account coordinator

gérant

fundraiser

comptable

warehouse worker

Fundraising Direct

I was fired from the company after having been there a little over a year. In retrospect it wasn't a role I excelled at but I really enjoyed the energy and people I worked with until I mentally checked out after about 8 months.

A typical workday is spent in excel and e-mail with some powerpoint. The emphasis on client servicing means that there is a strict deliverables schedule which has you generating the same documents daily, weekly, monthly with only minor updates.

All your time will be spent on billable hours to ensure that these documents are free of formatting and programming errors before having them processed. Errors are rampant on both company and client produced databases and you will have to resolve corrupted numbers, formula errors, columns that auto apply specific formatting etc.

Excel templates do exist but are frequently manipulated to accommodate new metrics and data quirks that can't be resolved company/client side. 

The management structure was peculiar; the business is growing while suffering from high turnover. At the time of my dismissal I had the most seniority of the 4 account coordinators as 1 had been promoted and 3-4 had either quit or been let go. As well, to adjust to a departing director, 3 directors were hired/promoted. An equal amount of coordinators to managers to directors felt top heavy and micromanaged, especially in an open office.

The workplace culture was fun to be in. It felt like everyone was working hard and doing their best to resolve a new and unforseen problems while trying to make deadlines. It felt good to share in the struggle of clients changing priorities, impossibly tedious databases.

It frequently meant being asked to deliver above capacity and to "just get it done" which eventually took its toll on me. My quality fell and I became despondent. The departing director went to great effort to support me as best she could and facilitated conversation between my manager and I.

The hardest part of the job was trying to stay motivated and positive about my role and tasks. The amount of sheer repetition wouldn't have been so tiresome had there been an effort to develop tools that worked. By the time the director left my manager had assumed a director role and we'd have weekly meetings where we'd dissect my performance issues. I would also have to write daily check-ins about all my tasks which I think went mostly unread. Up to the moment I was fired it may have been 2-3 months since we had spoken. By that time I knew it wasn't going anywhere, I had completely stopped caring by February or March and I'm sure it had a negative impact on the team.

I appreciate the way they handled my dismissal and for keeping me on so long, I would have probably fired me sooner.

I've been working here for over a year and have really enjoyed my time with FD. Obviously, at the end of the day, it is a job, and any job is going to be difficult, but the negative aspects of being a fundraiser, in my opinion, are outweighed by the positives.

Right off the bat, the most appealing part of the job is the fact that you do get to work for many Canadian charities that have a direct impact on people's lives. It may be hard to see at first but through briefings with the clients and the different campaign feedback we'd receive, we can see that our work on the phones has a real effect on the many great causes. For example, I've been a part of several emergency campaigns a year for the Canadian red Cross and we routinely raise tens of thousands of dollars that go directly to the impacted families.

Other than that the work environment is very comfortable. The people are very friendly and nice; and the management, while still being management ultimately, seems to be trying their hardest to have the fundraiser's best interests in mind when making decisions. 

There are definitely places that FD needs to improve on, for example resources are often limited for things like headsets and chairs. And if I had to say one thing about the culture, there is a tendency to let people get away with things more than they probably should. However, since I've been here I've definitely noticed a significant improvement on this front. And for sure the hardest thing about working here, at least for me, was the hour spread. The shifts are within a 1-9 PM time frame, and while there is plenty of leeway for when you work, the core schedule can be difficult to manage if you have other stuff going on.

I guess I'm rambling at this point, but I wanted to let people know that if you can find your groove here and are willing to take feedback and improve, this job is extremely rewarding, and at least from my perspective it has made a profound change on my life. I get to sleep well at night knowing that I'm not just flipping burgers or selling clothes, but actively helping people less fortunate than I am and keeping my bills paid in the process.

The only pros while working there was that you go to create your own work schedule every week, the coworkers are nice, and you can draw/read/work on school work during calls (not PCI compliant at all)

They underpaid all their staff constantly, by not giving out bonuses, paying government sick days, or paying for the 15 min breaks. It was rare to be paid your full wage. 

The management is horrible. Its just a high school clique who only promote their friends or people they want to be their friends, not anyone actually qualified for the job.

The job itself is also terrible, you have to turn off your brain and not listen to yourself in order to do the job correctly. They force you to ask people who have no money multiple times for donations, even if the person on the phone is telling you how poor they are. 

They work remotely now, but the office is cramped with chairs back to back. No sound proofing in the room, and every chair and most headsets are broken. The lack of sound proofing makes it hard for the people you call to even hear you. 

