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Monday Oct 29, 2007
Welcome to the pony club?
I went to a training seminar on Friday afternoon for corporate fundraisers from a mix of different charities. During the coffee break I was stood gazing out the window when another (male) fundraiser wondered over and asked me if I felt, like him, a little out numbered.
Looking round the room I could see what he meant. Out of around 40 delegates, there were 3 guys (myself included). What's more, I would estimate that 75% of the audience were white females, under the age of 30.
A colleague at a former employer coined a term for this huge gender and class generalisation – "the pony club". I think that's a big assumption (and pretty degrading to be honest), but it can't be denied that the majority of corporate fundraisers do fit the same demographic (and I include myself 100% in this group).
I've noticed a similar trend with CSR and Community Investment professionals as well – from my experience most entry level CSR roles are held by women under the age of 30, although the percentage of women seems to drop sharply as you move up in seniority (which some of you won't be surprised about).
So why is corporate fundraising (and I suspect fundraising in general) so dominated by women? In fact, why are there so many white, traditionally middle class corporate fundraisers (and I'm slap bang in the middle of that group)?
Sociologists – over to you.
I'm going to do a completely unscientific study and keep a tally of the gender and ethnicity split at the next few seminars I go to – if you're really lucky I might even put the results up on this blog (unless I get a life in the meantime and find other things to wonder about).
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 9:46 AM ) Link to this post Comments[2]