canvasser

regional director

non-profit representative

fundraiser

field representative

Donor Development Strategies

A lot of the bad reviews for this job have to do with the nature of canvassing itself, and aren't necessarily the fault of the company.  As a canvasser, field manager, or director, you WILL have to spend long days working weird hours, with 5-6 of those hours being outside, on your feet, regardless of weather conditions.  You will have to experience rejection after rejection, and talk to people who aren't prepared / interested in talking to you.  In a management position, you'll also have to deal with new recruits who have no idea what they're in for.  That's going to be true for any canvassing gig, but with some natural charisma and a good work ethic, you can do a crazy amount of good for whatever cause you're supporting.
As someone who's worked for a couple different canvassing operations, my experience with DDS was above average.  First, the pay was good (at least in Boston).  When I was there, canvassers made $16/hr, field managers made $17, and directors made $20+, not including weekly bonuses for all positions.  And as long as you were meeting bare-minimum expectations, you were getting some bonus.  I felt that I was being fairly compensated for my labor, and unfortunately, a lot of people my age don't feel that way about their jobs.
On the whole, my colleagues and employees were amazing.  I made lifelong friends of my co-directors, and I know of more than a few intense friendships that started with canvassing.  DDS did its part to foster those relationships; once a week, we had company-funded staff nights, where we were allotted a modest budget for food, karaoke, bowling, or a game night at the local arcade.  It was a ton of fun, and probably the thing I miss most about working for DDS.
This job also has a lot of opportunities for professional and personal development, regardless of your background.  I had field management experience prior to joining DDS, so I was able to step straight into the Director position.  However, most directors and project managers at DDS got their first job with the company as canvassers, and worked their way up.  Pretty much any canvasser who shows promise in the field and leadership potential in the office will begin field manager training within their second or third month, and depending on your circumstances, you can be directing within a year.  The cool thing about canvassing is that anyone can be good at it, regardless of your level of education, age, race, gender, or socio-economic background.  I started canvassing in college, and joined DDS as a director at 22, just two weeks after I graduated.  I felt incredibly empowered to take on that amount of responsibility and management experience, when I know so many of my peers struggled to find comparable opportunities.
That said, there are plenty of reasons why this job might not be for you.  If you're not a people-person, if you can't work evening hours (1-9:30pm), if you can't handle rejection, or if you're uncomfortable with a position where your job security, opportunities for advancement, and potential bonuses are determined by performance, canvassing may not be the best fit.  Even as a person who can handle all those things, I had some issues with DDS.  There was one particular project manager (who was not local to our station) who was inappropriately critical of mine and my fellow director's work - simple mistakes when sending an email would be met with "How long have you been a director and you STILL don't know how to report this data?" and other unnecessarily insulting sentiments.  I'm not sure what kind of treatment management from any other offices received, but it did not escape my attention that this is how he treated the only office that had 3 women in charge.  Also, I've been told this is a problem specific to WGBH and the Boston office, but our membership data was wayyy off the mark.  It's not that we didn't have data, but the data was either way out of date or blatantly wrong.  The station needs to sit down with management and work this out ASAP, because it's honestly embarrassing to go into a community and not be able to tell an active member from a lapsed member from a household that's never contributed.
If you've taken the time to read all of this, you must be pretty serious about the position.  If you are, I encourage you to try it.  Even if it turns out canvassing / directing isn't for you, I guarantee you have something of value to gain from trying it.

The culture within the office is fantastic. It was always a fun day going in, chatting with the staff, and going out to raise money for a good cause. It was a diverse group of people, in ages/races/gender identities/experience/interests. Everyone came together as a team to accomplish the mission, and very very rarely were there problems between staff members. Everyone was respectful of each other, and the people who displayed abusive tendencies were terminated rather quickly.

The work itself varies day to day. Some days, it is the easiest job ever, other days, it is a nightmare. It more depends on how the community reacts to canvassers. It is possible to be successful everywhere, but sometimes you have to change your definition of success.

The problems stem from upper management, on the other side of the country, making unnecessary changes and not being clear as to why. Sometimes, these national managers will go as far as gaslighting their staff.

They would make procedural changes and promise that it lightens the workload, when in reality it adds to the local directors work load and lightens their own national workload. When you call them out on it, and ask “how does it benefit us?” you would not receive a straight answer. There are promises that are made and not kept, and some power-tripping. We had been ordered to terminate numerous people who did not deserve it, and even cut some people’s pay (not due to poor performance, this is another thing we never got a straight answer on).

