Occupation / job
Fundraisers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
At $72,550 against a $50,020 midpoint, Fundraisers pays $22,530 a year more than the typical American job — $10.83 an hour. Nothing pays that much more for free, and the thing it is paid for is what you should be reading about.
National employment is 111,040. At that scale hiring is continuous, the market rate is well established, and your leverage comes from being credibly willing to go somewhere else.
This work suits people who can turn a mess into a plan and then get others to follow it without having the authority to compel anyone.
No verified preparation time is on file for Fundraisers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn below $57,480 and a quarter above $92,180: a 1.6x ratio, $34,700 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.
Even the bottom quarter of Fundraisers earns $57,480 — $27.63 an hour and $7,460 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Very little of this distribution is badly paid.
Avoid it if you need authority to match responsibility — much of this work is influencing people who do not report to you.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 111,040 figure counts people already working as Fundraisers, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
A 1.6x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $72,550 as where you might be after years in Fundraisers, and $57,480 as where you would start.
In cash terms the middle half of Fundraisers runs $57,480 to $92,180 — $34,700 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $72,550.
Getting to $92,180, the 75th percentile, is worth $19,630 a year more than the $72,550 midpoint and $34,700 more than the $57,480 a quarter of Fundraisers settle for.
The climb from $72,550 to $92,180 is $19,630; the drop to $57,480 is $15,070. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Fundraisers and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Fundraisers is $34.87 an hour. The quarters sit at $27.63 and $44.31, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Fundraisers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $72,550 describes them.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $72,550 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else