Pick the right skill
How to choose skills by your role and by the task in front of you today.
Two ways to pick a skill
There are two useful ways to browse this library:
- By your role — which skills belong in the toolkit of an executive director, a development officer, a program manager, or a consultant?
- By the task in front of you today — which skill is the right one for a specific job, and how do you avoid overlap with neighboring skills?
By role
Executive directors and COOs
Executive leaders benefit from a broad but shallow toolkit — enough of each domain to speak fluently with staff and board, plus depth in strategy and governance.
Start with:
- Strategic planning
- Board governance
- Change management
- Revenue diversification
- Financial statements
- Succession planning
Development directors and fundraisers
Almost the entire Fundraising & Development category will be relevant. If you only pick a few:
- Donor pipeline
- Major gifts
- Grant writing plus Grant research
- Annual appeals
- Donor retention
- Storytelling — dignity-centered case for support
Program managers and directors
- Program design — logic model and theory of change
- Outcomes measurement
- Needs assessment
- Program scaling
- Volunteer management
Advisors and consultants
Consultants get value across many categories at once, because most skills flag how guidance differs for practitioners versus advisors. A strong consulting starter set:
- Strategic planning
- Board governance plus Board recruitment
- Change management
- Mergers & fiscal sponsorship
- EOS/Traction for nonprofits
- Capital campaigns if you work with fundraising clients
Finance and operations staff
Communications and marketing leads
- Brand messaging
- Storytelling
- Annual report
- Email newsletter
- Social media
- Media relations
- Donation page copy
By the task in front of you
Match the job you are about to do with the right skill.
| The job in front of you | The skill to load |
|---|---|
| Write an LOI or full grant proposal | Grant writing |
| Find the right funder in the first place | Grant research |
| Prepare a major-gift ask | Major gifts |
| Design a year-end appeal | Annual appeals |
| Plan a gala or peer-to-peer event | Fundraising events |
| Structure a capital campaign | Capital campaigns |
| Choose the right 990 variant | Form 990 |
| Register to solicit in a new state | Charitable registration |
| Set up a c3/c4 structure with lobbying | c3/c4 structure |
| Build a board recruitment matrix | Board recruitment |
| Build next year's operating budget | Budgeting |
| Explain functional expense allocation | Financial statements |
| Set a reserve policy | Reserves & cash flow |
| Draft a logic model for a new program | Program design |
| Build an evaluation plan | Outcomes measurement |
| Write dignity-centered beneficiary stories | Storytelling |
| Optimize a donation page | Donation page copy |
| Plan a legislative lobby day | Legislative advocacy |
| Assess a merger or fiscal sponsorship | Mergers & fiscal sponsorship |
| Roll out EOS/Traction inside a nonprofit | EOS/Traction |
| Choose or clean up a donor CRM | Donor CRM |
| Run a thrift store donation-intake process | Donation intake & grading |
When two skills seem to overlap
Every skill has a boundary line in its description that explains where a neighboring skill takes over. If you install both, the agent will route the work to the right one. When in doubt, install both and let the trigger phrases sort it out.