Fundraising Consultants: A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations (AFP Fund Development Series)

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Fundraising Consultants A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations

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Fundraising Consultants A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations

Eugene A. Scanlan, PhD, CFRE

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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1 This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright # 2009 by Eugene A. Scanlan, PhD, CFRE. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. For general information on our other products and services, or technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at 800-762-2974, outside the United States at 317-572-3993 or fax 317-572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our Web site at http://www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Scanlan, Eugene A. Fundraising consultants: a guide for nonprofit organizations/Eugene A. Scanlan. p. cm.—(The AFP fund development series) Includes index. ISBN 978-0-470-34015-8 (cloth) 1. Fund raising. 2. Nonprofit organizations—Finance. I. Title. HG177.S293 2009 2008045554 658.15 0224–dc22 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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& The AFP Fund Development Series

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he AFP Fund Development Series is intended to provide fund development professionals and volunteers, including board members (and others interested in the nonprofit sector), with top-quality publications that help advance philanthropy as voluntary action for the public good. Our goal is to provide practical, timely guidance and information on fundraising, charitable giving, and related subjects. The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and Wiley each bring to this innovative collaboration unique and important resources that result in a whole greater than the sum of its parts. For information on other books in the series, please visit: www.afpnet.org.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) represents over 30,000 members in more than 197 chapters throughout the United v

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the afp fund development series

States, Canada, Mexico, and China, working to advance philanthropy through advocacy, research, education, and certification programs. The association fosters development and growth of fundraising professionals and promotes high ethical standards in the fundraising profession. For more information or to join the world’s largest association of fundraising professionals, visit www.afpnet.org.

2008–2009 AFP Publishing Advisory Committee CHAIR: Nina P. Berkheiser, CFRE Principal Consultant, Your Nonprofit Advisor Linda L. Chew, CFRE Development Consultant D. C. Dreger, ACFRE Senior Campaign Director, Custom Development Solutions, Inc. (CDS) Patricia L. Eldred, CFRE Director of Development, Independent Living Inc. Samuel N. Gough, CFRE Principal, The AFRAM Group Audrey P. Kintzi, ACFRE Director of Development, Courage Center Steven Miller, CFRE Director of Development and Membership, Bread for the World Robert J. Mueller, CFRE Vice President, Hospice Foundation of Louisville Maria Elena Noriega Director, Noriega Malo & Associates Michele Pearce Director of Development, Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Atlanta Leslie E. Weir, MA, ACFRE

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Director of Family Philanthropy, The Winnipeg Foundation Sharon R. Will, CFRE Director of Development, South Wind Hospice John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Susan McDermott Senior Editor (Professional/Trade Division) AFP Staff: Jan Alfieri Manager, New Product Development Rhonda Starr Vice President, Education and Training

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This book is dedicated to my consultant and life partner, Joanne. It is also dedicated to the memory of my parents, who taught me the importance of ethics and fairness in all that I do.

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& Contents Acknowledgments About the Author Introduction

xv xvii xix

CHAPTER 1

No, We Don’t Need a Consultant! Summary

1 24

CHAPTER 2

Yes, We Really Need a Consultant! Summary

25 54

CHAPTER 3

What Should We Do First? Step One: Know Your Organization Step Two: Identify Your Organization’s Real Needs The Next Internal Steps Some Possible Alternative Arrangements Summary

55 55 57 59 61 69

CHAPTER 4

The Request for Proposal—A Short Introduction The Written External RFP The Written Internal RFP The Unwritten Consensus RFP Advantages of the Internal RFP and RFP Contents Summary

CHAPTER 5

Finding Consultants—Where Are They? They’re Everywhere, They’re Everywhere! Using Your Own Organization as a Source Asking Other Organizations

71 71 72 72 73 76 77 77 79 81

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Using Workshops, Seminars, and Conferences as Sources Professional Organizations as Sources Professional Organizations of Consultants as Sources Using the Internet Summary

81 84 85 87 87

CHAPTER 6

Information, Please! Three Ways to Find Consultants: A Quick Review Using the Consultant’s Web Site or Printed Materials Using Examples of the Consultant’s Work Reference Checks as Critical Sources Using Informal Contacts with Colleagues Using Colleagues Active in Professional Associations Using an Online Search Engine Summary

89 89 91 99 100 103 103 104 104

CHAPTER 7

The Proposal for Services Overview of Proposals Objectives of Proposals A Sample Proposal Outline Analyzing the Proposal’s Content Who Does What Confidentiality Fee and Expense Structures in Proposals Timelines Who Will Deliver the Services Reviewing and Editing Materials Registration and Contract Filing Issues Legal or Ethical Disclosure Solicitor Registration Product/Outcome Definition Seeking a Revised Proposal and Negotiating Summary

107 107 108 109 112 114 115 116 120 121 121 123 123 124 124 125 126

CHAPTER 8

The Interview Overview of Interviews Focus of Preproposal Interviews Focus of Postproposal Interviews

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Alternative Interview Methods Summary

137 138

CHAPTER 9

Selection and the Contract Importance of Group Process Contract Preparation Alternatives Contents of Consultant-Prepared Contracts Review of Contracts by Attorneys Summary

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CHAPTER 10

Working with Your Consultant Keeping Focused on the Project Consulting Partnerships The Staff Trap The First Day and First Steps Materials for Review Sharing Unwritten Information Working Arrangements Timelines and Meeting Review Procedures Defined Defining a Process for Written Materials Review The Case Letter of Invitation to Prospective Interviewees Interview Questionnaire Campaign Materials Policies and Procedures Meeting Materials Training Materials Prospecting Materials Other Written Materials Consultants as Creative Resources Events General Advice and Counsel Some General Considerations Keeping the Consultant Informed Planning and Scheduling Meetings and Conference Calls Your Consultant’s Other Skills Dealing with Issues Payment Issues

145 145 146 148 150 151 154 155 155 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 165 166 166 167 168 169 171 172 173 174 176 179

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Some Background Points Summary

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CHAPTER 11

Wrap-up and After The Consultant Always Leaves Delivering the Report and Recommendations What’s Next? When Nothing Happens Ensuring Follow-through End-of-Campaign Debriefings Summary

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CHAPTER 12

Conclusions Some Final Thoughts Who Gets the Credit? The Best Fundraising Consultant

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Additional Selected Readings AFP Code of Ethics for Professional Philanthropic Fundraisers A Donor Bill of Rights Index

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& Acknowledgments

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omewhat like the Academy Award acceptance speech efforts, there are many people who should be acknowledged for their help, both direct and indirect, with the preparation of this book. The following people played a significant role in encouraging me to write the book: Jan Alfieri and Cathy Williams at the Association of Fundraising Professionals headquarters, and Barbara Ciconte of Ciconte and Associates, Inc. Special thanks are also due to my publisher, John Wiley & Sons, especially to Susan McDermott and Judy Howarth for their patience during our four-month process of selling our house in Washington, D.C., and moving to British Columbia. Finally, thanks are due to all of my colleagues and friends in the consulting business and to all of the organizations that I have worked with over the past 25-plus years as a consultant.

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& About the Author

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ugene ‘‘Gene’’ Scanlan, PhD, CFRE, is president of eScanlan Company. He has spent over 25 years as a consultant to nonprofit organizations, including serving as vice president and senior vice president of the Alford Group, a national consulting firm. He has also served as a grant-making foundation program officer and fiscal manager, the foundation officer for the Brookings Institution, the director of development for Defenders of Wildlife, and as an independent consultant to several organizations. Prior to his career in nonprofit consulting and development, he spent 10 years as a college and university administrator and teacher. In addition to his consulting work, Gene holds or has held several academic appointments, including serving as adjunct associate professor at the University of Maryland University College; associate professorial lecturer in International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University; and as a member of the advisory council for the George Mason University Nonprofit Management Program. He also is a certified online instructor. He chaired the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ (AFP) Research Council, served on the steering committee for the Professional Advancement Division, and served a third term as a board member of AFP’s D.C. chapter, after serving as chapter president in 1994. He continues to serve on several AFP committees and task forces. He has published several articles and a book on corporate and foundation fundraising and is a frequent presenter. He received the 2003 Professional Fundraiser of the Year award from the Washington, D.C., chapter of AFP. He now lives in Sechelt, British Columbia, with his wife, Joanne.

