive simultaneously: a vendor who has stopped responding, a discrepancy between fundraising data and the bank reconciliation, a last-minute board request, a donor whose recurring gift has failed, and a program colleague with a great story to share with donors. What would you do first? What could wait? Would you email, call, or handle the situation another way? And why?
Their answers to an assignment like this reveal more concrete than a self-reporting of a previous experience. There isn’t one correct answer, of course. But that’s part of the point. You’re looking for judgment. Can this person distinguish urgent from important? Do they ask follow-up questions that would fill in important details (“What kind of board request?”)? Do they identify ways to keep projects moving more efficiently (“I’ll tell my colleague to email me the story, then pick up the phone and call the vendor”)?
Match The Task To The Skill
No matter the level or focus area, there’s a way to create a scenario that reveals what you need to know.
To assess applicants’ soft skills, tell them about a fictional donor gift and some personal context about the donor, and ask them to write a short acknowledgement. Look for whether the candidate picks up on what matters to the donor, and if the thank-you reads like it was written for a human being rather than generated from a template (or AI).
To assess their strategic acumen, ask candidates to recommend two stewardship touchpoints for that donor over the next six months. You can check for their ability to tailor their plan to the donor’s interests, connecting their gift to its impact, and for their understanding of how a relationship develops over time.
To assess their judgment, ask candidates to choose between two potential stories for a year-end appeal, each with different advantages. They should explain their choice, any downsides they identify, and ways to mitigate that risk.
To assess candidates for more senior development positions, raise the level of challenge. A corporate partnerships leader, for example, might create a one-page strategy for securing a multi-year, multimillion-dollar partnership with a major corporation. Ask them why that company matters, the value proposition for both sides, the people who need to be engaged, the first three moves, and what could go wrong.
These trial tasks help you see beyond candidates’ practiced answers to the abilities underneath them: their ability to write, prioritize, understand the donor perspective, synthesize a lot of information, and make a decision when there isn’t an obvious right answer.
You’ll see how they think, which is a closer predictor of how they’ll work in your organization than their spiels.
Assess Your Assessments
This approach is powerful. But it isn’t necessarily easy. I’ve learned about some pitfalls to avoid in my work with Abe Taleb of Equitable Hiring Group.
Keep It Reasonable. The best assessments look like the actual work the person will encounter. If you’re hiring a development associate, focus on administrative, research, and writing skills. If you’re hiring a chief development officer, spend time testing strategy and management. And don’t turn the assessment into a homework marathon. I like a tightly constrained exercise, perhaps 60 minutes, with clear instructions that candidates should zero in on substance first, aesthetics second. You’re looking for evidence of a capable candidate.
Save It For The Later-Stage Cut. Abe incorporates skills assessments midway through the interview process. Not at the beginning: asking every applicant to do significant unpaid work would be burdensome. And not at the very end, when everyone may already be attached to a particular candidate. You’ll get the highest impact when you have narrowed the field to people you’re serious about.
No Names Please. Subjective, interpersonal impressions influence how we evaluate everything that comes after. But you need applicants’ work to stand on its own, apart from how you liked their vibe. That’s why it’s a best practice to anonymize the completed assessments before they are reviewed. Have each person review the assessments independently, and rank or score them before anyone knows who wrote it. Then reveal the names. Sometimes the candidate everyone loves in the interview produces the strongest work, but sometimes it’s the quiet one who makes the hiring committee say, “Wow. This person gets it.”
Time is money. Offer a small stipend to compensate them for their work. It communicates to the interviewee that you're serious about their candidacy and that you respect and value their time.
A skills assessment won’t eliminate hiring mistakes. Nothing will.
But development hiring is too important and too difficult to rely solely on resumes, references, and who gives the best interview.
Your strong interview process shouldn’t only ask candidates what they can do; it should give them a chance to step up to the mound and show you how they perform. That’s the best way to assemble a team of fundraising MVPs.
Not My First Rotary
A friend of mine told me she was feeling urgent about making a new hire. “This person is getting other offers,” she said. “We better strike while the iron’s in the fire!”
However many irons she may have had, or how hot they were getting, it’s never a good idea to rush a hiring process without a full assessment. Only then can you iron out all the wrinkles of doubt, and get fired up about your new teammate.
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