Diploma in Professional Fundraising

Course Overview

An FIA Diploma in Professional Fundraising is a commitment to best practice and excellence in fundraising. This course will harness your passion for fundraising and help you develop your fundraising expertise through strategic thinking, creative approaches to fundraising, and nurturing donor relationships. You will also develop advanced problem-solving and communication skills through practical, hands-on case studies, and activities with an organisational focus. This is a 12-month course with compulsory and elective modules that will give you a Diploma in Professional Fundraising and help you improve your prospects for career advancement.

The Diploma is self-paced over 12 months and you can start at any time.  You will be given hands-on tutor support with one of FIA’s tutors via phone and email to guide you. This is well suited to those who are strong independent learners who prefer a longer time frame to study and the course is accessed via our online learning portal. You are given access to the course materials for 12 months and do have the option to complete the course earlier.

The Diploma in Professional Fundraising course prerequisites are:

• 3 years fundraising experience.
  
  And have access to:
  
• a database of donors
• a database with a history of diverse funding
• direct marketing campaigns with results
• other team members to learn from/liaise with
• acquittal/stewardship reports

What you’ll learn

• Planning, implementing and evaluating fundraising programs
• Frameworks for ethical fundraising and fundraising regulation
• Selecting appropriate fundraising channels and content matched to the donor journey
• Marketing strategies for offline and online fundraising
• The use of media tools, social media and emerging technologies in fundraising
• Strategies for major gifts, corporate fundraising, trusts and foundations and gifts in Wills.

Who is this course for?

• Fundraisers with a minimum of three years’ fundraising experience. You will be asked to provide a link to your LinkedIn profile when you receive your confirmation email upon registration. This is so we understand your professional background and provide this to your potential tutor.
• Career fundraisers keen to move in a new direction, progress their careers or enhance their professional standing.
• Charity and not-for-profit managers with responsibility for organisational fundraising.

FIA Code
This course relates to the following aspects of the FIA Code of Conduct:

• FIA Code 2.0 Compliance, 3.0 Ethical conduct, 4.0 Conduct towards Donors, 5.0 Conduct towards Beneficiaries and 6.0 Conduct in Supplier relationships.

Full participation in Diploma in Professional Fundraising  is applicable for up to 80 continuing education points in Category 1.B – Education of the CFRE International application for initial certification and/or recertification.

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For almost 30 years Margaret Scott has been a fundraising leader. She is a past National Chair of FIA, a Fellow of FIA and maintains CFRE status. In 2014, she was awarded the Arthur Venn Fundraiser of the Year and has been a tutor with FIA’s Diploma course since its inception. Margaret has completed two postgraduate degrees majoring in fundraising from QUT and considers herself to be a ‘lifelong learner’.

Chris Benaud is a highly-experienced fundraiser who has worked for leading not-for-profit organisations for almost 30 years. He has been involved with FIA training programs since 1998. A Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) and Fellow of the FIA, Chris’s qualifications include BA (Communication); MA (Communication Management); Cert IV – Workplace Assessment and Training.

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