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The Future of Fundraising is Fractional

  • Writer: Brittany Kirk
    Brittany Kirk
  • Oct 10
  • 7 min read

Travel back with us: it is 2010. President Obama is in his first term in office. The iPad and Instagram have just been released to the public. Skinny jeans are still the fashion staple. We are all watching Lady Gaga arrive at the MTV Video Music Awards wearing her infamous meat dress. And fundraising looks entirely different than we are used to today. 


Here are just a few of the ways that fundraising has changed in the past 15 years:


  • In 2010, smartphones were still new. We couldn’t yet imagine using text messages or apps to engage with donors.


  • Social media was in its early stages. Facebook existed but had not yet introduced live-streaming, Messenger, reels, or even the Donate button. Those features would later transform how we build communities and movements online.


  • Nearly all work happened in person. To meet with people in different locations, organizations relied on conference call equipment or simply traveled to be in the same place at the same time. Video calls with donors or funders were rare because they were slow, unreliable, and expensive.


  • Grant applications were still primarily submitted by mail. Online portals were cumbersome and often erased work in progress. Funders frequently required applicants to fax documents or mail multiple copies of signed forms, and many donors still preferred to hand over a paper check.


  • Cloud-based CRMs and process automations were only beginning to emerge, and the idea of “artificial intelligence” still felt like something from Star Trek or The Jetsons.


Today, fundraising is significantly faster-paced, and a much higher pressure career than it was in 2010 – or really at any time in the past. 


And we aren’t better for it. Nonprofits are struggling more than ever to hire and retain good fundraising professionals in 2025. Citing low pay and high stress, fundraisers are rapidly leaving their jobs, moving to new organizations, transitioning into consulting, or pursuing a different career entirely.


While many critics have identified these challenges, few have pointed to solutions outside of HR-oriented recommendations for nonprofit leaders, such as greater salary transparency or a more empathetic management style. 


Just as we have evolved since 2010, fundraising must continue to evolve to meet the demands and expectations of the sector in 2025 and beyond. How can fundraising adapt to meet this moment and prepare for the next fifteen years, knowing that:


  • We all expect greater efficiency than is humanly possible. Even for small organizations, advances in AI and integrated software tools make it possible for us to work faster than ever before. We can write emails, organize data, and find information rapidly. All this places pressure on fundraisers to quickly adopt new systems in order to do more. Some researchers are even beginning to talk about the “technostress” and burnout that comes from greater demands on workers to be more and more productive in less and less time.


  • The funding landscape is changing. Government funding–especially at a federal level–is declining or disappearing all together. Nonprofits have the ability to write more grant applications than ever before, and as a result, foundations are receiving record-breaking numbers of grant applications, heightening the competition for private funds. At the same time, we are seeing a lot of foundations choose to close up shop, presumably as older family members retire and newer members choose different philanthropic paths. Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs), which can be tricky for fundraisers to understand and access, are emerging as a favorite for today’s philanthropists; in 2010, the U.S. was home to around 200,000  DAFs while today there are nearly two million. 


  • Younger donors give differently than those who came before. Fundraising professionals are having to continually learn how to ask and connect with donors in new ways. While Boomers tend to give in response to direct mail campaigns, through planned and estate gifts, and at traditional in-person fundraising events, Millennials and Gen Z give a bit differently. Gen Z donors like frequent updates about an organization’s impact and they like to engage in spontaneous giving events that they encounter online like peer to peer campaigns, social media challenges, and live video calls to action. Millennials– who gave more on average than any other generation in 2024– often give where they volunteer, and they are among the most likely generation to build giving into their financial planning and business operations. 


For small nonprofit organizations – those with annual budgets of $2M or less – these pressures are compounded by an overwhelming culture of scarcity. When resources are exceptionally tight, and perhaps always have been, well-intentioned board members and leaders may expect every fundraising effort to produce immediate and significant returns But in a sector that is changing at a dizzying pace, it can be challenging to understand how to use those scarce resources wisely to achieve the greatest results. 


In this tricky moment in the history of fundraising, “fractional” fundraising may offer a path forward. Fractional fundraising is the idea of outsourcing specific parts of a nonprofit’s fundraising function – such as donor communications, grantseeking, or campaign design – to professional fundraisers. As we see an exodus of competent fundraisers out of in-house fund development positions, fractional fundraising can offer a replacement to the traditional model of the do-it-all fundraising employee who burns themselves out after 1-2 years. 


