Ops Insights #010 Build Your Soft Skills

June 9, 2023 | Read Time: 3 minutes | Written by Jenny Kleintop

Being successful in Philanthropy Operations requires more than just tech skills. It is essential you also have the soft skills. When you acquire the needed soft skills, you’ll grow as a service-oriented professional, relationship builder, and effective communicator.

Tech Skills & Soft Skills are Coessential for Success

Soft skills are abilities which enable effective communication and social interaction with other people; interpersonal skills (Source: Oxford English Dictionary - www.oed.com). In fundraising, what this means is the ability to effectively communicate and interact with all team members under your organization's umbrella as well as those externally.

Some examples are:

  • Philanthropy leaders, CDOs, VPs, executive directors.

  • Gift officers, annual giving staff, stewardship/donor relations staff.

  • Other philanthropy operations team members and staff.

  • External stakeholders under the organization's umbrella, such as IT staff, marketing and communications staff, and so on.

  • Even other key individuals such as donors, friends, vendors, and partners.

There is a wide-range of audiences that you will interact with. Being able to have the technical skills coupled with key soft skills are essential if you want to continue to advance yourself, your team, and your nonprofit organization.

Start with 3 Soft Skills

1 - Grow as a service-oriented professional.

  • Ditch the long data request forms. Make it simple, quick, and to the point. Then have a follow-up conversation to talk through the request.

  • Work toward an open-door policy.

  • Encourage an open, transparent, communication style.

  • Empower your users – teach and train them. Then let them enter data. Try to avoid the need to “lock-down” the CRM because they don’t do it exactly the way you want it or they make mistakes.

  • Embrace patience, patience, and more patience. Often it will take repetition, adjusting presentation styles, lots of reminders, and hand-holding until they get it. This is all par for the course.

2 - Build stronger relationships with various stakeholders.

  • Learn about them professionally and personally.

  • Engage in water-cooler conversations. Even in the virtual world there are tools to help support this. If your organization does not have one, take the lead and bring one into your organization. 

  • Educate on setting realistic expectations. As you build the relationships, that opens the door to being open and transparent with colleagues. Many think a simple request is the push of a button, but if it really will take days to do, you’ll be able to start to openly educate so realistic expectations are set the next time around.

3 - Become an effective communicator.

Learn communication from the non-technical user - from the frontline fundraiser’s view.  How?

  • Talk to them.  Get to know them - ask open ended questions and listen.  How do they respond (the type of information they are giving you), what is their style (straight to point or lots of details), and what is the pace of the conversation?

  • Listen to podcasts and webinars geared toward frontline fundraisers.

  • Watch recorded interviews with CDOs or top-level executives. Observe their technique, communication style, traits, and how they are telling stories.

Don’t Delay - Take Action This Week

Take 10 minutes and write yourself a simple action plan that is achievable (small steps). For each soft skill above, write one way you will work toward it over the next three weeks. At the end of your action plan, write how you will celebrate when you accomplish this.

1 - I will grow as a service-oriented professional by…

2 - I will build stronger relationships with various stakeholders by …

3 - I will become an effective communicator by…

I will have done these three things by [enter date] and will celebrate by…

Then after three weeks, celebrate, and take the 4th week to write your next action plan. Each month, you’ll become stronger in each of these areas and soon it will become second nature.

Now, go get started. You’ve got this!


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Ops Insights #011 Track Your Praises

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Ops Insights #009 Becoming a Hyper-Connected Team