Keeping Your Development Team Strong: A Case Study in Retention

When Ellen* became chief development officer for a performing arts center with a $20 million annual budget, she inherited a talented, high-performing fundraising team. The organization’s donor base was broad and loyal, built over decades of consistent outreach. Major gifts were coming in steadily, annual gala proceeds were up, and the grants pipeline was robust.

But within her first six months, Ellen saw a troubling trend: turnover. First, a promising mid-level gifts officer accepted a position at another nonprofit that offered a slightly higher salary. Then, a grant writer left for a corporate communications role that promised remote work flexibility. Shortly after, the events coordinator resigned, citing burnout after years of back-to-back fundraising seasons.

Ellen knew that recruiting new talent was time-consuming and costly. Each departure disrupted donor relationships, slowed fundraising momentum, and placed extra stress on remaining team members. She realized the key wasn’t just hiring well—it was keeping the people she already had.

Why Retention Matters and Where to Begin

Head of Consulting and Principal Jake Muszynski observes, “Retention is an industry-wide challenge. For nonprofits of all sizes, retaining the development team is not simply an HR concern—it’s a strategic priority. Fundraising is built on relationships. Every time a staff member leaves, institutional knowledge walks out the door, and donor trust can be shaken.” Replacing that connection can take years, and in the nonprofit sector, high turnover can quickly lead to stalled revenue growth. 

In his work with organizations all over the country, Jake frequently shares best practices to help organizations retain their team members. He encourages leaders to understand why employees leave and invest in proactive measures that will encourage valuable team members to remain with the organization: “To minimize turnover and support stability on your staff, your nonprofit needs to be a place where people want to work; in other words, a workplace that meets a range of needs and responds to employees’ career goals.” 

When organization leaders understand each team member’s perspective on their job and their career aspirations, they can use those insights to:

• Invest in professional development that is meaningful to employees 
• Create an internal culture that normalizes work/life flexibility
• Establish routines that recognize employee contributions and celebrate achievements
• Cultivate a more vibrant organization-wide culture of philanthropy

Understanding Your Team

The first step to retaining your team costs nothing and can be taken immediately. Jake points out some practical considerations: “You need to form an understanding of how your team members feel about their jobs. How do you find out? Ask. Schedule conversations that explore both good news and bad news aspects of working in your organization. Obviously, employees need to feel safe sharing their opinions. You can’t be thin-skinned.”

In Ellen’s case, she began by conducting a development team retention audit. She held one-on-one conversations with each staff member to understand what was working for them—and what wasn’t. She also reviewed salary benchmarks for similar organizations, examined workload distribution, and evaluated professional development opportunities across the department.

Through this process, Ellen discovered that the compensation her organization offered was competitive, but her staff said they felt stretched thin. Most of them expressed a need for more flex time to handle daily activities like picking children up from school or running important errands. Some said they wanted more consistent feedback on their performance and wanted more chances to grow professionally and advance within the organization. Even more concerning, many reported feeling isolated from other departments and the broader mission of the organization.

Implementing Retention Strategies

With a little research, leaders can determine whether the salaries they offer are commensurate with comparable nonprofits, but compensation is not the only way to retain team members. Workplace norms play a big role in retention. Many organizations now offer employees more flexibility and autonomy. Find out what changes to workload or office norms would mean the most to your staff.  

Jake also encourages leaders to speak with their boards about investing in retention: “Organizations shouldn’t wait until people are resigning to think about retention. The best time to invest in your team is before there’s a problem. When leaders commit to their staff’s growth and wellbeing, they’re not only keeping employees—they’re building a resilient future for the mission.”

The business leaders on Ellen’s board strongly believe that strategic investments reap greater returns; consequently, their usual debates are not about whether to invest, but rather how. After a lively discussion, Ellen’s board helped her hammer out a four-part retention strategy:

1. Invest in Career Growth
   Ellen created a professional development budget with funding earmarked for each member of her team. She worked with each staff member to develop a personalized growth plan.
   
2. Balance Workloads and Increase Flexibility
   Ellen restructured assignments to prevent burnout. She established mandatory “no meeting” focus days and implemented hybrid and remote work models for staff whose roles allowed for that flexibility. She also began sending out monthly anonymous surveys to monitor staff morale.

3. Recognize and Celebrate Achievements
   The development department started to hold quarterly “impact sessions” where fundraising wins were shared with the entire organization—connecting staff efforts directly to mission outcomes. Individual achievements, from closing a major gift to exceeding an event goal, were publicly recognized.

4. Cultivate an Organization-Wide Culture of Philanthropy Ellen also worked with leadership and program staff to embed fundraising into the fabric of the organization. She coordinated a series of interdepartmental discussions on the role that every nonprofit employee or volunteer plays in supporting philanthropy. From program staff offering excellent customer service to instructors leading school groups to board members deliberating on governance, Ellen wanted everyone connected to the performing arts center to know they were trusted and empowered to play their unique role in the fundraising that makes their mission possible. This consciousness-raising exercise broadened the development team’s base of support and reduced their sense of isolation.

Jake adds that “Recognizing and celebrating development team wins is one of the most important things a leader can do to help team members feel valued. As a bonus, sharing the development team’s milestones with the organization also fed into Ellen’s broader goal of creating a more robust culture of philanthropy. It acknowledged the contributions of development staff and raised general awareness of the importance of philanthropy to the mission.”  

The Results

Within a year, staff turnover dropped significantly. The monthly surveys consistently indicated that Ellen’s staff was feeling a greater sense of contentment at work. Major gift revenue increased—partly, Ellen thought, because donor relationships were no longer disrupted by staff departures. Though the concrete effects of promoting a culture of philanthropy would be hard to track, Ellen could see that it was boosting morale and supporting the organization’s long-term success.

At the end of the day, retaining a development team in the current environment is about more than paychecks—it’s about creating a workplace where fundraisers can see themselves thriving long-term. For nonprofits, investing in retention is not a cost—it’s a growth strategy.

Partner with Us

Is staff turnover holding your organization back? Are you unsure about how to attract and retain valuable development staff? Do you sometimes worry that your team is burned out? CFA can help you resolve these questions and more. Contact CFA today.

*Disclaimer: Client confidentiality is paramount in our work with each and every organization. The story in this article is fiction, based on real situations drawn from CFA’s broad experience serving nonprofit organizations.

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