“When I grow up I want to be a nonprofit fundraiser.”

This post was contributed by Elizabeth Clawson, a young nonprofit professional who has worked in organizations ranging from small local offices to national headquarters. She recently relocated from Washington, DC, to Seattle, where she grew up, and is relishing the search for her next career opportunity.. Follow her on Twitter.

One of the best parts of working in the nonprofit sector is that it offers so many career tracks. Social work, membership, communications, administration, etc.—there’s something for everybody. But if I could nudge young professionals toward just one, I would say: go into fundraising.

It’s been demonized plenty, even by nonprofit professionals, many of whom insist “I never want to fundraise.” And responsible for this is one major myth: that fundraising is all about asking for money.

That myth does a lot of damage. Who wants to feel like a panhandler? But any professional fundraiser will tell you that their job isn’t about asking for money. It’s about building relationships. It doesn’t matter what your organization’s source of funding is: foundations, individuals, corporate sponsors…you have to build relationships with them all.

Relationships are reciprocal. Someone funds your organization because it promotes their own work. Your program delivers results that match the goals of a foundation; your event provides advertising exposure to hundreds of attendees; your services help people that individual donors want to help. It’s a true partnership, and it’s for a good cause.

If that weren’t enough of a reason to be a fundraiser, there’s also job security. Search Idealist for nonprofit fundraising jobs across the country and you’ll come up with nearly 600 results—more than communications and administration combined. Even in a recession, nonprofits are hiring fundraising staff. (I should know—I’ve applied for several open positions in the past few weeks since moving to Seattle.)

So those are some of the reasons you might be interested in a nonprofit fundraising career. But what would you actually be doing?

If you land an internship or entry-level fundraising job, here are some tasks you might tackle on a daily basis:

• Prospecting (researching potential funders to approach)
• Preparing letters of inquiry (pre-proposals), proposals, reports, or acknowledgments
• Drafting appeals to individual donors
• Maintaining a donor database
• Briefing your executive director before a meeting with funders

Some of this, granted, is clerical, just like in any nonprofit job. But much of the work requires an intimate understanding of your organization: what makes its work unique and valuable, how others can relate to it, and how it meets the needs of your funding partners.

To get a glimpse into the minds of some nonprofit fundraisers, check out the “Day in the Life” post at A Small Change Blog. Or look for fundraisers on LinkedIn and Twitter to see what they’re talking about.