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& Introduction Busboy's Holiday It was my first day on the job as vice president of Alford & Associates, a relatively new small fundraising consulting firm based in Chicago. Jimmie Alford, the founder, had a long history of work with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago, including most recently serving as the chief development officer for the citywide organization. I was joining the firm as the third professional staff member after spending about four years as a program officer and fiscal manager at The Chicago Community Trust, Chicago’s large community foundation. Making the move from a large, established (and prestigious) organization to a small, one-year-old consulting firm was seen by some colleagues as strange at best. And, after meeting other fundraisers, it became obvious that their ideal move would have been the other way. But for me the challenge was to continue helping nonprofit organizations with something more than just money—and maybe help them also acquire more funding. The big question in my mind was ‘‘Do I have what it takes to be a fundraiser—and especially to serve as a fundraising consultant?’’ Here I was working for a highly skilled professional fundraiser, and now was vice president of a consulting firm, but I had never raised a dime! Did I have any skills that could be applied to this new job? I arrived at the office on my first day. Actually, it was also the first day for the office itself—Jimmie had just signed a lease and purchased the office equipment after working out of his home for a year. I was nervous

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about starting a new job and my possibly questionable skills to do it; Jimmie was nervous about committing to the expenses of a long-term lease, the newly purchased office equipment, and, although he did not mention it, the cost of his new employee—me. Nancy, the other vice president, had a way of cheering us up and calming us both down. Jimmie told us that we had a corporate lunch meeting with a client that day; the purpose of the lunch was to acquaint several companies’ senior staff members with the organization as part of cultivation for a planned major fundraising effort. We needed to arrive early to ensure that the caterer had everything set up for the lunch meeting, and to keep the organization’s board chair on track with his roles there. We left the office about 11:00 A.M., arrived at the client’s office at about 11:15, and walked into the area where the lunch was to be held. Right away it was obvious something was wrong. The tables and chairs for the lunch were folded and stacked against the wall, there were boxes containing the utensils and the tablecloths, and the caterer was nowhere to be found. Nancy and Jimmie were very upset. I, however, at least knew I had one skill that was useful for this consulting business— I had worked two summers as a busboy in a very busy seafood restaurant in New Jersey. I knew how to set tables up—and fast! I quickly proceeded to set up the 10 tables while Jimmie tracked down the caterer and Nancy helped me. The caterer arrived back with the appetizers and the deserts, and then left again, just as the guests were arriving, to get the lunch food. The appetizers and desserts were almost totally consumed, and the main course arrived about 12:45 P.M. The program part of the lunch went off smoothly, although slightly delayed. As we were leaving, I said to Jimmie and Nancy, ‘‘I was wondering if I could do this consulting thing; now I know I have at least one usable skill, even if it’s busing tables!’’

About This Book This book is about using fundraising consultants. It is intended as a guide for any nonprofit organization considering working with a consultant,

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either an individual or a firm, to help the organization see if it is ready to raise money, to assist it in raising money, and/or accomplish a lot of other things a good fundraising consultant can help the organization achieve. This book is also intended as an ‘‘insider’s’’ guide to using fundraising consultants. It is written from my perspective as a consultant (and sometimes busboy) to the nonprofit sector for over 24 years. And, yes, I was ‘‘on the other side’’ as a ‘‘real’’ fundraiser for several years after I left the Community Trust and after my initial time with Alford & Associates, and had relocated to Washington, D.C. In this book you will read about ideas, concepts, and information that will help you and your organization make critical decisions for selecting and working with fundraising consultants, as well as working with consultants serving nonprofit organizations in other ways. You will also get my opinions about consultants, the process, and some possible roadblocks to successful consulting relationships. Consulting, like so much of what happens in the nonprofit or third sector, is still an art and not a science. Like good fundraising, it is often about relationships as well as skills and knowledge. Good consulting is also about honesty and ethics, and understanding that each organization has its own culture and uniqueness, and that a ‘‘one size fits all’’ approach is no more successful in the consulting business than it is in the fundraising business. At least that is what I believe. Also in this book I will include stories about my own consulting experiences, and the experiences of others, including both consultants and organizations. I believe that stories are a very important part of the learning process. Stories, if properly used, can help bring down to earth many principles, concepts, and ideas while at the same time using the ‘‘lessons learned’’ to help others stay on the right path. Besides, stories can break up the long list of bullets, steps, goals, and objectives that can make the reader forget we’re talking about people and relationships, not mathematical formulas or physics equations. This book grew not only out of my own experiences and many conversations with colleagues in the consulting business, but also specifically out of a then–National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE,

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now the Association of Fundraising Professionals, or AFP) workshop I did in 1994 for the local NSFRE chapter in Washington, D.C. The session was entitled ‘‘Consultants: The Good, the Bad, and the So-So’’ and focused on two major areas: ‘‘When you should consider using a consultant’’ and ‘‘When you should not consider using a consultant.’’ As I recently read over my outline for the session, I realized there is not much I need to change in my key points under each of those two topics. Because of several additional years of consulting experience since I put together the session, I may have a deeper understanding of what lies behind my points, but the points themselves remain important. There is also another audience for this book: the person considering becoming a nonprofit consultant or the person new to the consulting field. While not intended as a ‘‘how to’’ book for consultants, this book can serve as a useful guide for better understanding what nonprofits look for or should look for when considering hiring a consultant or firm. It can also help one understand at least some of the critical factors in the hiring process and in the working relationship with a consultant or firm, as well as some of the success factors and pitfalls of using consultants.

Growth of the Consulting Field The number of fundraising and nonprofit consultants and consulting firms is growing rapidly. Some of the larger consulting firms that have traditionally worked only with the corporate sector are moving aggressively into nonprofit consulting, including fundraising. The other extreme is the people who are ‘‘consultants’’ until they find a new position within an organization. In between are many individuals, small firms, and some larger firms that are fundraising and nonprofit consultants. Some are innovative and creative, while others follow more traditional approaches. Overall, the nonprofit consulting field, like the nonprofit sector, is characterized by its diversity, numbers, and approaches. In the Washington, D.C., area alone there are probably hundreds of individual

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consultants; small (one- to three-people) firms; a few larger firms, including branch or regional offices of national firms; and ‘‘virtual’’ firms, where consultants come together to work on particular projects when more than one person is needed or special skills are required. Despite the competition among firms for business, many consultants have collegial relationships and often get together formally or informally to share experiences, get ideas, and bemoan the occasional problem client. Consultants are frequently active board members in professional organizations, such as AFP, and are often speakers at conferences and workshops. Many are willing to share their expertise through presentations, publications, and the informal exchanges and networking that happen around meetings and conferences. In short, fundraising consultants are much like their development and other nonprofit colleagues. They are part of a complex, growing, and changing sector that is as varied as snowflakes.

A Variety of Consultants and Styles Fundraising and other nonprofit consultants may help organizations move forward, may only cause confusion, and may even hinder an organization’s progress. They can become part of ‘‘the family’’ and true partners, remain helpful outsiders, or just be seen as people who create fear and dread. I’ve seen all of these things happen when nonprofits use consultants, and, at times, have myself been a part of each of these types of relationships. And what of the consultants themselves? They, too, are as varied as snowflakes. Some use a systematic, step-by-step approach to the consulting relationship, some operate under broad principles but are more flexible about how they proceed, and a few are unfortunately dogmatic, with a ‘‘you do it this way’’ approach to everything. Some have years of solid experience in the nonprofit sector, including extensive fundraising experience, while others move into consulting after only a few years of work in the sector. There are also those who come out of the corporate

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world after years of experience, and seek to apply their understanding of essential business skills to the nonprofit sector and fundraising. There are also the former ‘‘professional volunteers’’ who decide that, after years of helping organize fundraising events, heading up major campaigns, and serving on committees and boards of nonprofit organizations, they can establish a business to continue to help while receiving fees for their expertise. In one interesting trend some of the larger fundraising consulting firms are seeking to ‘‘grow their own’’ consultants by hiring younger people with a few years of nonprofit experience to become ‘‘program associates’’ (or other titles) who initially help with internal preparation of reports, analyzing data, and other tasks, while at the same time tagging along with more senior-level consultants. The arrangement is much like the apprentice model of learning a profession, a system that was common for hundreds of years until higher education and graduate programs became more available.

Successful Consulting As we shall see, much of the determination of how successful a consulting relationship will be can depend on many factors, including the real needs of the organization, the experience of the consultant(s), the ‘‘fit’’ of the consultant with the culture of the organization, the level of involvement of the organization and its board in the consulting process, the methods used, expected versus actual outcomes, the achievability and realism of the recommendations, and other factors that will be presented in this book. In short, when one person asked me to describe what the fundraising and nonprofit consulting process is like, I replied, ‘‘It’s like moving an elephant. If you get it to take one step forward, maybe you have achieved something!’’ Of course, there are more dramatic examples of elephants moving forward (beware of leaping elephants), and organizations can take major jumps, if they want to, with or without the help of consultants.

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Breaking News: Laws to Give You Pause Did you know that many states have laws regulating fundraising consultants? Did you know that there are legal definitions in some states of what fundraising consultants are, what they can and can’t do, and their roles with your organization? Did you know that a consultant who asks for gifts, handles money, or is even part of an ‘‘ask’’ or cultivation meeting may be considered a solicitor, and that a whole separate set of rules apply to that type of consultant (in some states)? Did you know that, depending on what they are doing, some fundraising consultants might have to register in several states? This book is not intended as a legal guide, but any nonprofit should be sure it understands the applicable laws in the state or states where it operates, when it may be necessary for the fundraising consultant to register, the roles the consultant can and cannot play within your organization, what fees and possible bonding requirements might be involved, and many other factors that can cause both your organization and the consultant great difficulties if the laws are not followed. For example, some states require that any nonprofit agency contracting with a consultant submit a copy of the consulting contract to the state (often to the attorney general’s office), sometimes before work begins. Minimally, in states where it is required, the consultant needs to be registered. A cautionary example: Registration of the consultant and a contract review can have some pitfalls for both the organization and the consultant. I once heard a story from a colleague who reached agreement with a nonprofit organization on a contract, had the contract duly submitted to the state, and received surprising news: the organization itself, while it had its tax-exempt IRS 501(c)(3) status, had never registered with the state. The results were fines both for the consultant (for contracting with an unregistered nonprofit) and for the organization (for not registering with the state). Another example: Many years ago I contracted with a small national organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., to advise the

