"If you aren’t having fun… maybe you should consider a new career. I did."

My journey into the fascinating world of fundraising evolved from being a middle school art teacher in Meriden, Connecticut. I enjoyed sharing my love of the arts with my students but felt something more challenging and significant was out there for me.

After two years of teaching, I found a job as an art director for an advertising specialty company in Hartford, Connecticut. Creating marketing campaigns and designing catalogs out of a small windowless room made me feel claustrophobic. I felt there was no real future doing this. However, the silver lining came when a fundraising team took out space in our building, and I had a chance to design and produce the marketing materials for their client, the Salvation Army.

Spending a month with the campaign director, I learned raising funds for a meaningful nonprofit organization was a worthy cause. So, yes, I wanted to become a fundraiser. When the campaign director asked me, ‘Why do you want to be a fundraiser? I said, "Jack, I have never had so much fun, excitement, and the feeling of doing something worthwhile in my life."