Consulting With Nonprofits

Carol A. Lukas

Description

At last! A comprehensive guide to the art, craft, and business of consulting with nonprofits and community groups . . . Nonprofit consulting requires specialized skills and knowledge of how the sector works. This guide gives you the resources and tools to help you provide quality assistance throughout your career: experienced consultants will find it an invaluable reference; new consultants will get oriented to the sector and find step-by-step guidance through the entire process; technical specialists will gain insights into the larger processes that shape nonprofit organizations; for-profit consultants and business sector volunteers will discover how to shift their expertise to match the unique culture of nonprofit and community work; students in public administration, organization development, and nonprofit management will find it a useful guide for fieldwork, service projects, or future career search. With this illustrated guide you get: an overview of the nonprofit sector and unique elements of consulting with nonprofits; the six-stage process of consulting with concrete steps and challenges in each stage; the art of consulting, including roles, dynamics, and ethics; lessons from the field—stories from thirty skilled consultants offering sage advice on common challenges from setting up contracts to cross-cultural consulting to choosing a consulting role that matches the client's needs; when team consulting makes sense; key differences between internal and external consulting; how to run your business; marketing your services; setting fees, estimating costs, and billing; managing your career growth; working with funders; nine worksheets, sample proposals, professional standards, annotated bibliography; and much more!

Sujets

• Charities
• Nonprofit Organizations
• Droit et juridique
• Economics
• Business

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 1998
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781618588906
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Fieldstone Alliance An imprint of Turner Publishing Company
 
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www.turnerpublishing.com www.fieldstonealliance.com
 
Copyright © 1998 by Fieldstone Alliance. All rights reserved. Worksheets may be reproduced by purchasers of this book for use in their consulting practice; for other uses, contact the publisher. No other part of this work may be reproduced without the prior written permission of Fieldstone Alliance, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
 
We hope you find this book useful! For information about other Fieldstone Alliance publications, please see the ordering information on the last page or contact:
 
Fieldstone Alliance Publishing Center 60 Plato Boulevard East Suite 150 Saint Paul, MN 55107 800-274-6024 www.FieldstoneAlliance.org
 
Edited by Vince Hyman Illustrated by John Berry Designed by Rebecca Andrews
 
Manufactured in the United States of America Third printing, September 2010
 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 
Lukas, Carol Ann
Consulting with nonprofits : a practitioner’s guide / by
Carol Ann Lukas.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
9781618588906
1. Consultants. 2. Community development consultants.
3. Nonprofit organizations--Management. I. Title.
 
HD69.C6L85
1998 98-21983
001’.068--dc21
CIP
Acknowledgments
It took a community to write this book. I put the pen to paper, but many of the experiences and lessons belong to others. Many people provided support and encouragement during the writing. Thank you . . .
 
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation provided funding and are strong advocates for capacity building in the nonprofit sector. Barbara Kibbe encouraged and guided me and facilitated reviews by Bay Area consultants.
 
The Wilder Publishing Center, Vince Hyman, Becky Andrews, and Kirsten Lukens, are tremendously patient and skilled miracle workers with authors and publications. Vince gently and firmly hounded me, motivated me, and helped me organize my thinking. Cynthia MacLeod did great research on resources.
 
Many consultants across the country reviewed the manuscript and contributed rich stories from their combined four hundred-plus years of experience. You gave the book life: Mike Allison, Emil Angelica, Carol Barbeito, Bryan Barry, Diane Brown, Paul Connolly, Barbara Davis, Terry Donovan, Michael Garcia, Michael Groh, Larry Guillot, William Hall, Grace Hammond, Bette Huntalas, Jill Janov, Robert Kardon, Rolfe Larson, David Martin, Pixie Martin, John B. McHugh, Carter McNamara, Kathryn Merchant, Patty Oertel, Matt O’Grady, Greg Owen, Vijit Ramchandani, Karen Simmons, Somly Sitthisay, Sally Smith, Gary J. Stern, Jim Thomas, Jeanne Toms, Patti Tototzintle, Robert Walker, and Ruth Yellow Hawk.
 
My colleagues in Services to Organizations and Communities at Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, as well as the many consultants and organizations in the community I’ve worked with over the years, continue to teach and challenge me.
 
A major source for the material is from my reading of countless books and professional articles over the years. An early consulting mentor once told me that the best way to get good and stay good as a consultant was to read at least a half hour every day. Just keep reading, he told me. I’ve tried to honor that advice. After many years and the hundreds of consulting projects I’ve done, I may have confused what I’ve learned from other authors and what I’ve learned from practice. I’ve tried to reference, at least generally, work from other sources. If I’ve not referenced someone’s work appropriately I beg forgiveness.
 