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executive director on foundation fundraising strategies. I was very impressed with the organization and made a small contribution to them. At one point the Board decided to have a reception at the home of one of the members in New York City. The reception was for members and spouses only, had no fundraising purpose, and was fairly informal. However, a program for the reception was printed and on the back listed recent contributors, including my consulting company. Shortly afterward, I received a notice from the New York attorney general’s office that I needed to register my firm in New York State, since I was conducting consulting business there. I argued by letter that I was not doing so, that my client and my firm were both based in D.C., and that I had done no fundraising in New York for or with the client. After several months of correspondence back and forth, and upon the advice of my attorney, I gave up and sent my registration fee of $900 to the New York attorney general’s office (and renewed the next year). One more example: A consulting firm I was working with submitted a contract to the attorney general’s office in the state where both they and the client organization operated. The proposed contract indicated in one phrase that the consultant would assist the organization in meetings with potential foundation and corporate funders to determine their interests in a possible future request from the organization. The attorney general’s office said that this phrase needed to be removed from the final contract, as it opened the possibility of a solicitation (asking for a gift or grant) with the consultant in the room, thus putting him or her in the role of a solicitor. How do you find out about the laws and regulations that might affect your working relationship with a fundraising consultant? First, check with your organization’s attorney. A caution is that sometimes attorneys for nonprofit organizations, especially those who aren’t very familiar with the nonprofit sector’s nuances, may not know about the requirements in your state for working with consultants. The next step would be to check with your state’s attorney’s office or other appropriate office to get a copy of the applicable laws and procedures. Remember, some states have no regulations for fundraising consultants, while others have

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very comprehensive and complex rules and procedures for consultants and ‘‘solicitors,’’ including possibly registration and fees, bonding requirements, and other instructions. If your organization works in more than one state, you may have to deal with each state individually and ensure that both your organization and the consultant or consulting firm meet each state’s requirements. While there have been efforts to develop standard requirements, definitions, and registration procedures that could be used by several states, each state still has its own laws and procedures, with some states having extensive regulations and others having few or no regulations. Enforcement procedures and actual enforcement can vary considerably, with some states being considered as ‘‘tough’’ and others less so. Also remember that, at least according to some attorneys I have met, the registration requirements and rules for a consulting firm you contract with may depend on what specific service you are to receive. According to one attorney I spoke with, a consultant contracting to carry out a feasibility study may not need to register in the state where the organization is located, while a consultant or firm managing a capital campaign might be required to register and possibly even post a bond. Many of the differences in state laws appear to be based on exactly what the consultant is doing for the organization. Is he or she or the firm just doing a feasibility study or development assessment? Is the consultant or firm providing advice and guidance for a capital campaign? Is the consultant or firm actually carrying out the campaign where the consultant functions as staff to manage the campaign (sometimes called ‘‘onsite campaign management services’’)? Is the consultant or firm actually soliciting for money? Does the consultant or firm handle any gifts received? In each of these situations and in each of the variety of states that have laws pertaining to consulting services, there may be different requirements. These will be based on the specific roles of the consultant or firm and their contract and arrangements with your organization. Where can you find a comprehensive summary of state-by-state requirements and regulations for fundraising consultants and solicitors? There are many sources available, and you should always check with a

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knowledgeable attorney and your organization’s state before contracting with a fundraising consulting firm (or before finalizing any contractual arrangements with a consultant). One summary of all state regulations I have found very useful is the Giving USA Institute’s (formerly the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy) Annual Survey of State Laws, now published as an e-newsletter and available through their site at www .givinginstitute.org.

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hen I work with smaller organizations that are looking to hire their first development staff member, I often caution them to not assume the development person’s chief role is to take all of the fundraising responsibility on his or her shoulders, thus releasing the other staff and board from this ‘‘onerous’’ responsibility. The same caution can be applied to the process of seeking a consultant. The operating attitude on the part of some nonprofit staffs and boards is that hiring a fundraising consultant will bring in more money, thus solving the organization’s cash flow problems, meeting its capital needs, or enabling it to expand its services and programs. This approach—to see money as the solution or end—can be very limiting, both for the organization and the consultant. Often, fundraising issues are complex and they can be related to many other organizational issues and even the external environment. In most of my consulting experience the ‘‘get more money’’ solution simply is not the single answer to an organization’s problems. Nonprofit organizations also, at times, tend to see a single simple question that will be answered by hiring a consultant: ‘‘Can we raise X dollars for our capital needs?’’ or ‘‘Is our fundraising operation as effective and efficient as possible?’’ or ‘‘Can our annual campaign show better results?’’ The answer expected is usually also simple: ‘‘Yes’’ (often the expected outcome at the end of the consulting process) or ‘‘No’’ (often an 1

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unwelcome answer). These simple questions and answers may conceal the real needs your organization has—some of which a consultant or consulting firm can help with, and others that are best addressed either internally or by someone other than a fundraising consultant. These needs might involve getting more contributed funds (see above), internal and leadership issues, perceptions of the organization and its effectiveness by others, or a whole range of other issues that cannot be answered simply. Does your organization really need a consultant? Let’s turn that around for a moment and discuss several reasons not to consider using a consultant. In my consulting experience, the preceding simple types of questions can sometimes conceal other reasons why a fundraising consultant is seen as being needed. The consultant may not be made aware of these underlying reasons or may be given a little information about them, once hired. Rarely is such information shared before the hiring process is completed. At other times, those selecting the consultant are not themselves aware of the issues or the depth of the issues faced by the organization. For example, board members may be involved in the hiring process but may not be aware of deep divisions at the staff level. The good consultant will find out these issues during the consulting process. The better consultant may be able to recommend and facilitate ways to resolve them, but also may recognize them as possible major roadblocks both to the consulting process and to better fundraising. Let’s get a little more specific. Here are some reasons I outlined in my paper, ‘‘Consultants: The Good, the Bad, and the So-So,’’ for not hiring a consultant: When you want someone else to resolve organizational problems There is a tendency sometimes within organizations that have major problems to throw up their hands and seek an outside ‘‘expert’’ to come in and resolve these problems for them. This is just another version of the ‘‘we won’t do it—you do it’’ approach often applied to development staff by other staff and board members when fundraising is the issue. In this case there is not really a partnership with the consultant or firm. The organization hands the consultant the

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problem and expects an answer as to what to do. The organization no longer takes responsibility for its problems—maybe someone outside can take the responsibility, or the blame if things don’t work out. In effect, the organization can say it is taking action when it really is passing the ball off to someone entirely outside. That person or firm is then tasked with coming back with a solution to the problem. The organization can get on with its business and not worry until the consultant presents recommendations that may or may not be what they wanted to hear. Decisions are made, but the problem’s underlying root causes may not be addressed at all. Or if the root causes are addressed in the recommendations, the organization’s leadership may believe these are not the real causes or issues, and may simply shelve the report—especially if they themselves are part of problem. When you want justification for one point of view in an internal organizational dispute This is a more specific variation of the first reason above. Sometimes there is a dispute within an organization that does not get settled easily. Examples might include a dispute between the board of directors and the senior staff over some issue, a conflict between management and development staff over fundraising issues and plans, or problems between two operational areas of the organization. Again, the tendency can be to seek outside help to get the ‘‘answer’’ to the problem or dispute. The difference here is that one side is seeking justification for its point of view versus the point of view of the opposing side—an ‘‘I’m right and you’re wrong’’ solution that does not involve consensus but rather an ‘‘I win, you lose’’ outcome. Does this happen in consulting relationships? Yes, as I will illustrate through an experience the consulting firm I was working with and I had several years ago. I’ll go into some of the details of this example, because it can represent a ‘‘worst-case’’ scenario for a consultant or firm.

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Our firm was hired by a statewide human services agency to carry out a feasibility study for a possible major capital campaign. The study involved a team of consultants from our firm; the process included an extensive series of interviews and focus groups around the state, a review of past campaigns and donors, and frequent meetings and progress reports with the senior staff and board leadership. Everything seemed fairly straightforward; the people we met were nice, the organization had a good case, and the recent capital campaign had been successful. As we continued our interviews and the consulting team discussed what we were hearing, especially from major donors to the past campaign, we began to see the outlines of something else; what it was we weren’t sure. Several of the major donors talked very negatively about how they had been solicited by the executive director for the recent capital campaign. During the interview, one person said to me, ‘‘If he comes here and asks for money again, I’ll pick him up and throw him out the door!’’—not what you want to hear from a major donor and prospect for a large campaign gift. But, despite what we heard, we still did not ‘‘get it’’ about what was going on behind the scenes. We finished our process, reached consensus on the recommendations, and concluded the report with the basic recommendation that the organization not proceed with the campaign but rather rebuild relations with the past campaign’s major donors. I was to present the report to the board meeting. At the board meeting the executive director sat next to a female board member none of our team had met. As I started to present our recommendations, which, at the most basic level, concluded the organization should not proceed with a capital campaign but should make considerable specific efforts to rebuild bridges to major donors, she began to raise a series of questions. First, she asked, ‘‘Why wasn’t I interviewed for this study?’’ I explained that the interview list had been put together by the staff based on

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criteria our consulting firm provided. She next asked, ‘‘Why were so few (about 60) people interviewed for the study when over 300,000 people in the state were the organization’s constituency?’’ I explained that this was the number agreed to by the staff and that we sought a fairly representative sample of the organization’s key stakeholders. After attempting to discredit the study process, she then proceeded to try to discredit each specific recommendation and our overall conclusion that the organization should not move forward with a new major capital campaign. It quickly became obvious that something more was going on in this organization. At the end of the board meeting, the board chair came over and apologized for how the meeting had gone. Later, I and other members of our consulting team at the meeting got together for a postmortem. We had noticed that the executive director was mostly silent during the entire session and had not bothered to point out that the senior staff had been directly involved in the entire study process, including selecting interviews, determining the sample size, and so on. He and other senior staff had previewed the full report and recommendations, almost without comment. One of our possible conclusions was that we had been ‘‘set up’’ by the executive director, who may have expected a primary recommendation that the organization proceed with the capital campaign but did not hear what he wanted. A few years later, I went to another organization to make a marketing call. It turned out that one of the former senior staff members of the problem organization was now a vice president of this nonprofit agency. After the initial interview, I asked if he was willing to share what happened at the board meeting described earlier. He confirmed that the executive director had indeed wanted to do the campaign, but the board had been neutral and therefore decided to hire a consulting firm to get an outside assessment of the situation and prospects for support. He further confirmed that

