Gender Issues in Fundraising project

Phase 2 – Lean Out Roadmap

Public consultation

The second phase of our project to explore gender issues in fundraising is to map the issues facing female fundraisers and develop a road map of solutions based on Lean Out feminism.

To gather as many ideas as we can about what the challenges and potential solutions might be, we’re asking the practitioners and others with ideas to share their views.

This consultation document asks you for a short description of the problem/issue/challenge (about 100 words).

It then asks you to list as bullet points what you think the causes are, what the solutions could be, and what the barriers to these solutions might be.

Phase one of our project has been to describe some of the common gender-related themes and how they already apply to fundraising, including a description of Lean Out feminism, if you are not already familiar with it. So you may wish to refer to some of our previous blogs. It would also help us if you could point to some evidence and theory to support what you’re suggesting – but it is not essential.

To help you out, this document contains an example of how to complete this document, focusing on the gender pay gap (this is only an example).

This document is set up as a Word Template (.dotx) file. This means that whenever you open it, it will open as a fresh Word document. You can therefore open this document as many times as you wish; you don’t need to copy it and save as. Please submit each suggestion in a new document. Open the template, complete the forms, click to save as a Word file give it a title in this form:

Rogare-GIF-Your surname-Number of your suggestion, e.g. Rogare-GIF-Bloggs-1.

If you have a second suggestion to send us, you can click on the template again to create a second Word file.

Once you have completed your files, please send them to the Gender in Fundraising interim project lead, Ruth Smyth, at ruth@boldlight.co.uk

Title/name
Name
Email
Would you be happy for us to contact you, for example, to get more detail about your idea, or to ask you to assist us on developing this idea further?

Y/N – delete as necessary

NB – we will only contact you in connection with this particular suggestion
What is the issue/problem/challenge? (Required)

Please give a short (about 100 words) description of the issue.
What are the causes of this problem/issue/challenge? (Desirable)
What solutions do you think would redress this problem/issue/challenge? (Desirable)
What do you think are the barriers to these solutions? (Desirable)
Do you have any further comments you would like to make? (Optional)
Are there any sources of information – such as blogs or research papers – you would like to recommend to us? (Optional)

Example

Title/name	Gender pay gap
Name	Jane Bloggs	Email	Jane.blogs@email.com
Would you be happy for us to contact you, for example, to get more detail about your idea, or to ask you to assist us on developing this idea further?

Y – delete as necessary

NB – we will only contact you in connection with this particular suggestion
What is the issue/problem/challenge? (Required)

Please give a short (about 100 words) description of the issue.
Female leaders in the nonprofit sector are paid on average less than the male counterparts
What are the causes of this problem/issue/challenge? (Required)
Women tend to take senior/leadership roles at smaller organisations where salaries are lower than at bigger organisations

Fundraising is seen as a ‘woman’s job’ so more women enter the profession in junior roles. But at the senior level there is more prestige so more men transfer from roles in commerce at that higher level.

General institutionalized sexism in HR and working practices. For example, women are often generally less able than men to engage in irregular working patterns
What solutions do you think would redress this problem/issue/challenge? (Required)
More and better arrangements for flexible working

Better availability of management training in the sector

Promote fundraising as a valid career for younger men.
What do you think are the barriers to these solutions? (Required)
Lack of understanding or awareness that better flexible working is needed. If people don’t understand the issues, they’re not going to make the changes needed.

Lack of any structured entry route into fundraising for women or men.

Many charities don’t have training or CPD budgets and if they did, they’re more likely to be used to send fundraisers to conference to acquire general fundraising skills
Do you have any further comments you would like to make? (Optional)
The pay gap is a multi-faceted issue and so it will have to be solved by many approaches coming at the problem from different angles. We can hope that any one initiative will solve this problem completely.
Are there any sources of information – such as blogs or research papers – you would like to recommend to us? (Optional)
Elizabeth Dale’s paper Fundraising as Women’s work is a great place to start - https://wwwfriise.cdn.triggerfish.cloud/uploads/2018/08/fundraising-as-womens-work.pdf

Microsoft Office User

2019-11-21

Ian MacQuillin