I recommend working here as a base-level canvasser. the job is fun, the pay is decent, and the office culture is great. I do not recommend working in management here. You get a raise, but the additional workload isn’t worth it, Dealing with management who doesn’t do any in-field work & tries to tell you how to do your job is sickening, every decision made by upper-management has no-discussion (or you will be reprimanded for “pushback”), and the constant bureaucracy kills the passion for wanting to do good work. 

This job is not worth your time and if it is it's only until something better comes along. The day starts with extremely repetitive meetings that don't go over anything new. Every. Single. Day! Maybe an update on how much money has been raised for the week. Afterwords you're made to practice the script over and over again with no real beneficial instruction. Different directors give different criticisms which are oftentimes in direct conflict with what a previous director has said. This criticism is often time not really reflective of the real world conversations you're having, conversations which are directly related to how much money you personally raise. You're then shipped out to a neighborhood and told to knock doors until a certain time, a time which is completely at the discretion of the director or field manager driving.  If they want to extend it they will. Should you miss a day due to illness they pressure you into making up the shift on a Saturday within the next two weeks. If THEY cancel a shift due to weather you're still required to make up the shift. Its essentially a mandatory Saturday shift that they can write you up for not attending. Their base salary is not $15+ plus an hour like it states in big and bold letters. Its only $11 UNLESS you hit quota for the week, ONLY then are you eligible for the bonuses you earned. Miss weekly quota by 5$? Tough...you get base rate only. QUOTA IS KING. In order to even be offered a position on staff you have to raise a high enough amount on one of your first three days for them to even keep you around. This is not an exhaustive list of the reasons this job may not be for you. 

I'd really recommend passing on this "opportunity".

The work was all right, especially if you're already familiar with canvassing or door to door sales. I definitely learned a lot about how to manage a team in my time, as well as administrative work that I can carry into my next position.

However, I have issues with the treatment of employees by management. Even though I was one of the leads in my particular office, I still reported to a superior who, in addition to not living in the same state as I did, did not completely understand the market of my area in my opinion. The area we live in is incredibly expensive to live in, and when people apply for jobs, they expect to be well compensated in order to live. My coworker, who had worked for many other canvassing companies in the area, said that this one paid the worst out of all of them on all levels, and that he as certain this was one of the main reasons why we had such a horrible retention rate, which I believe. Yet despite our efforts to bring this up to our superiors, the consistently blew us off and didn't believe us, saying that people could make it up in their bonuses when that just wasn't the case.

The biggest issue I have with them is the fact that I showed up to work on day to find the two PMs in the office cleaning it out and telling me then and there that the office was being shut down. No heads up, no warning, no nothing. That's a very disrespectful way to treat employees, especially considering that we had just hired 2 new people that week and we were in the process of hiring more.

I'm grateful to the experience I learned in my time here. But they need to do a serious re-examination of the way they treat their employees.

When working for Donor Development Strategies, be prepared to get rid of any notion you have about "slacking off" ... If you aren't a hard worker, this job isn't for you. Be prepared to memorize a script and to have decent sales skills. A lot of the job revolves around being persistent with the people you are trying to sign up for memberships. If you have thick skin and a tough work ethic, you will sign up memberships and you will make your quotas and bonuses. If you can't handle rejection and can't handle knocking on doors in sometimes difficult weather then this is not the job for you. The pay and benefits are great, and the management team is super dedicated to making you succeed. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met. But that comes with the caveat that you will work hard in turn, knocking on all your doors, asking people multiple times for money, etc ... It can be mentally taxing at times but if you have a "grind" mentality then you can make a living working for Donor Development Strategies. If you have a winner takes all attitude you will succeed here and I recommend applying, but if you are someone who crumbles under pressure then this is not for you. 

A lot of canvassing companies work to motivate and retain their employees primarily by getting them excited about "the cause". For example, some environmental canvassing groups may not offer extensive benefits or paid training, but they entice employees to stay with them by saying they need to "fight for environmental justice".