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the female board member had specifically been there to discredit our report and recommendations. He also pointed out that, despite our recommendation not to proceed but rather to take other steps for a possible later campaign, the executive director had managed to convince the board to proceed with the campaign, but that it had fallen short of its goal by a considerable amount. In this case we were unaware that we had been brought in to justify the executive director’s view that they should proceed with the campaign, versus the board’s more or less neutral view of the campaign question. We had learned a hard lesson. When you want a lot of money raised in a short period of time but have not had much success raising it using existing resources Over the past years as a consultant I’ve had many calls from organizations saying they need to raise X dollars over a short time span. One example was an organization that had received a major matching challenge grant from a foundation and needed to raise an equal amount within ‘‘one year’’ from the date of the grant. I received this call in early September; I asked when the grant had been made and the person on the phone replied, ‘‘In early January.’’ I asked what had been done so far to meet the challenge, and the person said, ‘‘Well, not much. We did decide at our June board meeting to hire a consultant.’’ I asked several other questions about their fundraising program, which turned out to be fairly minimal and with nothing like the major gift history or prospects needed to achieve the match in the short time remaining. I also expressed my view that the organization did not seem to be taking the challenge requirement very seriously, and concluded I would not be able to come in and rescue them at the last minute, as they seemed to be expecting. Such challenges and matching requirements are increasingly common and can be daunting to an organization, especially when there is not much success meeting the challenge using existing internal resources. Yet organizations continue to pursue these ‘‘opportunities’’

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and hope somewhere, somehow, they can meet the challenge. Grantmakers can be equally at fault for making such requirements without a better understanding of the past fundraising experience and capacity of the organization to meet the funder’s requirements and timelines. Other examples of the ‘‘we need it now’’ situation might include budget shortfalls, a desire to expand a program area, or a decision to create a new program without having the needed financial and other resources in place. In all these cases a quick infusion of new funds seems to be the answer, and hiring a consultant seems to be the way to achieve the goal. Underlying issues might be a lack of strategic planning, failure to effectively manage financial resources, or stretching a fundraising operation beyond its limits. Despite these issues, which are often not acknowledged, a quick infusion of money is believed to be the answer. Now this is not to say that there are not other situations where there is a real need for a major increase in funding. Examples might include a sudden need to rehabilitate or repair an existing facility, a cutoff of public money for an agency, or other such events such as natural or other disasters. In these cases, the strength of the case for support might overcome a low-intensity fundraising program or other internal and operational issues. A consultant might be able to help improve the ability of the organization to respond and provide advice on ways to rally both current and potential donors to the cause. When your organization is committed to raising funds but wants someone else to do it for you This might also be described as the ‘‘we’re too busy’’ syndrome. An organization wants to raise additional money or initiate a fundraising program, but it does not want to take the time or commit the staff resources to do so. Yes, the organization is committed to raising the money. It’s just that they don’t want to do it. Handing off the responsibility to an outside consultant seems like the easy way

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to make things happen—just pay the person or firm to do the fundraising, get the reports, and watch the money come in. The consultant will supply the needed expertise and do the asking, rarely needing to call on board or staff members. As was pointed out earlier, there may be legal issues, and the consultant or firm may in fact be classed as a solicitor depending on your state laws. But there are also strong philosophical differences among consultants and consulting firms over this approach. ‘‘Onsite campaign management’’ is one of the services offered by many reputable firms and some individual consultants. In these arrangements the consultant or firm basically functions as a development staff member for the organization. The arrangement is usually utilized for capital or other major campaigns and frequently involves a commitment by the organization to the consulting firm or consultant for on-site campaign management for a period of years. The assumption may be that the on-site person will take care of the entire campaign and there will be minimal involvement from staff and the board. The better firms that provide these services carefully lay out the expectations of the staff and board, as well as their own roles and responsibilities, in performing this service; often, this is done in the contract with the organization (see later chapter on contracts). However, other consultants may say that the organization needs to have minimal involvement in the effort—‘‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything.’’ If you’re a consultant marketing to an organization that is reluctant to take on a major role in the fundraising effort, and another consultant or firm is marketing with the ‘‘don’t worry . . .’’ approach, it’s hard to compete. The one factor that may deter an organization from going the route of on-site campaign management is the often high cost of this service. This can be countered by on-site campaign management consultants who may point out that the costs represent only a small percentage of the campaign goal and

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that they can be recovered through inclusion of the costs in the campaign budget. My belief philosophically is that an organization that is committed to raising the money but equally committed to not being part of the process or having only minimal involvement is usually not ready to carry out an effective fundraising effort. Yes, board members can be reluctant to ask people for money, and yes, the current development staff might see themselves as already pressed and overworked or might actually be in this situation. But, in my view, on-site campaign management can be a very easy way for an organization to wash its hands of fundraising and the necessary organizational work it entails. As an organization, you cannot have it both ways—you cannot commit to raising X dollars but opt out of the very real and important work an organization must carry out both to meet the goal(s) and to become even more effective overall. If your organization is headed in the direction of on-site campaign management, or even if it is just reluctant to commit to the work of a campaign, here are some key questions to consider: How cost effective in terms of the campaign goal will on-site campaign management be? If the consultant or firm promises they will handle almost everything related to the campaign, what do they really mean? What will be the actual roles and expectations of your board, your senior staff, and your development staff? How much actual fundraising experience does the firm’s staff member or the consultant assigned to your organization to do the day-to-day work have? Is the experience with organizations similar to yours? Have you interviewed this person, or is someone else from the firm doing the marketing to your organization? Who from the firm will manage this person? What is his or her experience, and how accessible will he or she be if you need to deal with an issue or problem?

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Has the firm/consultant generally been successful with its other projects? What do their other past clients have to say about their work, including the specific person to be assigned to your organization? Will the person assigned as on-site campaign manager actually be doing the gift solicitations, and if so, who from your organization will also be involved with these solicitations? How will information and records be kept and conveyed to the organization? How will these be integrated with your systems and procedures, including your internal accounting and public reporting requirements? Aside from the dollars raised, what will be the other ‘‘leavebehinds’’ for your organization? How will your organization’s overall fundraising program be enhanced by this arrangement? What will staff and board learn from the process that can be carried forward and applied when the consultant or firm is no longer engaged? Will your board be any more engaged in fundraising at the end of the process? Will the fundraising carried out during the process be tactical (focused only on the campaign goal) or strategic (focused on the campaign goal as well as longer-term donor relations and organizational needs)? For example, a consultant/solicitor might meet with a potential campaign major donor who expresses two options he or she is considering: a campaign gift now, or inclusion of the organization in his or her estate plans with a significant portion of the estate to go to the organization. The consultant/solicitor may focus on the campaign gift so that it can be counted toward the goal; the best interests of the organization might be served by the planned gift. Does the firm that offers on-site campaign management services also offer to do a feasibility study, and does it offer to package these two services? In my view, packaging these two services or connecting them in other ways might remove some objectivity

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and prejudice the study to show a campaign should proceed, as it means continuing business for the consulting firm. My belief, which is tempered by the knowledge that there are very effective on-site campaign management firms, is that the best consulting relationship is a partnership, and the organization is committed to working with the consultant as part of the process; it is not handing off work to others. I’ll continue to explore this belief throughout the rest of the book. When there is no commitment by the organization to follow through on the products and recommendations prepared by the consultants I am always amazed when an organization spends considerable money, time, and energy on a fundraising consulting process, such as a feasibility study, and then takes no action on the recommendations and other materials prepared by the consultant or firm. Yet most of us who have been in the consulting business have experienced the ‘‘shelved’’ report and recommendations. This is not to say that my colleagues and I expect every single recommendation to be accepted by the organization. But we do expect action to be taken and organizational decisions to be made once we have done our work. One of my more positive experiences on this topic was working with a women’s organization and presenting my recommendations to its board of directors. Rather than thanking me for my work and report, and then going on to the next agenda item (a frequent occurrence elsewhere), the board chair directed the board to discuss and vote on the acceptance or rejection of each specific recommendation. As I remember it, most all of the recommendations were accepted as presented. Ideally, from my perspective, the organization’s volunteer leadership should both review and act upon the recommendations, as well as have the opportunity to meet in person with the consultant or firm representatives to hear and discuss the report.