Everyone is friendly. The job is hard since you need to reach/hit the campaign targets. Unfortunately, I did not pass the probation because I was not able to reach their target even though I come to work on time or before the time and aside from that I am being switched to different campaigns which requires big adjustment. They should be considerate enough to know that not at all times the supporters/donors will give.

Campaign Managers sometimes act unprofessionally and are always focus on numbers not knowing that their fundraisers are already demotivated even though they are trying their best to get pledges.

People come and go so you will find new faces. If you want money for a short time then apply but if you want job security then it's a thumbs down.

Overall, it's a great company. There are no perfect companies. You may try and experience it for yourself.

Yeah, it's simple. It's a job. I'm a very "do what you've got to do" type of person, but this was just mentally draining. They force you to push, and push, and push. I've gotten pledges and I met my targets fine, but there's the off call where I'll be speaking to an elderly person who explains that they're on a pension, or they're dealing with an ill family member. Either way there's a sadness in their voice that would make any person with morals feel guilty for pushing and pushing and pushing. And since, y'know, I do have morals, I thank them for their support and move on. Only to get 'coached' and told that I need to push through the asks. "Remember, you're still doing something good for the charities". Oh, gimmie a break. They feed you that garbage but all they care about is making money.

The training process barely lasts 3 days (a total of 16 hours exactly). You won't be paid for 2 hours of IT testing. You're responsible of doing the training completely on your own, you barely get any support from the "trainers". You have to read a whole lot of documents and answer questions that are ambiguous at times. After the 16 hours training, you complete a single verbal evaluation with a trainer and they decide weither they will keep you or not. I wouldn't recommend applying for this job, they allegedly hire groups of people at once and only keep a minority of the group. Not worth your time, the salary is close to the bare minimum on top of that. They won't tell you from the beginning that there's a high likelihood you won't be kept but that allegedly seems to be the case.

This is a really flexible job that can suit almost anyone's needs. Whether you need a part time gig to help you get through school or a full time job with the hopes of moving up the ranks, you can basically create your own goals. My favorite part of this job is that no one is breathing down your neck, everyone gets the same training,  coaching, and supervision. And it's a really well-oiled machine compared to most jobs.

If you take your training seriously and commit to making good calls, show up to all your shifts and take on extra hours when you can, you'll be really appreciated!

The hardest part is being put on difficult campaigns but if you see it as a challenge it helps the shift go faster.

you are expected to pressure people to donate, even after you are told no you need to ask again....and again. The floor staff are constantly pulling you aside for "coaching" at times making unreasonable demands, "when donors get aggressive/upset just get those asks in there". Bonuses are promised and never received. I witnessed supervisors and coaches flirting, gossiping and slacking off during shifts. Favoritism is often shown to fundraisers that are most disobedient. I was personally aware of fundraisers going on break, getting impaired and coming back to work but the big concern is eating at your desk! Finally, during my time there the schedules were structured in such a way that you had to work weekends in order to work full time.

Most of the company stuff (chairs, headsets, etc.) are falling apart. The office is grey and uninviting. 

My biggest problem is with management. They have clear "favourite" employees who will never get in trouble for breaking the rules, meanwhile the person right next to you might get fired for something you've seen someone else do a million times. 

They promote based on who they like better, not who is best qualified for the job. 

The CEO of the company will even avoid taking the elevator with call centre agents if he can. He is very self-important and I find this behaviour disgusting.

This is the most awful place I have ever worked and I sincerely hope that anyone who reads this turns around and runs away--unless you're really strapped for cash.

They require you to work a minimum of 20 hours a week if you are part time and are not understanding at all about needing to work less sometimes because of school. 

You are required to log out of the system for bathroom breaks because they do not pay you for those. If you take even a minute or two more on your 15 min break, they don’t pay you for that either. You are constantly told to check your pays because they dock so much off of them.

You get yelled at constantly by donors because the agency calls them up to 10-15 times a week, and when a donor says no or gets annoyed, you are still expected to “get those asks in there.” 

The only upside about working there is that people are really nice and friendly. Other than that, don’t work there. Seriously.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Account coordinator 3 salaries reported	$39,333 per year
Gérant 1 salary reported	$47,500 per year
Fundraiser 1 salary reported	$17.48 per hour
Comptable 2 salaries reported	$41,000 per year
Warehouse worker 1 salary reported	$17.73 per hour

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