DDS does great work for public media, and I've always been a huge proponent of "the cause", but they also take care of their employees and provide job-security and opportunities to grow and advance that don't exist elsewhere in the industry. All training is paid, including the "observation day", entry-level canvassers get healthcare and paid vacation/sick days, and uncapped bonus means that you can make as much here as you could in some competitive sales jobs: the base wage might not seem that great, but if you pay attention in training and put in at least minimal effort in the field, you can easily make over $20/hr right off the bat. If you're at least moderately competitive and motivated by a higher paycheck, you get rewarded handsomely here.

The training is great but short. They throw you in the deep and its sink or swim. The managers are fun and do a fair enough job. But very inexperienced. Field Mangers get promoted in two or three months sometimes even less. All they have to prove is they can bring in money and boom. They don't even kno the employee yet and now he's a boss. That's absurd. Zero job sercurity as in if you don't bring in 900 bucks for 2 weeks you are on the verge of being fired. Three weeks and your gone. Turn over rate is about a thousand! Directors spend most their time calling and training new hires. When they could be working or making appointments for the team. Selecting better areas or just overall bettering the system. But no they work that rotating door of hires and fires/quits all day. Bad bad model. Worst I've ever heard of. But the Directors are talented nice people. They can't change the structure. They don't have the power. If they simply changed to monthly or quarterly quotas it would change things drastically! They'd have a sharper more experienced team and management. Save money they waste on new hires every week. And lower their turn over ratio. The business model is like a child drew it up. I doubt very seriously it can sustain.

Typical day, you arrive at 1pm, do “training” for 45 mins, eat lunch (unpaid 30 mins), then get ready to canvass in the field for 5 hours. When you come back, it’s very simple accounting and a little debrief. 

Parts I enjoyed: 
• conversations with people
• gaining a realistic picture of who supported the cause and why
• collecting for a cause I believe in

Hard part: walking 5-8 miles daily in heat, rain, or whatever. Being told no everyday, a lot. Making quota isn’t the hardest, but it can be in some neighborhoods. Staying hydrated.

My issues: leadership is lacking. They seem to say stuff from the top down and expect everyone to believe it. I can’t tell if that’s from bosses in Chicago or our Directors. 

Also, there have been multiple issues with paychecks and bonuses. 

They expect you to put your car on the line, with your own insurance and offer only the IRS standard reimbursement. 

And the directors have been sick multiple times where they just come in and don’t really respect the fact that they get insurance benefits while you (their employee) is exposed and relying on the job. Pneumonia was passed off as allergies.



I'll admit at first this seemed like a decent job. Management was nice. Told me they want me to feel "part of the office." As my job continued management revealed their true selves. 
I was barely trained. I was put into situations where I had to use my scarce training to run the office. When I made a mistake I was yelled at for making said mistakes. This continued for awhile until it became too much. I felt depressed going to work and would clam up because I didn't feel heard or respected. 
I confronted upper management about not feeling respected and wanting to be treated like everyone else. They told me I shouldn't "expect to feel coddled." I was told I would be "trained as I go." If I made mistakes and was yelled at it was my fault for not asking questions...asking questions in regards to training I never, or barely encountered. 
The management blatantly chose favorites. They flaunted this during car rides to turf by expressing compliments for the chosen ones...while others in the car sat in silence..too scared to say anything for fear of being belittled. 
I cannot express how terrible of an experience this was for me.  I felt so small and unappreciated.
Think twice before applying here.  

Door-to-door outreach to potential donors has the benefits of immediately and directly impacting the well-being of partner organizations. When successful, sharing in the excitement of new members provides sufficient job satisfaction to erase hours or days of defeat. But, those inclined to frame the day-to-day efforts of donor outreach in terms of victory or failure may find the strain on morale too much to bear. 

Striving to support DDS's partner organizations demands patience and stamina; those looking to quickly leverage the compensation structure for immediate benefit could be disappointed by hours of as absolute a rejection as the third round of knocks on the doors of empty houses. 

Management provides daily training and meetings that are open places to address strategies, shortcomings, and successes. Work-culture here revolves around solidarity between co-workers that cleberate together. Fundraising strategies supplied by managers genuinely work at the cost of commitment to genuine on-the-job dedication to both the strategies and the cause of the partner organization.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Canvasser 30 salaries reported	$21.67 per hour
Regional director 4 salaries reported	$67,500 per year
Non-profit representative 10 salaries reported	$20.10 per hour
Fundraiser 4 salaries reported	$19.00 per hour
Field representative 3 salaries reported	$20.00 per hour

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