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This can help head off a lack of follow-through as well as help ensure that the needed next steps are taken and that the leadership is involved (see the more extensive discussion of this later in the book). My contracts for studies and development assessments usually include the step of presenting my findings, analysis, and recommendations to the board of directors for their action. I try to make it clear that part of their responsibility is to take action, including, minimally, a vote to accept the report. At least this helps ensure the report becomes part of their agenda and that something happens with it. Yet many organizations often don’t have a top-down commitment to the consulting process and its outcomes. Sometimes there are volunteer and/or staff leadership who are skeptical of the consulting process. At other times the recommendations may not be what the organization or its leadership expected or wanted to hear; this is often the case when a feasibility study recommends not proceeding with a campaign effort (this can be one of the hardest messages to deliver). Occasionally, the decision to hire a consultant in the first place originated with one person or only a few people and others only reluctantly agreed to it. And sometimes the organization is not clear from the start about what the process will be, the outcomes and products produced by the process, and the organization’s staff and board members’ roles and responsibilities. If your organization and its leadership is not committed from the beginning to being fully engaged in the consulting process, and if there is not a clear expectation of action on the results of a study or assessment, it is probably best not to engage a consultant or firm. When the organization or parts of it feel threatened by the use of outside consultants Bringing in an outsider, especially to carry out services such as assessing a development operation or conducting a feasibility study, can be very threatening to an organization. Development assessments,

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in particular, may be seen by development staff as threats to their jobs, especially if they were not involved in the decision to retain a consultant or firm. Campaign consulting services might appear to be less threatening to development staff, especially if they see these services as not significantly adding to their workload. At other times, especially when a board has decided to retain consultants with little input from the senior staff, the staff itself might feel uncomfortable or threatened with the process. This can be even more true when staff do not have a clear idea of why the consultants are ‘‘really’’ there or feel there is a ‘‘hidden agenda’’ underlying the consulting process. At the end of the process, the organization or parts of it may also see themselves as threatened by the outcomes. This is often true if the recommendations for action include major operational changes or reorganization, or are seen as adding to the workload of staff who feel they are already overburdened. Sometimes the number of recommendations for action can itself seem overwhelming and impossible to achieve and the reaction is ‘‘we can’t possibly do all that.’’ As most consultants will readily acknowledge, organizational change itself can be threatening, especially when there is a long history of doing things a certain way. The better consultants can help an organization that generally resists change by easing them into the change process and ensuring that the steps recommended are in keeping with the general culture of the organization, while at the same time being achievable. When everyone is already too busy to work with the consultants Hiring a consultant involves more than just selecting a person or people to do the work and receiving reports or a final report. The better consulting contracts outline both the work of the consultant or firm and the expectations of the organization’s staff and board during the consulting process (see Chapter 9). These expectations may include: meetings at specified intervals; providing access to and/or

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setting up meetings with key individuals; preparing and/or sending correspondence along with selected materials to individuals (such as letters inviting people to be interviewed for a feasibility study); providing access to reports and records; writing or editing descriptive materials on the organization (such as a case); and ensuring that the consultant or firm can report to the organization’s board. All of these, of course, involve time commitments from the organization’s staff and, usually to a lesser extent, the board. At times the staff and board of an organization seem to treat the consultant or firm as more of an imposition than someone who is there to help. In part, it is up to the consultant or firm to be very clear and specific up front about what is expected from the organization. But it is also up to the organization to follow through. Consultants usually operate within a defined time frame spelled out in the contract. The time frame may be directly related to specific events at the organization, such as a scheduled board meeting when a final report from the consultant or firm is expected, or the planned implementation of a capital campaign effort. Or the time frame may be related to other projects and services being provided elsewhere by the consultant or firm. So when the organization’s staff and/or board are ‘‘too busy’’ to respond to the needs of the consultant in a timely and often agreedto manner, the entire process can be disrupted. For example, the consultant may need approval of a case document before it is sent out along with an invitation letter or e-mail to prospective feasibility study interviewees. I’ve had some clients who were ‘‘too busy’’ take six to eight weeks to turn around a draft case; this same client then asked why I could not meet their deadline for the draft final report and recommendations. I had to explain that the threeto four-month time frame for the entire study process, which had been geared to their March board meeting, could not now be completed until late April or early May because of their delay with the case.

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When the use of consultants is seen as a liability rather than an investment Consultants cost money. Regardless of the background and experience of the consultant or firm and your organization’s needs, there will be a cost associated with the services. Organizations can see the costs associated with a consultant as a liability rather than a cost-effective way to deal with an issue or help with planning. Is an investment of $25,000 to $30,000 (actual costs may be higher or lower, depending on a number of factors) for a feasibility study that presents a clear and doable plan for a major fundraising campaign with a goal of $1 million an effective use of organizational dollars? Is a $12,000 development assessment that results in the doubling of donated funds a good investment? Consultants cannot guarantee results (and beware of those that do). But seeing consultants only in terms of their costs rather than in terms of the potential benefits to the organization and costeffectiveness is akin to the tendency of some nonprofits to cut productive fundraising operations to save money. Consultants need to define specific expected outcomes but also need to be clear as to what the preconditions are for the organization to achieve these outcomes, as well as the basis for their conclusions. Several years ago I was asked to do a feasibility study for an organization that was exploring conducting its first endowment campaign. As I interviewed current and potential major donors, it became clear that the executive director was frequently seen as remote and unresponsive to their concerns. It also became apparent that the development operation was not as effective as it could be, with some major donors not receiving thank-yous in a timely manner, too many and too frequent solicitations, and other concerns. My recommendations to the board had to be presented carefully and honestly, with my basic conclusion being that the much-desired endowment campaign should not proceed (this is a different case than the one presented earlier). The organization’s board decided

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to take the necessary and difficult measures to correct these situations; it was also, I believe, the first time my report and recommendations received applause from the board as well as the comment, ‘‘You didn’t tell us what we wanted to hear—you told us what we needed to hear.’’ Was the expense of hiring me to do the study a liability, especially given that I could only recommend steps other than undertaking the endowment campaign? Based on the information I heard from many of the interviewees as well as the conclusions of the board itself that the information was accurate, any attempt to carry out an endowment campaign at that point in time would have resulted in both failure of the campaign and setting back the organization a number of years in terms of its relations with its major donors. When the decision to hire will be made by one or two individuals Who should decide to hire a consultant? One strong sign of potential trouble is one or two people in the organization making the decision to hire a consultant, especially when the decision is made without consultation with other stakeholders, such as the board or other staff. If I become aware of this situation, my usual tendency is to bow out of any further marketing. Hiring without the consensus of the organization’s leadership, whether it is the board or the staff, may indicate that a few individuals have their own agenda. I learned my lesson about having a few individuals making hiring decisions several years ago. The consulting firm I was working with informed me that we had a new major client and, since it was located near my office in Washington, D.C., I was assigned as the client manager. I called the client’s office to schedule an appointment to meet with the executive director and spoke with her administrative assistant to set the appointment. When I arrived at the client’s office, I told the receptionist who I was, and was asked to take a seat in the waiting area. I could see the

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executive director through her open office door as she worked on some papers and made a few phone calls. About 45 minutes past my appointment, she came out of the office and asked who I was and what I wanted. I again explained that I would be the primary consultant working with her and the organization. She did not seem to know much about our firm’s selection or what we had contracted to do with the organization, and appeared to be more than a little surprised that I was even there. As I tried to continue my explanation of our planned work, it also became obvious she had not seen our contract with the organization; I handed her a copy and went through it in detail with her, but she still appeared to be upset. It became increasingly obvious that she was never part of the decision to hire a consulting firm, had no involvement in the hiring process, and had no familiarity with what we were to do. All of that had been handled ‘‘elsewhere’’ without her being informed. The consultant–client relationship never really improved, especially between the executive director and us. She constantly questioned what we were doing and why, wanted detailed reports on how we were spending our time, and threw up roadblocks to our work. At one point she demanded a complete detailed report on our use of time for her organization; our firm kept very accurate time records, and a short time later I presented her with a printout of about 70 to 75 pages showing how every member of the consulting team had spent time since the inception of the contract. Her only comment was, ‘‘I didn’t want all of the details.’’ Not long after, our firm terminated its relationship with the client. The lesson learned and its relevance to your organization? Ensure that as many of your volunteer and senior leadership as possible, as well as those who may be most affected by the work of the consultant (such as your development staff), are fully informed and involved wherever appropriate in the selection process. Leaving

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the decision to a few individuals may well cause both resentment and a lack of understanding of why consultants are being hired on the part of those not involved in the decision. Of course, the final decision may be made by a few people, such as an executive committee, a senior staff group, or the full board. My preference is to always ensure that both the senior staff member (the executive director or CEO) and the board chair sign off on the contract. This helps establish that both leaders have agreed to the contract and, hopefully having read it, understand what the process, costs, roles, goals, products, and organizational involvement will be. I also prefer to market to the entire board or at least a subgroup of the board, as well as to the senior and other staff, whenever possible. Often, a standing committee or a special committee will be heading up the interview and selection process at the start, and the finalists will be interviewed by a wider group from the organization. Once a consultant or firm has been hired, regardless of how the decision was made, it’s always a good idea to have staff, especially those directly involved, and board members meet with the consultant. There should be ample opportunity for the consultant to explain his or her process and the products or outcomes, answer questions, and get to know staff and board members. Consultants often suggest this step, and some include it in their contracts as part of the expectations of the organization. When you’ve looked at only one consultant or firm and believe that’s the one for your organization Every individual consultant and every consulting firm has a particular style of working with clients. Some consultants and firms are very effective at marketing, while others might not be so effective in marketing but strong on the service delivery side. Interpretations of how to best meet your needs through consulting services can also vary considerably, as can other factors, such as the costs of the

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services, the experience and backgrounds of the consultants, and the successes with other clients. Occasionally, I’ve been the first prospective consultant ‘‘in the door’’ for interviews and, at the end of the meeting, have been asked, ‘‘When can you start?’’ I explain I’ll be a lot more comfortable working with the organization if I know they’ve also interviewed at least two other firms; I often suggest a few colleagues in other firms or independent consultants they should also talk to before making a decision. In fact, I feel much better knowing an organization has interviewed other firms or consultants because I know they’ve at least learned there are different consulting styles and methods of carrying out the work. I also know that organizational cultures vary considerably and that it is critical for the success of the consulting process that the consultant’s way of doing things mesh with the organization’s purpose, stakeholders, and culture. If your organization is seeking to hire a consultant or firm, get some comparison basis among three or more possible sources for services before making a decision. I’ll talk in more detail later about some things to look for during the selection process, but here it is sufficient to again point out that your organization needs to actively explore your options, meet with prospects, and discuss differences as well as pluses and minuses of each prospect in terms of your needs and their experiences. You also need to be sure your organization does not avoid taking the following critical step. When you have not checked the references Here’s a good reason your organization does not need a consultant: you don’t know how effective the person or firm has been, except what you’ve been told directly by the potential consultant. As was mentioned earlier, some consultants and firms are masters of marketing. They can talk at length about how effective and successful they are, the many organizations they have worked with, and why they are cost-effective for your organization. A critical part of your

