Upskilling in the High-Impact Space: Runway or Treadmill?
- May 23
- 4 min read
When pursuing a career transition, many professionals look to build upon or expand their current expertise. “Upskilling,” as it’s commonly known, can take various forms:
Obtaining a degree
Earning certifications
Learning competencies
Updating knowledge
Not only does upskilling strengthen your professional foundation, but it also shows potential employers that you possess a scout mindset, invest in the future, and take initiative.
Upskilling for Impact
Professional upskilling in the charity space is both similar to and distinct from upskilling in traditional for-profit sectors. Like in the corporate world, advancing your nonprofit career often requires more advanced abilities. However, the impact space also demands that professionals develop an understanding of issues and approaches that may differ from typical startups or Fortune 500 companies. We can separate these forms of upskilling into the following categories:
Capabilities
These are the competencies most people associate with upskilling. They include both hard and soft skills that allow you to perform higher-level work. For example, if you’re an HR manager who wants to become an HR director, you may need to build both leadership and stakeholder management skills to qualify for a promotion. Upskilling in this regard may come through pursuing more responsibilities at your current job, taking professional development courses, and/or acquiring higher industry credentials.
Understanding
To be effective within the impact space, jobseekers often need more than just well-matched skillsets. Even if your job function is directly transferable to high-impact work in areas such as Global Health and Development, Animal Welfare, or AI Safety, several differences separate mission-driven organizations from their for-profit analogs. Here are some examples:
Terminology: The impetus for many high-impact interventions emerges from research, so some language and shorthand can differ from the broader business world. Specific cause areas can also have their own nuanced vocabularies, optimized for factors important to their work (e.g., communicating with certain regions of the world, dealing with evolving technologies, acknowledging the personhood of nonhuman animals, etc.).
Frameworks: High-impact organizations also differ due to their focus on “doing good” over increasing profits. For that reason, they might rely on certain models to approach their work and measure outcomes. These include concepts such as cost-effectiveness analysis, evidence-based decision making, and the Importance, Tractability, and Neglectedness (ITN) framework.
Transparency: Capitalism is built upon competition, and it’s in the best interest of many companies to keep proprietary information secret. On the other hand, the nature of high-impact work incentivizes the disclosure of approaches, models, and results. This practice invites analysis and critique so that organizations can be even more effective at doing good.
Professional development in the impact space is about finding a healthy mix of cause-area awareness and relevant aptitudes. In that way, it also requires staying adaptable in the face of evolving evidence, methodologies, and challenges.
The Upskilling Trap
While upskilling may showcase dedication and qualify you for certain opportunities, it can also lead many hardworking and well-intentioned professionals astray. This is because it’s sometimes difficult to discern between building valuable skills and finding comfort in familiar, low-stakes environments. For example, taking a course feels like a positive investment: you learn, grow, and expand your options. You might receive a certification, add lines to your resume, and get to perform the ultimate act of productivity-focused satisfaction: crossing something off your to-do list.
However, these efforts are not always bringing you closer to your ultimate goal. Whether due to the uncertainty about your direction, imposter syndrome, or fear of failure, chronic upskilling can be a manifestation of unconscious procrastination.
Effective Upskilling
To avoid the upskilling trap, it’s important to create an informed strategy for realizing your goals:
Choose Your Direction: Decide which cause area you want to support and what role you want to play.
Identify Skill Gaps: Assess your current proficiencies and determine if new areas of expertise are necessary to be effective (both at securing a job and doing your work well).
Prioritize Strategic Learning: Apply the 80/20 rule and focus on skills that are directly relevant to your goals. Look for highly regarded programs or courses that offer quality instruction and access to community.
It’s also helpful to get advice and find support systems that can help you succeed. You can post questions about your path on forums and within groups, as well as request an informational interview at your favorite organization. Your goal is to get a clear understanding of the requirements related to your ambitions so that you can take targeted action and avoid perpetual coursework.
Upskilling Resources for High-Impact Work
Whether you’re looking to train in technical capabilities or improve domain expertise, the high-impact space offers incredible resources for stacking proficiencies. Covering a wide range of formats and commitments, the following courses can introduce you to the latest information in cause areas such as AI Safety, Biosecurity, and Animal Welfare:
BlueDot Impact’s AI Safety Fundamentals: A suite of offerings that include a two-hour primer on the Future of AI, one-week classes like Intro to Transformative AI and the Writing Intensive, as well as multi-week courses on the Economics, Alignment, and Governance of transformative AI.
BlueDot Impact’s Biosecurity Fundamentals: Designed with experts from the University of Oxford, BlueDot’s asynchronous Pandemics Course explores proposals for building a world free from dangerous outbreaks.
Animal Advocacy Careers: Your Role in Animal Advocacy is a self-paced course that empowers professionals to help animals through their career.
The Good Food Institute: The Alternative Proteins Course explores the science and innovation behind plant-based and cultivated meats.
Ambitious Impact: A full-time, 12-week Research Program that equips people with the tools needed to identify, compare, and recommend the most effective charities and interventions.
While these courses may differ in subject matter, length, and format, most are free. Check each website for the latest information and availability.
Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways
Upskilling can be a powerful way to advance your career in the impact space. However, to avoid getting stuck on the upskilling treadmill, it’s important to be self-aware, focused, and prioritize results. Here’s a basic framework for staying on the right path:
Choose your cause area and role
Identify knowledge and/or skills gaps
Approach learning strategically and ask for feedback on your plan
Take mindful action and look for opportunities to expand your network
Update your resume and promote your achievements on LinkedIn
After each accomplishment, reassess your situation and decide whether to seek out more knowledge or follow a new course of action. Ultimately, it can be good practice to pursue upskilling in the same way that high-impact organizations approach their work—to maximize effectiveness: test, measure, and refine.