The Hunger Project seeks fundraisers

The Hunger Project, a global anti-poverty nonprofit, offers a variety of career opportunities at its New York City headquarters and around the world. Vacant full-time positions are advertised on the organization’s employment page. Announcements normally contain information on the qualifications, compensation and job responsibilities. The Hunger Project also needs volunteers, especially around the time of its annual event in October. It also looks for “investor-activists” to help raise funds for the group. Internship opportunities are available, at times. Devex spoke with Jill Lester, CEO of The Hunger Project, about opportunities to work with the organization in different locations. Lester revealed how individuals may find field positions with the group, and described the attributes of an ideal job candidate. In a separate part of the interview, Lester also spoke about the organization’s strategic partnerships with donors and organizations in the field. You offer occasional volunteer opportunities at the Hunger Project’s headquarters in New York City, and separately are asking Americans and others to become THP “activists” to raise funds for the organization. Has this program been a success, and what lessons have you drawn from this fundraising strategy? We have what we call our fundraising “activists.” We had a fundraising meeting in Chicago recently where we got some of our most committed activists together, and we actually developed a VCAW for fundraising. I talked earlier about having a VCAW for all our village partners across the developing world. We developed a VCAW — a Vision Commitment Action Workshop — for all our fundraising activists, and they all went away with an action plan to put into place with definite milestones and hurdles to check off. I think an important part of fundraising is feeling a great energy and really riding on that mutual enthusiasm. I think that was very important that everybody felt that they were sharing in this approach and that they were then able to leverage off of each other’s action plans. Many of them also said that it gave them courage, because if you’re not a professional fundraiser it can be quite challenging. They said that writing the action steps down in a tangible way meant that they felt more empowered to invite that friend to the house and have that conversation, or involve other members of their apartment building, or whatever it was they included in their action plan. Are there other internship or volunteer opportunities? There are many other intern and volunteer opportunities. Given that we’ve just announced that strategic direction with those three new strategic priorities, we’re obviously looking for enthusiastic individuals who would like to come and help us with our impact assessment, with researching potential partnership opportunities, or to help us develop papers that might lead to increasing our influence. In those three areas alone, there are many opportunities. There are also opportunities in the standard areas such as communications, event management, fundraising and accounting. The Hunger Project’s country directors are indigenous to the countries where they work. How can someone find a field position with THP? The best thing would be for them to approach our country directors, who are very skilled and welcoming and professional people, and they would take it from there. We’re very happy to give people a list of our country directors, which is also available on the Internet. But people should just approach them directly. What about positions in the United States? We advertise on sites such as Idealist.org. But again, if anybody is interested, we’d also welcome a cold call. What attributes and experience does the organization look for in staff? It very much varies depending on position, and of course the bulk of that staff is field staff. One of the attributes, though, is an absolute commitment to our approach of a true partnership with the people we’re working with. So people need to come believing that they are partnering to help people become free from hunger and poverty. We don’t have a model where people come in with their own set and definite ideas and lay them down. So the best attribute to have is an open mind, and a warm heart, and a belief that anybody can solve their own hunger and poverty when given the opportunity. Read more food security career advice: - Food Security Academic Programs: A Primer - Ending Global Hunger: Preparing for a Career in Food Security - Business Expertise Sought to Fight Malnutrition Read more career advice articles.