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organization’s responsibility is to separate the ‘‘hype’’ from the reality. One way to do this is during the interview process itself by asking key questions (see Chapter 8). Another way that seems obvious is to check the references provided by the consultant or firm. I’m surprised at the number of times organizations don’t do this relatively easy step; their sole evidence of how effective the consultant will be is what they’ve heard during the interview and/or the materials provided to them by the person or firm. If prospective clients have not already asked for references by the time I get to the service proposal stage with them, I include at least three or four references in the proposal itself. I try to include references that are relevant to both the type of organization I am marketing to (e.g., other national associations if it is a prospective national association client) as well as the proposed type of service (e.g., other organizations where I have carried out feasibility studies). I also encourage the organization to call not only my references but also the references provided by other firms that are under serious consideration. It is incumbent that your organization try to get examples of the work of the consultant with similar types of organizations as well as how effectively the consultant has carried out services similar to what you are seeking (see the earlier comments about references I try to provide). One inside piece of information is that consultants frequently like to ensure that their references are not overused, so they may want to provide references only when they are in the final stages of serious consideration or in the presentation of a proposal for services. The consultant or firm might be reluctant to provide references when you first contact them; they will want to be sure your organization is seriously considering the consultant or firm. What types of questions should your organization ask references? General areas you should consider include the obvious ones: Was the consultant or firm effective in delivering the services the organization desired and contracted for?

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How well did the consultant relate to the culture of your organization and its key stakeholders? Did he or she seem knowledgeable about your organization and those it serves and generally ‘‘fit in’’? In the judgment of the organization, were the services provided cost effective? Did the consultant work effectively with the organization’s board and staff? If a fundraising campaign was involved, were the goals reached and what were the roles of the consultant in reaching these goals? If the goals were not reached, what were the reasons and did the consultant cause or contribute to the issues blocking success or try to alleviate them? If the consultant or firm is still engaged with the organization, what are the pluses and minuses of his or her work? Have there been any conflicts or issues with the consultant or the firm? If so, what were they and how willing and effective was the consultant in helping to resolve them? How would you describe the ethics of the consultant? Was he or she honest, open, direct, and forthcoming, or was critical information kept from the organization? How would you describe the timeliness of the consultant in delivering the services and meeting deadlines? If there were delays, were they related to the consultant or to other factors? How would you describe the ‘‘work style’’ of the consultant— a partnership with your organization? Directive? Communicative? Available when needed? Responsive to questions and issues? Willing to go the ‘‘extra mile’’ when necessary? Professional? Knowledgeable? Ability to present information in ways that both make sense and are appropriate for your organization? A leader? Would you hire this consultant again if you needed a consultant?

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These are only some examples of questions your organization might ask references. It can also be very helpful if the consultant or firm provides a list of past and present clients, especially those served that are similar to your organization in terms of their type, mission, services, and the like. One reason this list can be helpful, aside from giving your organization an overview of the depth of experience of the consultant or firm, is to provide you with a few additional contacts to judge the effectiveness of the consultant. I often encourage client prospects to call some of my other present and past clients, even if I don’t include them as specific references. I only ask them to discuss with me any problems or issues presented to them by references so they can also have my views. Sometimes an organization will seek to hire a consultant they had used for a past project. Unless the project was completed very recently, it’s probably a good idea to get and check new references, even if you’re fairly set on rehiring this person or firm. And, by the way, if you are considering a firm, be sure to check references for the specific person who will be working with your organization, not just the firm’s references. You will want information on the person who will be actually doing the work—see some of the suggested questions above. When you expect miracles Miracles, at least in the fundraising consulting world, don’t usually happen. Yet some organizations believe that all they need to do is bring in some high-powered consultant and things will be turned around. This seems to be especially true when an organization is facing a major crisis, has critical internal or stakeholder problems, or is generally dysfunctional. The other side of the coin is the consultant or firm that believes it can make miracles happen. Some even promise this. Yes, some consultants have worked very hard with organizations to reverse a downward spiral or correct a major problem. But these ‘‘miracles’’ take a lot of hard work by both the

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organization and the consultant or firm. Organizations that expect miracles to happen while they sit back and watch the consultant perform magic will be sadly disappointed. I’ve often been called by an organization that needs or wants a miracle. As the conversation with them continues and the issues they are facing are revealed, a little voice inside says: ‘‘Yes, you can figure out solutions and fix this. You’ll be a hero to the organization and it will be a great story to tell to future prospective clients.’’ But another little voice warns: ‘‘You may not be able to fix this— you’re only hearing the outlines of the issue, and there may be much deeper problems. The organization may need help you can’t give it, may not like your solutions, or may be headed so strongly in the wrong direction it can’t be reversed.’’ I tend to usually listen more intently to the second voice. Another consultant and I once contracted with a small organization that was seeking to raise more money. In fact, they were desperate to raise money, as they had not been very successful with their approaches to foundations, individuals, or public funders. As we met with them for the first time, we heard even more depressing news about internal struggles, lack of good accounting procedures (including some that were unethical and possibly illegal), and other issues. The IRS had also gotten involved because of nonpayment of employee benefits over more than one year. The director had reached the limit on her credit card to pay organizational expenses, but the debts kept increasing. My willingness to help and desire to turn around an organization, despite all of these issues (and a quality product), was tempered by the belief that I could not perform a miracle. If your organization is expecting miracles from consultants, it is probably best to see what the organization needs to do and make the hard decisions you will have to make. A consultant can possibly give some advice and assistance, but the needed changes will, in all likelihood, have to be made by the organization itself. And the

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kind of advice you need may be better provided by someone with skills other than fundraising—possibly a tax attorney, an accountant, or a mediator. So don’t expect miracles, and beware of those who promise them.

Summary This chapter has been all about the many reasons your organization might not be ready to hire a consultant. The next chapter looks at the other side—the times and situations when your organization can benefit from using a consultant.

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Yes, We Really Need a Consultant!

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n Chapter 1, I discussed several reasons that indicate organizations may not be ready to hire a consultant, even though on the surface this might seem to be a good idea. If all of the reasons why you think you need a consultant don’t apply to your organization, then you may have some real needs that could be met through the use of outside counsel. One of the common misconceptions about ‘‘fundraising’’ counsel is that they focus only on fundraising. Fundraising consultants can provide a number of services, several of which will be discussed below in more detail. When seeking a consultant or firm, your organization may focus on a specific need. Those of us who have been in the profession a while sometimes call this the ‘‘presenting’’ problem or issue; it is the organization’s perceptions of its need(s). On the surface, it may seem to be a very simple presenting issue, such as a real need to carry out a capital campaign or a desire to provide more financial stability through creation of an endowment fund. The financial objective may already have been defined or may still be under consideration by the organization. As I shall discuss later, when seeking counsel, the interview process should include your prospective consultants’ asking several critical questions about your organization’s plans and the basis for them, as well as responding to your questions to them. Why are they asking these questions? They are trying to determine background information on your 25

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organization (or clarify what they have already reviewed) as well as gain an understanding of how your organization arrived at defining the specific need it would like addressed by counsel. Was there a planning process involved? Is there organizational consensus that this is what is needed? Depending on your organization’s answers to a number of questions, the prospective consultant may recommend some intermediate steps, such as a feasibility study or a development audit (see below). The consultant may believe that additional information should be collected to ensure further planning and successful attainment of the organization’s goals and objectives. He or she may also believe there are other issues that need addressing. For example, most endowment campaigns are successful because there is already a strong base of major donors to the organization. An organization seeking to carry out an endowment campaign but without a strong record of major individual gifts may find a prospective consultant suggesting taking a few steps back to build a strong major gifts program first. Or an organization that wants to carry out a capital campaign but lacks an overall development plan may hear the prospective consultant suggest creating such a plan as a first step. The point is that the experienced consultant or firm may not always automatically agree with the organization on what its needs are, even during the marketing phase. Other services the consultant or firm may suggest could place the organization in a better position to achieve its goals later. ‘‘Fundraising’’ could be only one possible service the consultant or firm can offer and may not be what the organization really needs from the consulting process. Chapter 3 of this book will examine in more detail what your organization should do before starting a search for a consultant. What are some of the services a fundraising consultant or firm can offer? Before going further and discussing some specific services, I should point out that there is not always common agreement on the terms used to describe the various services a consultant may provide. As much as possible, I will use terms that seem to be widely accepted in the field, but you should be aware that consultants and firms have sometimes come up with their own ways of describing their services. I

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am listing these services based on possible needs or objectives of your organization first, so that the terms describing the services will initially be of secondary importance. Objectives of your organization you may want to address through the use of counsel and the related consulting services include: When you want to get a more objective view of the effectiveness and efficiency of your fundraising operation (development audit or assessment) This consulting service is usually described as a development audit or development assessment. Its purpose is to provide the organization with recommendations to improve or enhance its development/fundraising operation so that it can more effectively generate philanthropic gifts. A development audit or assessment may include the following steps by the consultant or firm: Meetings with development and other staff to explain the process, timeline, outcomes, and products of the consulting process Meetings with selected board members, such as the board chair and the development/fundraising committee chair, to explain the process, timelines, outcomes, and products of the consulting process Review of internal financial records, such as audits, monthly financial statements, development reports, and related information (this review may include such information for multiple years) Review of the current operating budget Review of sample donor records and systems, including software used and information recorded Review of the organization’s mission and vision statements, and bylaws Review of board and other committee descriptions and responsibilities, board members’ backgrounds and board member roles and statements/job descriptions, and other volunteer structures and groups

