#NonGraduatesWelcome is encouraging charities to drop the outdated and unnecessary requirement for fundraisers to be educated to degree level. Rather than asking for unspecified degree qualifications we are calling on organisations to be clearer about the specific skills, knowledge and experience they require – both for the role and their team. Being more open and transparent about what applicants are being judged on will empower them to decide how best to demonstrate that they are the right person for the job.
To achieve this, we are:
- Working with recruitment agencies to support their clients to replace the degree requirement with something more meaningful for organisations and more accessible for applicants.
- Engaging fundraising managers with this issue, getting them to review their job descriptions and helping to overcome the inertia that perpetuates the inclusion of this requirement. This includes speaking at conferences and events, writing articles and supporting press coverage of inclusion in the charity sector.
- Challenging organisations calling for degree-level qualifications in fundraising job descriptions, calling on them to abandon this outdated requirement and supporting them to replace it with more meaningful criteria.
Looking for opportunities to test the legal status of asking for unspecified degree qualifications. (You can learn more about why we believe this breaches the Equality Act 2010 in this article)
What you can do to help make the fundraising profession more inclusive
To support the #NonGraduatesWelcome campaign, we are calling on you to:
- Review your own organisation’s job descriptions and commit to removing this requirement.
- Speak to peers and colleagues (especially those requiring degree-level qualifications) to call on them to review their job descriptions, helping them to make their fundraising teams more diverse and inclusive.
- Include the #NonGraduatesWelcome hashtag when advertising your roles.
- Let us know if you see job adverts that include “educated to degree level” as an essential or desirable requirement (You can let us know using the Report A Job Ad form on our website)