Compared to hiring full-time fundraising employees, fractional fundraising can be:


  1. More Focused. Fractional work focuses an organization’s energy directly on fundraising rather than some of the “extras” that can accompany full-time employment (think: team meetings, employee reviews, and etc.). And fractional fundraisers can focus on something specific like cultivating new donors or expanding foundation funding, making it easier to set and track towards goals. 

  2. More Effective. Fractional fundraisers usually work with several clients at a time, bringing insights from across the  philanthropic sector into their work. They also gain robust topic area knowledge from their work with so many nonprofits, elevating their expertise to a higher level than most in-house fundraisers. They know how to move efficiently because they have navigated these processes many times before. 

  3. More Affordable. When a nonprofit hires a fractional fundraiser, they access high-level fundraising expertise at a lower cost than a full-time hire. The average costs of fractional work are less than the total salary, payroll taxes, and benefits that a nonprofit would need to pay to attract top talent into a full-time position. 

  4. More Sustainable. Because fractional fundraisers are also consultants managing their own schedules and workflow, they can bear the pressure of deadlines and revenue goals with a bit more emotional distance than in-house fundraising staff. This makes them less prone to burnout, frustration, and turnover-- in turn creating a more sustainable solution for the nonprofit itself. 


Fractional fundraising is not the be-all end-all solution to our sector’s woes. Most fractional fundraising arrangements work best when there is someone within the organization, such as an executive leader, staff fundraiser, or board member, who remains fully engaged in fundraising. Fractional fundraisers aren’t typically the ones owning or building relationships with donors; that process is still best led by the people closest to the work. And, while fractional fundraisers bring high-level expertise, they are not usually the right people to do repetitive, hands-on tasks such as gift processing. 


In spite of these limitations, we see fractional fundraising as one important way that our sector can begin to grow and evolve, keeping pace with technological advances, the rapidly evolving landscape of government and foundation funding, and changing donor giving behaviors. 


So, here we are in 2025, calling our peers who work in fundraising and nonprofit management, to join us in beginning to think differently about “the fundraising team” for nonprofit organizations. Especially in small, grassroots organizations, it’s time to work together to build sustainable, effective partnerships that include: 


  • Strategic relationship builder(s) who are passionate about the mission, maybe an Executive Director or board member;

  • In-house administrative employee(s) who help with hands-on tasks like gift processing, data clean-up, mailings, and event coordination; and

  • Fractional fundraiser(s) who lead specific components of the fundraising plan, such as raising more dollars through grants, planning and implementing donor communications, or building structures to support major donor stewardship.


We believe this collaborative model will help usher in the next fifteen years of change in the philanthropic sector, equipping us to evolve with the world around us. 


So if 2010 gave us iPads, meat dresses, and skinny jeans, who knows what 2040 will bring? Maybe our AI-enabled flying cars will help us arrive on time to meetings with our hologram assistants. Or perhaps skinny jeans will make a comeback as the newest retro fashion trend...


And maybe in 15 years from now, fundraising will be a collaboration between in-house relationship builders and outsourced fundraising experts… rather than a piling-on of lofty expectations on individual fundraising employees. Perhaps our fundraising processes will be tech-enhanced but not tech-driven, knowing that at the center of everything – including both fundraising and just being human – relationships are still the thing that drives us. And just maybe, the future of fundraising is fractional. 



This blog post was written by Cloudbreak President and Grants Practice Director, Brittany Kirk. Learn more about Brittany here.


About Cloudbreak


Cloudbreak is a woman-owned, woman-led collective of 20+ consultants with expertise in grants, campaigns, and annual fundraising and communications. We understand that fundraising can often feel overwhelming, so we approach every project with a clear, calm, and action-oriented mindset.


Our collaborative structure allows us to connect organizations with the right support at the right time, ensuring leaders feel equipped rather than overextended. We often work with small organizations, offering practical, right-sized strategies to help them grow.


At the heart of our work is a simple goal: making fundraising feel less daunting and more sustainable. By tailoring our strategies to your capacity and resources, we aim to help organizations strengthen their fundraising with confidence and clarity.


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