Why would you want to hire external consultants?

• The organization has limited or no expertise in the area of need, for instance, what steps to take to create an effective non-profit or simply what to do next.

• The time of need is short-term, for example, less than a year, so it may not be worth hiring a full-time, permanent staff member.

• The organization’s previous attempts to meet its own needs were not successful, for example, the non-profit developed a strategic plan that was never implemented.

• Organization members continue to disagree about how to meet the need and, thus, bring in a consultant to provide expertise or facilitation skills to come to consensus.

• Leaders want an objective perspective from someone without strong biases about the organization’s past and current issues.

1. A consultant can do the work that no one else wants to do, for example, data analysis of assessments/demographic information.  (Some would argue that this is not really a consulting project.)

1. A funder or other key stakeholder demands that a consultant be brought in to help further develop the non-profit organization.

Poor Reasons to Hire a Consultant

• The organization wants a consultant to lend credibility to a decision that has already been made, for example, the Board of Directors has decided to reorganize the non-profit, but the CEO disagrees – so the Board hires a consultant to lend expert credibility to their decision.  Many consultants might consider this reason to hire a consultant unethical.

1. A supervisor doesn’t want to directly address a problem of poor performance with one of the employee’s, so the supervisor hires a consultant to do the job that the employee should be doing.  This is an irresponsible action on the part of the supervisor.

• The organization does not want to pay benefits (vacation pay, holiday pay, pension, etc.) or go through administrative processes to without payroll taxes (social security taxes, federal taxes, etc.), so the organization hires a consultant.  This reason for hiring a consultant is likely to be illegal and could result in the organization paying fines and penalties to the appropriate government agency.

“Successful organizational change is indeed a process – a journey –

that you and your consultant take together.”

Let us here at It’s Up 2 You help bring your organization to the place you envision it!