In 1979 he was selected to cox the Victorian men's eight who contested and won the King's Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships.
[2] Donaldson started coaching at Melbourne's Carey Baptist Grammar School where James Tomkins stroked the first VIII in both his senior years, 1982 and 1983.
Donaldson successful coaching career was then forged on the consistent performances he extracted from the Tomkins and the rest of the Oarsome Foursome, Australia's prominent world class crew of the 1990s and early 2000s.
[4] Donaldson took Australian crews to five Olympic games including gold medal victories by the Oarsome Foursome at Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996.
[4] In 2013 he took a role as head coach of the New Zealand men's sweep crews in the World Championship campaign and that year coached the coxless pair of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray who were at that point in the middle of their six years of world dominance as a coxless pair.