Key takeaways
- A new fundraising hire means salary plus benefits, recruiting, training and management time. The BLS reports median pay for fundraisers of $72,550 (May 2025).
- Outsourcing gives you experienced capacity quickly without a long-term hiring commitment, but you still need to manage the partner and protect donor relationships.
- Many organizations do both: staff own major relationships while an outside team handles volume outreach.
- Before hiring a paid calling firm, check that it's registered where state law requires it.
The two options
Hiring means adding development staff, such as an annual fund officer or donor relations coordinator, who calls and follows up as part of their job. Outsourcing means engaging an outside team that contacts your donors, members or sponsors on your behalf, usually under your organization's name and inside your systems.
What each really costs
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $72,550 for fundraisers as of May 2025. Salary is only part of the cost of a new hire:
- Benefits and payroll taxes.
- Recruiting time and costs, often over several months.
- Training and time to get up to speed.
- Management time from your development director.
- Tools such as phone systems, data and CRM licenses.
- Turnover: when a fundraiser leaves, relationships and momentum can leave too.
An outsourced team has its own costs: the fee itself, the time to brief and manage the partner, and the need to share donor data securely. Compare total cost against expected results, not salary against fee.
Side-by-side comparison
| Hiring staff | Outsourced team | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to start | Months to recruit, hire and train | Usually weeks |
| Commitment | Ongoing employment | A contract, often by campaign or term |
| Focus | Shares time with events, reporting and other duties | Dedicated to outreach |
| Scalability | Fixed capacity | Can scale up or down by campaign |
| Institutional knowledge | Builds inside your organization | Must be documented and shared |
| Donor relationships | Held by your staff | Should stay in your CRM and with your team |
When hiring makes more sense
- You need someone to own major donor relationships for the long term.
- The role mixes calling with events, grants or stewardship that require being inside the organization.
- You have steady, year-round outreach volume and the management capacity to support a new hire.
When outsourcing makes more sense
- You have a backlog of donors, members or sponsors no one has time to contact.
- You want to test a new program, such as lapsed donor calls, before committing to a hire.
- Your outreach is seasonal: year-end, renewals or an event.
- You want experienced callers quickly, without recruiting.
The hybrid approach
Many organizations combine both. Staff own major gift and partner relationships, while an outside team handles volume outreach: thank-you calls, lapsed donors, renewals and event invitations. Qualified prospects are handed to staff with notes, so staff time goes to the conversations that need it most.
Questions to ask an outsourced fundraising partner
- Who makes the calls? Their experience and training, and whether calls are made by people or automated.
- Whose name is used? Most organizations want outreach under their own name, with messaging they approve.
- Where does the data live? Notes, outcomes and contact updates should go into your CRM.
- How is the partner paid? Flat fees, hourly rates and percentage-based arrangements each have implications for donors and for your reporting, so ask for full clarity.
- Is the firm registered where required? Many states require paid solicitors to register and post a bond before calling. See our guide to the rules for fundraising calls.
- What do you get back? Reporting on gifts, pledges, meetings and what supporters said.