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Review of board orientation and training materials, if any Review of all development/fundraising operation position descriptions, organizational charts, and other material on staff structure and responsibilities Review of senior staff position descriptions Review of the giving history of current board members Review of public information, such as annual reports, web sites, newsletters, brochures, and other items Review of any existing strategic plan, operational plans, and fundraising plan Review of general organizational policies and procedures Review of development/fundraising polices and procedures, including gift acknowledgment and acceptance policies, donor recognition program, policies on gift restrictions (if not included elsewhere), and endowment management policies (if any) Review of contributed and other related income by sources and type of fundraising method used to obtain it, as well as sample materials for each method (direct mail, events and event sponsorships and underwriting, annual campaign, major gifts program, planned giving, corporate and foundation gifts, capital and endowment gifts, and other sources for philanthropic income Review of solicitation training materials, if any Preparation or review of a letter or e-mail from the board chair and/or executive director requesting that those outside the organization be interviewed (see below) Preparation of a brief case statement or case prospectus describing, in a few pages, the mission, vision, goals, programs, services, staff, budget, and needs of the organization as well as its plans for the future—this is usually mailed or e-mailed with the invitation to prospective interviewees (see also the next section on feasibility and planning studies) Preparation of the interview questionnaires, often with different versions for staff members, board members, and others (draft questionnaires are usually reviewed by staff before finalization)

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Confidential interviews, either one on one or in small ‘‘focus’’ groups, with development/fundraising staff Confidential interviews with selected senior staff, such as the CEO/executive director, chief financial officer/business manager, program director(s), and others Confidential interviews with selected board members, including possibly the board chair, development/fundraising committee chair, and others Confidential interviews with selected donors, including individuals, foundations, and corporations Confidential interviews with vendors, such as direct mail firms used by the organization, events management companies, and other suppliers related to fundraising operations Compiling and analysis of all information collected Preparation of a report and recommendations for enhancement of the development/fundraising operation Review of the draft report with the executive director, director of development, and possibly the board chair and/or chair of the development/fundraising committee Presentation of the report, either in person and/or in final written form to the board and/or staff of the organization. The report (see below and Chapter 11) may include the results of the audit/assessment (sometimes called the findings), the consultant’s or firm’s analysis of the findings (sometimes called the analysis, observations, or comments), and specific recommendations with persons responsible, action steps, timelines, and benchmarks/evaluation steps

Not every development audit or assessment will include all of these steps in the process. The organization may want to focus the audit on particular aspects of the development operation and exclude other parts. The consultant may not review all of the items listed above or may only conduct internal interviews. The report may focus only on recommendations without summarizing the

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information generated through the materials review and interviews. So the preceding is a somewhat ‘‘ideal’’ picture of a development audit or assessment. What are some advantages of retaining a consultant or firm to carry out a development audit or assessment for your organization? Advantages may include: Receiving an outside, more objective professional review of your development/fundraising operation, including possibly comparisons with other similar operations experienced by the consultant Being provided with feedback from donors and leadership on the effectiveness and efficiency of the development/fundraising operation Being provided with specific recommendations and steps to ‘‘fine-tune’’ the development operation for increased effectiveness, as well as ways to measure progress Being provided with ways to better integrate fundraising into all organizational operations and programs Being provided with possible realignment of development staff roles and responsibilities or internal reorganization Being provided with recommendations for possible additions of new staff with skills or expertise that will enhance development operations or fill in gaps Receiving recommendations for greater involvement of board members and other volunteers in fundraising Learning more about the ‘‘state of the art’’ in development and fundraising But there also may be disadvantages, or at least other considerations beyond the products, to carrying out a development audit or assessment. Each organization and its staff can respond differently to the intent to do an audit as well as to the process itself and the outcomes. Specific disadvantages may include:

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Perceptions by development staff that they are under scrutiny because they are not performing adequately or that their jobs are ‘‘on the line’’ Feelings by development staff that they are being ‘‘tested’’ by an outside party Belief by some staff that there is ‘‘something wrong’’ in the development area Concerns by board members that there may be major issues in the area Concerns by management or the board over the costs of the services versus the benefits that will be received (i.e., ‘‘Is this a good use of our funds?’’)

When you want to get a measure of probable success and specific needs and steps for a planned or possible major fundraising campaign (feasibility study or a campaign planning study) At its most basic level, a feasibility study consists of having a consultant or firm carry out a process designed to answer the question, ‘‘Is the proposed dollar goal for the campaign achievable?’’ The feasibility study process is often based on the assumption that the organization has not yet committed to the campaign or at least not to the final goal if some planning for the campaign is already under way. The campaign planning study, on the other hand, focuses on developing the plans and strategies for a campaign to which the organization is already committed. Please note, however, that these terms may be used interchangeably by consultants and firms, or their process may be described using different terms altogether. The feasibility study process usually focuses on internal readiness to carry out a campaign, as well as external factors that may affect the success of the campaign, such as the perceptions of major donors and donor prospects of the organization, board giving, the general philanthropic climate in the area served, and other issues. The feasibility study report and recommendations may focus mainly on

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the achievability of the goal or may provide considerably more detail on steps to be taken, phases of the campaign, roles and responsibilities, timelines—essentially the campaign plan in outline form. The process is somewhat like the development audit or assessment described above, with a materials review component, interviews, analysis of information, and the other steps, but the emphasis is much more on donor and donor prospect interviews as well as providing a product—the report—that addresses the campaign and the goal. Often, one of the assumptions is that the feasibility study will provide the ‘‘proof ’’ that the campaign goal is realistic and achievable. But, as one of my earlier examples demonstrated, this may not always be the case. A feasibility study can come back with a recommendation that the organization not proceed with the proposed campaign. This can be a surprise to an organization that believes it is ready to carry out the campaign and just wants confirmation of the possible goal. If the consultant or firm comes back with a ‘‘no-go’’ recommendation, he or she should also provide the organization with alternative steps that can be taken to prepare the way for a campaign in the future, as well as steps to take to address any major issues that may prevent campaign success. These should be as detailed as the recommendations to proceed with the campaign would be, and should be based on both the feedback from the interviewees and the experience and analysis of the consultant or firm. Over the years I have found that one of the most valuable parts of my reports and recommendations, regardless of the purpose of the consulting services, has been the section I call ‘‘Findings.’’ In this section (sometimes included as an attachment rather than in the body of the report), I provide the client with sample comments (unattributed, due to the confidentiality of the interviews) from interviewees. These may be comprehensive or only representative of what was noted during the interviews, and may or may not be grouped under each specific question asked.

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Organizations find these extremely valuable, as they are the ‘‘unfiltered’’ feedback that gives a good picture of the range of opinions, ideas, strengths, and weaknesses of the organization as perceived by its various stakeholders. As a consultant, I also find these valuable because they can often be very supportive of my own analysis and my recommendations, as well as provide creative ideas and suggestions. This can be equally true for a basic recommendation not to proceed with a campaign as well as the recommendation to go ahead. There is another aspect of the feasibility study process (and also the campaign planning process discussed later) that can be of great value to the organization. The interview component obviously collects valuable information from key stakeholders in the organization and potential supporters, but it also can serve to educate donors and prospective donors on both the organization and the potential campaign. I have often found that during the interviews I have conducted, as much as 50% of my time can be spent on answering the interviewee’s questions about the organization and the campaign. For this reason, it is critically important that your consultant or firm be as knowledgeable as possible about your organization, including areas such as the budget, programs and services, income sources, expenses, and what the real needs are that will be addressed by the campaign. The campaign planning study, at least in my view, is carried out when the organization has already committed to carrying out a campaign and wants to hire counsel to assist with its planning. This decision may have been necessitated by an unexpected need (such as fixing a facility that was judged to be in poor condition), an emergency situation, or simply by the leadership’s belief that the purposes of the campaign are necessary for the organization. Often, there has been no public announcement of the decision to carry out a campaign, but occasionally the decision is already public.

