Is there a big issue in the fundraising sector that you think isn’t being discussed enough?

We’re not honest enough about what this job asks of the humans doing it. Fundraising has quietly become a multidisciplinary extreme sport. The skill set keeps expanding, targets keep stretching, and resourcing doesn’t necessarily follow. We’re expected to be part data scientist, part social psychologist, part storyteller, part strategist, all while staying relentlessly optimistic and never running out of ideas. And because we’re good at looking “fine”, the strain gets missed.

But it’s real. Research is starting to back up what we already know. Empathy plus constant pressure make burnout and compassion fatigue an occupational hazard. People are leaving not because they don’t care, but because caring this hard, under this much pressure, isn’t sustainable.

And the comparisons never stop. “Why aren’t we doing what that other charity did? Their new campaign is so cute!” Because they’re a regional zoo and we’re a national brain research foundation, Margaret. We are not the same.

How are you balancing short-term income needs with long-term donor stewardship?

It’s chaos, mostly. The appetite for growth is huge, the resourcing never is. You spend half your week explaining why loyalty matters, and the other half talking the finance folk off the ledge because a campaign “isn’t performing”. It went live on Monday. It’s Wednesday. The post hasn’t even turned up yet.

So we try to stay sane and do the boring, vital stuff. Thank people properly. Tell them what their gift did. Give the team time for conversations and thinking, instead of sprinting from one “urgent” tactic to the next. Donors are not ATMs. They’re people with choices, feelings and long memories. If we treat them like partners in the future they want to build, they stay.

There’s no trick to the balance. It’s backing the long game, even when the shiny thing is trying to hijack the plan.

What advice would you give to emerging fundraising leaders?

You will never have enough time. No fancy calendar system will fix this, despite your boss “suggesting” you work on time management. Stop waiting for the mythical quiet week. Lead through noise, pick your battles, and accept that some days you are a strategist and some days you are a human fire extinguisher. 

Know your limits, play to your strengths, build a team that excels where you don’t. I’m great at ideas and direction, terrible at details and follow through. I know this. Pretending otherwise would be pointless. Hire for fit. Hire people smarter than you. Get them what they need, then get out of their way.

Get comfortable saying no. You’ll say it to bad ideas, half-baked campaigns and timelines that defy physics. I once had to shut down a board suggestion to get our branding on toilet paper. This is a true story. No, it was not a gut-health-related charity. 

If you can laugh, set boundaries, and stay kind while the world throws unrealistic expectations and chaos at you, you’ll do brilliantly. Back your people, protect the relationships, and don’t take every wobble as a personal failure. The sector needs more leaders like that, and it will be better for it.

If you could spark one big change in the sector, what would it be?

I’d love to see the sector brave enough to say clearly: it takes money to make money. We talk about sustainable growth, then flinch at funding the things that make it possible. Tools that work, training that lifts capability, systems that save time, programs that need a couple of years to bed in. That’s not indulgence. That’s the engine.

Show me a commercial business expected to grow on charity-level acceptable spend and still deliver the same reach and real world change. It doesn’t exist. Yet we get handed this instruction: “Grow, but don’t spend, and every dollar must produce an immediate, perfectly traceable, return.”

Fundraisers will try anyway, because they’re resourceful, stubborn and committed. The downside is that miracles become the baseline, and sensible investment gets labelled “too expensive.”

If we keep treating fundraising like a cost to minimise, we’ll keep building income that can’t handle a hard year.

Can you share a moment when you really felt the impact of what your fundraising made possible?

On 1 January 2025 my brother had a brain aneurysm. The kind where you learn new meanings of the word “urgent”. Rescue helicopter, survival odds that nobody wanted to say out loud. He went straight into emergency surgery to stop the bleed. Nobody could tell us what would be left of him, or if there would be a “him” at all.

Five days later he was still in ICU, in a coma. I was sitting in the dark in the neuro unit at stupid o’clock, those beeps and blips of machines the nightmarish soundtrack to the fear. On the wall was the name of the consultant who had been called in to operate. I Googled him because I needed something solid.

I found out the Neurological Foundation helped fund his specialist role to bring him to New Zealand 10 years ago. Strangers gave, and because of that exact generosity, the right person was in theatre when my brother needed him.

Last month my brother moved into his own house. That’s the impact. And it’s why I will never doubt what fundraising makes possible.

What brings you the most joy in your role as a fundraising leader?

The team. Always the team.

Fundraising is a glorious mess. Plans shift, targets loom, someone drops a crisis at 8.47am, and a “quick idea” arrives that is neither quick nor an idea. But my people keep showing up. They look after each other. They call it straight. They find the funny in the chaos. They bring coffee to the person who is fading and step in without being asked.

Watching someone grow into their confidence, pull off a tough conversation, or quietly steady a teammate who is having a rough day, that’s the good stuff. We don’t always get it right. Some days are downright feral. But even on those, there is trust in the room and laughter somewhere nearby. That makes it worth it, every time.

Kerry will be appearing at Fundraising Forum in Sydney on 25–27th August. She will help delegates solve pressing fundraising problems live and present a session on the hidden pipeline in Individual Giving.

This interview originally appeared in the autumn 2026 issue of F&P magazine