My support system backed me up, covered for me, fed me, and made me laugh: Emil Angelica, Michael Gause, Kate Murphy, Barb Rose, Kay Tellekson, and Carol Zapfel. Brenna Barrett and Christopher Barrett hung through it all with me down to the finish line.
 
Carol Lukas July 1998
About the Author
Carol Lukas, president of Fieldstone Alliance, has over twenty-five years consulting and training experience with neighborhood, community development, health care, education, environment, arts, and human service organizations, as well as government agencies, foundations, collaborations, small businesses, and major corporations. Carol focuses on building connections between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and working with citywide and regional coalitions to revitalize the central neighborhoods of Saint Paul. She specializes in helping organizations and collaboratives plan and manage change in services, organizational structure, dynamics, and systems, and assists with strategic planning, community planning, coalitions and mergers, organizational assessment, restructuring, governance, and conflict management. She managed Wilder Foundation’s community forums and publication of Community Matters and is former director of Wilder Foundation’s consulting and training services.
Table of Contents
Title Page Copyright Page Acknowledgments About the Author Preface CHAPTER ONE - The Environment Consultation and the Nonprofit Sector CHAPTER TWO - The Process Stages of Consulting CHAPTER THREE - Artistry Consulting Roles, Dynamics, and Ethics CHAPTER FOUR - Nuts and Bolts Managing Your Consulting Practice Appendices Index More results-oriented books from Fieldstone Alliance
Preface
The job of running a nonprofit organization or successfully managing a community–or neighborhood-based agency is becoming increasingly complex and competitive. Strapped for resources and buffeted by economic and political forces while trying to address growing needs in the community, these organizations face enormous challenges, as well as opportunities. Many have the resources to hire consultants, planners, trainers, technical advisers, researchers, and facilitators to assist them in this enormous task; many do not.
 
This book is written for the growing numbers of consultants who provide various kinds of help to nonprofit and community organizations. It’s also written as a guide for those who haven’t yet started consulting but who, after retirement, education, or job changes, may begin. But behind those people are the thousands of nonprofit and community organizations who need highly skilled practitioners to assist them in addressing the formidable needs in our communities. The real goal of the book is to strengthen the quality of consulting available to these organizations to help them do the work of meeting human needs, educating and enriching our society, and building stronger, vital communities.
 
More than thirty consultants from across the country contributed ideas and stories and challenged my thinking during the development of this book. The final book is immeasurably enhanced by the participation of these people. Collectively, these contributors have over four hundred years of nonprofit consulting experience.
 
This book can be used in several ways:

Those who have chosen the field of nonprofit consulting as a profession will find the book useful as a reference or a way to organize what they are already doing, whether they learned it through professional training or experience.
 
People with technical specialties such as performing arts, accounting, education, social work, or housing will find the book provides a perspective on organizational and process issues encountered while consulting.
 
Those who are new to the field of consulting may use the book as orientation to the field and a step-by-step guide through a particular consulting project.
 
Consultants in the for-profit or public sectors can use the book to develop the skills and sensitivities needed when working with nonprofits.
 
Funders can learn more about what to look for when funding consultation or technical assistance to their grantees.
 
Students in public administration, nonprofit management, organization development, or related fields may find it a useful guide for fieldwork, service projects, or future career search.
The book is divided into five sections:
Chapter One The Environment: Consultation and the Nonprofit Sector Chapter Two The Process: Stages of the Consulting Process Chapter Three Artistry: Consulting Roles, Dynamics, and Ethics Chapter Four Nuts and Bolts: Managing Your Consulting Practice Appendices Resources and Tools: Further Readings And Sources, Worksheets
CHAPTER ONE
The Environment Consultation and the Nonprofit Sector

W hen I started consulting in the early 1970s, few nonprofits knew what a consultant did, and there were few of us around. In the last twenty-five years the field has exploded. Most large cities have organizations that manage groups of consultants or broker consulting services to nonprofits. Many funders and United Ways regularly support the cost of consultation to nonprofits. Consultation has become part of doing business in the nonprofit sector.
 
This chapter is intended to orient the reader to the field of consultation in the nonprofit sector. It will provide basic information on the nonprofit sector and the current environment; define consulting and explore the most common kinds of consulting provided to nonprofit and community groups; and orient the reader to some unique elements of consulting with nonprofits.

The Need for Consultants in the Nonprofit Sector
There are an estimated 1.4 million nonprofit organizations in the United States, with operating expenditures of approximately $500 billion as of 1993. Combined, these organizations represent approximately 6.5 percent of the U.S. gross national product and exceed the gross national products of all but a dozen countries worldwide 1 . Most organizations working in the arts, education, health care, human services, environment, community development, faith-based, and civic arenas are nonprofit.