Arts Funding Certification: A Viable Next Step for the Arts Development Community?

This paper assesses the viability of launching a fundraising certification specifically for the arts. This paper argues that while a fundraising certification may serve to professionalize the emerging discipline of fundraising for the arts, the field may not be ready for this step, and further, an arts fundraising certification could be redundant and unnecessary. A comparison to other discipline-specific fundraising certifications including religion and healthcare reveals that the strongest model available to develop a fundraising certification is through forming an affiliation with Certified Fundraising Executive International (CFRE). Responses to an original survey conducted of development professionals in the arts suggests that a model for fundraising certification in the arts based on the standards already established by the CFRE needs to be developed and further tested in order to determine whether certification will be viewed as a threat or an asset to the arts fundraising community.