An interactive toolkit that turns the Executive Director role from reactive to rhythmic: living planning worksheets, a cadence calendar, board and conversation prep, your annual review, and a short course, all in one place.
Improve a document you already have: As well as generating documents, you can upload one you already wrote and have AI improve it. Open the AI Automations page and use the "Improve an existing document with AI" card: pick a file (Word, text, or a text-based PDF), and AI returns a cleaner version plus a summary of what changed, with your original kept.
The Executive Director app helps the person who runs a nonprofit lead with a plan instead of from the inbox. Instead of static PDFs, it gives you a set of interactive tools that produce real documents on your own letterhead, and it remembers what you enter so each tool becomes a living worksheet you maintain over time.
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, and every document can be exported to Word, plain text, or print.
Brand new to the app? Follow these steps in order. By the end you will have set up your organization and produced your first real document. The labels in blue match exactly what you see on screen.
Most tools work like a worksheet you fill in and keep, not a form you complete once and lose.
These build the plans an Executive Director returns to all year. Every planning tool follows the same pattern: open it from the Plans sidebar group, answer the form, add notes, then click the Generate button to produce a document you can export.
A structured 30 / 60 / 90 day plan for a new Executive Director: listen first, stabilize the essentials, then earn a few early wins. Tailored to your situation.
Your goals for the year, tied to the strategy and budget. This is the plan the board supports and evaluates you against, and the exact input the ED Self-Evaluation reviews at year end.
Mission, vision, and three to five strategic priorities your annual goals ladder up to. Short enough that the whole board can hold it in their heads. When you click Generate my strategic plan, it compiles a single board-ready plan for you.
The compiled plan pulls the rest of the pieces together automatically so you are not re-typing what already lives in your other apps:
From the plan window you can polish the whole document with Improve with AI (it returns a cleaner version plus a summary of what changed, with your original kept), and send the finished plan to your board for e-signature adoption with Send for board adoption, which files the signed copy in your Document Library.
Turns the strategy into this year’s objectives across programs, fundraising, operations, and people, then hands the dated pieces to the Cadence Calendar.
Who steps in, where the keys are, and how the organization keeps running if the Executive Director is suddenly unavailable. A plan boards increasingly ask for, refreshed once a year.
Open these from the Running the Year sidebar group. They keep the year on track once the plans are set.
Turns the year into a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual checklist of the Executive Director’s recurring work, tailored to your board cadence and focus.
Generates a ready-to-import .ics calendar of your whole-year cadence: Form 990 and state deadlines, board prep, fundraising checkpoints, and planning milestones. Import it into Google, Apple, or Outlook.
Builds a focused standing agenda plus this meeting’s topics for your recurring check-in with the board chair, ready to send ahead.
Prep scripts for the high-stakes conversations: asking the chair for help, delivering hard news, addressing underperformance, pushing back on overreach, a major-donor ask, and a graceful no.
Produces an honest year-in-review and a clean packet the board can use for your annual evaluation, on your letterhead and signature. This tool covers your own evaluation as Executive Director: you prepare your side here, and the board runs its side in the ED Evaluation view of Board Management, while reviews of your staff and contractors live in the separate Employee Reviews view below.
The Employee Reviews view (in the Running the Year sidebar group, just below ED Self-Evaluation, with a matching Dashboard card) is where you run annual reviews for your staff and contractors. It is available to the organization owner or an org Admin. The roster comes straight from the Employees directory in the Employment & HR app, and the review records are stored on your organization account, so the HR app's Reviews view works from the exact same records. A person appears on the Contractors tab when their Employment type in the HR roster contains "Contractor"; everyone else appears on the Employees tab.
Pick a person and a review year, then start or open the review. Click Request self-review and the employee gets an email plus an instant notification on their member portal, where they complete a five-question self-review: what they accomplished, what was hard, how they did against goals, goals for the next period, and the support they need. Their answers autosave as a draft, and submitting locks them. The manager worksheet and summary are never shown to the employee.
When the self-review comes in you see it side by side while you complete the manager worksheet: what went well, areas to grow, goals for the next period, an overall rating, and internal compensation or role notes. The worksheet autosaves when you leave a field. From there:
Contractor evaluations are manager-only, with no self-review. Each record carries a Contract requirements checklist: add requirements by hand, or upload or paste the contract (.docx, .pdf, or .txt up to 15MB) and let AI propose the checklist, approving each item before it is added. Score each requirement Met, Partially met, or Not met with notes, then assess quality of work, timeliness, budget adherence, and communication, and record a bottom-line recommendation: renew, renegotiate, rebid, or end. The record keeps the scored checklist, so you build a year-over-year paper trail before each renewal decision.
Three AI helpers (compiling a submitted self-review into the worksheet, drafting the review summary document, and extracting requirements from a contract) are documented in the AI Automations Guide. Everything in this view is management documentation and general HR education, not legal advice.
The AI Automations tab drafts executive director documents from a few answers: a board report, annual goals from your strategy, a self-evaluation narrative, talking points for a hard conversation, a 90-day plan, an ED job description, and a new-ED welcome. Every output opens in an editor with the full export toolbar: Copy, Word, Text, Print, and Email to any address. You review and edit everything before it is used.
Each automation is documented in detail in the AI Automations Guide.
A short, practical course on leading a nonprofit as Executive Director: five modules covering the role, running the year, working with the board, money and sustainability, and leading people and yourself. Each module has concise lessons and a quick quiz, and your progress is saved. Lessons link straight to the tool that puts the idea into practice.
Set these once and every document the app produces uses them:
Everything you enter, including your worksheets, notes, and course progress, is saved to your account as you work, so it is backed up and available when you sign in on another device. The app runs in your browser for speed and syncs to your account in the background; if you have edited on two devices, a short prompt asks which copy to keep, and clearing your browser data is safe because your account copy restores when you sign back in. Your organization branding (letterhead, footer, and signature) is set once on the My Organization page and applied here. Documents are generated in your browser and downloaded directly to you.
The Executive Director app sets leadership-level direction. For the detailed work behind each plan, reach for the specialist apps:
Questions or feedback? Email [email protected]. This guide is a public reference, no sign-in required.
Looking for help beyond the platform? See our Helpful Resources page for vetted external resources on legal and tax filing, funder research, governance training, insurance, technology discounts, and more.
From our Learn library: the nonprofit life cycle.
In your settings you can brand the documents this app generates and speed up repeated writing: