The Universal Skills Project is built on a simple but powerful truth: the skills that help us thrive are learned everywhere—at home, at school, and at work—and they grow best when there is a shared language, intentional practice, and supportive systems around them.
At home, Universal Skills Project recognizes that families are already teaching essential skills every day through routines, conversations, conflict, play, and care. Our work supports families in becoming more intentional about naming these skills, noticing where children are already strong, and gently strengthening what comes next, without adding more to already full lives. We help families integrate skill-building into daily rhythms so children grow into people who can feel good, do good, and navigate the world with confidence.
In schools and districts, Universal Skills Project serves as a foundational framework that embeds seamlessly into existing systems like PBIS, MTSS, restorative practices, and academic instruction. Drawing on over seven years of experience as a school principal and district coordinator, we align Universal Skills across classrooms, interventions, and school culture, so they are not an add-on, but the connective tissue. When schools share a common skill language and intentionally teach, model, and assess these skills, we see improved student outcomes, stronger relationships, and more coherent systems that support both learning and belonging.
In workplaces and organizations, Universal Skills Project helps adults continue growing the same core skills they need to collaborate, innovate, communicate, and lead with integrity. Through self-assessments, learning programs, and professional development, we support organizations in building reflective, skill-centered cultures where people understand their strengths, navigate complexity, learn from feedback, and adapt thoughtfully over time.
Across all settings, Universal Skills Project centers four core domains—Personal Development, Community Connection, Innovative Thinking, and Effective Communication, as universal, transferable skills for life. Our approach is human-centered, systems-aware, and grounded in real practice, helping individuals and organizations grow skills that matter everywhere they show up.
ABOUT RAE AND LIZ
Rae Donovan is a practical and visionary leader dedicated to aligning systems of holistic support, from the roots up. With two decades of experience as an educator, program director, and both district-wide and school-based administrator, she brings dynamic leadership and grounded solutions to every role she takes on. Shaped by living and working around the globe, her diverse experiences have been alchemized into a clear, equity-driven path for systemic improvement in schools and communities. From 2022 to 2025, Rae served as principal of Ferrisburgh Central School, where she championed a vision of dynamic, community-based learning rooted in the Transferable Skills Framework—a model she designed and implemented in two Vermont school districts. Under her leadership, PreK–6 students and their families engaged in a skills-based education intentionally aligned to cultivate resilience, collaboration, and creativity. Equally crucial to the success of this alignment is the parallel process of Skills development for adults inside any system.
Liz Rudnicki brings twenty years of artistic practice creating, constructing, and performing in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, and Los Angeles, before arriving in Vermont in 2020. In 2023, she joined forces at Ferrisburgh Central School to bring art and theatre into the school and in 2024, she worked with Rae to co-create the dynamic and innovative Wellness and Learning Center at FCS, a space that integrated art, nature, gardening, and play into the teaching of transferable skills. Working one-on-one and with small groups, Liz and Rae discovered how deeply art and play could empower learning and healing through the lens of direct instruction of the Transferable Skills, and from that revelation, the vision of The Universal Skills Project was born.
