Read on for our tips to get you moving in the right direction.

1. Get Credit for Previously Attended Education

If you know you’ve previously attended fundraising-related education in the last five years but can’t recall all the details, jog your memory by:

• Looking through your calendar
• Reviewing old expense reports and credit card statements
• Doing a search of your inbox

If you’re worried about not having a copy of the agenda or specific details, such as the instructor’s name or date of the training, don’t be shy about asking the event organizer for this information. They are accustomed to receiving these requests and will be glad to help.

2. Find More Education Points

There are many free and low-cost fundraising education options.

Use our My Education Finder tool to discover education pre-approved for CFRE Education points.

If you attend fundraising education not pre-approved, don’t worry. It will still count. The advantage of attending previously-approved education is knowing precisely how many points you will earn off the bat.

3. Bank Up Education Points Quickly With Recordings

Listening to or watching recordings of conference sessions also counts for points.

If you still have access to recorded sessions from a conference you previously attended, you can bank up points quickly and at no extra cost.

4. Remember: Attending Relevant Non-fundraising Education Counts

You can earn up to 10 points in non-fundraising education for attending sessions that will ultimately help you succeed in your workplace.

Management, leadership, finance, and marketing courses are just some of the non-fundraising education types that net you points.

Earning non-fundraising education points is optional so don’t sweat it if you haven’t earned any.

5. You May Have More Professional Performance Points Than You Think

The Professional Performance section tracks the funds you’ve raised as a paid, professional fundraising staff member.

Fundraising is a team sport. For instance, if you worked with three other people on your team to create a direct mail piece that brings in $89,000, you can claim that full amount for yourself. We realize it is not always possible to parse out the amount of funds an individual brought in when fundraising within a group.

You can also earn Professional Performance points via Management and Communications Projects.

These are worth five points each and must be a stand-alone project with a start and end date (e.g., sending your monthly enewsletter out would not qualify as a project but redesigning your enewsletter would).

6. Worried Something is Incorrect?

If we find an error in your application after you submit it, don’t worry. We’ll send the application back with a note of what needs to be fixed. Once you’ve made the update, there is no fee to re-submit your application.

We’re Here to Help

If you have questions about any aspect of becoming a CFRE, get in touch at succeed@cfre.org.