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The campaign planning study proceeds much like the feasibility study, but usually with more emphasis on testing a specific dollar goal. The planning study is also less likely to provide a ‘‘go/nogo’’ recommendation, as the organization has already decided to move forward with the campaign. There can be exceptions to this, such as when counsel determines the roadblocks to a successful campaign might be greater than anticipated, or there are major external factors that could hinder the effort. In one exceptional case, I was carrying out a study for an organization’s planned campaign in a city where the major corporate and foundation funders (a relatively small group) had to approve all campaigns; campaigns not receiving their approval would not receive funding from them. Since they were the major funders, it was unlikely a nonapproved campaign could be successful. They generally limited the number of campaigns under way in the community at any one time, so seeking their approval became a major factor in the organization’s planning, especially the timing of the campaign. Campaign planning studies, like feasibility studies, should result in a series of recommendations for carrying out the campaign successfully as well as the findings and analysis sections discussed earlier. The campaign plan itself may be more detailed than the outline of the plan presented in a feasibility study, or may be very similar. In either case, your organization should be sure it understands what the end product will look like and the amount of detail that will be provided before the consulting process is started. When you need additional capability beyond present staff resources to conduct a capital or other major campaign (campaign management services or on-site campaign management) There are times when an organization wants or needs to carry out a capital or other major campaign, but realizes it does not have the staff resources or expertise to do so. In such cases, the organization

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may seek a consulting firm to provide what are called campaign management services or on-site campaign management (other terms may also be used). The basic concept is that the consulting firm (this service is usually provided by firms but individual consultants may also provide the service) assigns a person or team to manage the campaign and the team functions like staff of the organization for the duration of the campaign or a specified time period. The person or sometimes the team may be full time or almost so, primarily works on-site at the organization, and interacts with other staff, both formally and informally. Two major differences are that the consultant or team is paid by the consulting firm, and reports both to the organization and the consulting firm’s management or other staff. A note about the term capital campaign: This term used to refer to a ‘‘bricks-and-mortar’’ fundraising effort focused on support for new buildings, purchase of existing facilities, or rehabilitation of a facility. Nowadays, the term is often used for what could better be described as a comprehensive campaign—a fundraising effort to meet a number of needs, such as facilities acquisition or improvement, endowment building, scholarships, and so on. Several firms provide campaign management services, and on-site campaign management can be one way for your organization to reach its fundraising goals when the current development staff resources would not otherwise be able to carry out the campaign. It is important, as was discussed earlier, to ask several specific questions of any consultant or firm being considered to provide this service. Your organization should also be aware that such services might be fairly expensive. It will therefore be important to ensure that the costs are appropriate to the campaign goals and the total campaign expenses, which generally should not exceed 7% to 10% of the goal (a general rule of thumb that can vary considerably based on the nature of the campaign and your organization’s past fundraising). Also, it is very important to be sure that the firm or

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consultant has considerable experience with on-site campaign management, as the consultant’s relationship with the organization and its stakeholders is considerably different and more intense than with other consulting relationships. When you have the internal staff capacity and other resources to conduct a capital or major campaign, but want guidance and advice from an experienced professional (capital or major campaign consulting) Unlike on-site campaign management, campaign consulting is carried out through a more traditional arrangement, with counsel providing advice, suggestions, and other services to the organization during all or part of the campaign. The consultant’s roles can vary considerably during the campaign, depending on the needs of the organization. Typical roles may include: Providing help with the establishment of a campaign committee, including suggestions for committee leadership and membership and recruitment strategies Advising and meeting with the committee during the campaign (this may include such details as drafting meeting agendas; working with staff on progress reports; and other, more hands-on activities) Training committee and board members in solicitation techniques (see also separate item below) Conducting or assisting with prospect identification meetings Recommending needed policies and guidelines for the campaign and possibly providing samples of such policies Recommending donor recognition programs Advising on needed campaign materials, such as fact sheets for volunteers, the campaign case statement, brochures, or other campaign publications Advising on campaign phases (usually described as the planning phase, the quiet or advancement phase, and the public phase, although the actual phases and the names used to describe them can vary considerably)

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Advising on priority prospects and possible strategies for approaching them Helping to ensure that prospect calls are made and appropriate follow-up is carried out by volunteers and staff Researching and/or advising on corporate and foundation prospects appropriate for the organization and the campaign’s purposes, and developing or assisting in developing and reviewing strategies and materials, such as proposals, for each Advising on other aspects of the campaign, such as events, volunteer recognition, direct mail, campaign marketing, and public relations Working closely with the development and other staff to ensure that the campaign is a priority and internal systems and procedures support the campaign Helping to keep the campaign on schedule, helping with issues and providing suggestions for solutions, mediating any internal problems, and helping to ensure intermediate goals and objectives are met Providing general advice and assistance to the organization during the campaign

At times during a campaign, especially during the start-up phases, the consultant may be very heavily involved in carrying out many of the preceding tasks. At other times, he or she may be less involved, especially once the campaign is up and running smoothly. But, even at these times, the consultant will probably want to be part of campaign committee meetings and key board meetings, staff meetings focused on the campaign, campaign-related events, and other activities. When you need a better understanding of the appeal of the organization to present and prospective donors (donor/philanthropic climate assessment) At times an organization may want to find out more about how its donors and possibly prospective donors feel about its development

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operation, services, and programs. A consultant can carry out a series of interviews and surveys to assess what donors are thinking and feeling about the organization, how they are responding to its solicitations and other donor-related processes, how they perceive the relative importance of the organization and its services, issues they might have with the organization, and how important the organization is in their own philanthropic priorities. This service is different from the development audit or assessment because it is entirely focused on external stakeholders (although contributing and other board members may be included in the process). There is usually no internal assessment by the consultant, only a series of interviews with individual donors (usually major donors) and donor prospects, and possibly with foundation and corporate donors and prospects. Usually a case prospectus, fact sheet, annual report, or other information on the organization is sent to the prospective interviewees, along with a letter of invitation explaining the purposes of the interview. Focus groups and/ or surveys, including online surveys, may also be used as part of the process. Information obtained may include: Donor and donor prospect perceptions of the organization, including their views of what the organization actually does, the importance of its mission and programs, its perceived competition, its board and staff leadership, and its plans Issues and concerns they have about the organization Their views of the development program and how they see the methods and frequency of solicitations directed to them Specific appeals of the organization—why they support it Their interest in other involvement with the organization (volunteering, committee service, and so on) How the organization fits with their other philanthropic priorities What would encourage them to give more to the organization

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If they would consider or have already included the organization in their estate plans or support it through other planned giving instruments

Their reactions to printed and published materials on the organization, its web site, and the specific materials sent to them prior to the interview

Any other general or specific concerns, ideas, or recommendations they might have

As with the other processes, interviews are carried out in confidence. This helps ensure a more open discussion and that responses will not be attributed to specific people. Consultants must be sure to ‘‘mask’’ any responses that might clearly identify an interviewee, such as references to a specific gift made to the organization, or to an interaction with a member of the board or the staff. Interviews in this context, as was discussed earlier, can also help better educate the interviewees about the organization. They can demonstrate to donors that the organization values their input and ideas and wants to connect with them in other ways than just asking for support. Many times, I’ve had interviewees thank me for visiting with them on behalf of the organization. Surveys, especially when carried out online, can also be effective ways to collect information from donors and prospective donors. Consultants may just advise on items to include in a survey or may be able to design, carry out, and analyze the survey results and their implications for the organization. Online surveys may not always reach the specific individuals, such as major donors, whom the organization would like to ask for their views and information, but can be a cost-efficient way to cast a wider net. Often, the posting of such surveys is preceded by mail or e-mail invitations to participate to those people the organization is most interested in having respond; follow-up calls, e-mails, or letters may be used to increase the response rate.

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Focus groups, an often overused term (I prefer calling them group interviews), are another way to collect information and opinions for development audits, feasibility studies, capital campaign planning, and donor/philanthropic climate assessments. Group interviews generally have a broader scope than individual interviews, as people in the groups will be more reluctant (usually) to get into specifics related to their personal giving, possible planned gifts, and the like. I generally have a series of 5 to 10 questions for a group interview session, which may be set for about two hours. My primary roles are to cover the major topics and questions, facilitate the discussion, and either take notes myself or have another colleague carry out this task. Sometimes flipcharts can be a useful way to record key points of the discussion. Areas covered by a consultant during group interviews can vary greatly, but may include discussion of: Perceptions of what the organization does and its importance in the community The strong and weak points of the organization Why they are involved with the organization Ideas on how the organization could carry out its mission better Why supporting the organization as donors and/or volunteers is important Ways the organization raises support Other aspects of the organization relevant to the specific consulting process, such as the need for the planned project or program, the value of the new or rehabilitated facility to the organization, the need for an endowment fund, and so on Possible participants in group interviews may include donors, prospective donors (sometimes strategically mixed with donors), volunteers, staff, committee members, and others. Group interviews also may result in some participants educating others in the group about the organization, correcting their perceptions, or defending actions of the organization. I often try to include people who are

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very familiar with the organization along with those less familiar with it in group interviews to help provide all with a better understanding of some of its dynamics. When you need help and advice to raise funds from new sources or to improve your skills in approaching these sources (foundations, corporations, and so on.) While an organization may have a strong individual giving program, it may also want to seek support from new sources, such as foundations and corporations, or improve its skills in approaching these types of sources. A consultant or consulting firm may be able to help your organization shorten the learning curve considerably by providing a number of services focused on these new sources and developing the needed skills. Services may include: Research and development of specific strategies to approach identified priority prospects Identification of foundation and corporate contacts of the organization’s volunteer leadership, staff, and other stakeholders, including present donors Preparation of draft materials, such as letters requesting meetings, letters of inquiry, full proposals, and supporting materials, or reviewing drafts prepared by staff Training staff and volunteer leadership in preparation for meetings with corporation and foundation staff or board members Helping to ensure foundation and corporate deadlines, restrictions, guidelines, and other requirements are met Helping to ensure appropriate follow-up to all meetings, correspondence, submissions of requests, and other contacts with foundations and corporations Helping to ensure compliance with foundation and corporate reporting requirements I should also point out that potential new sources of funding might also include public and quasi-public funding agencies at the local,

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state, regional, and national levels. Obtaining money from such sources is usually a very different process from approaching foundations and corporations, and therefore requires a different expertise on the part of organizations and consultants. If your organization is seeking new funding from public sources, and it wishes to get outside expertise, I strongly recommend seeking a consultant who is a specialist in this area. Getting back to corporate and foundation funding sources and consulting services, there is greatly increased competition for support from these types of funders, and using a consultant who is skilled in developing specific priority sources and strategies for each can be a substantial and cost-effective benefit for your organization. No consultant can or should promise results, but careful research and planning can greatly increase your organization’s likelihood of success with foundations and corporations. A caution is to beware of the consultant who says that he or she has good contacts within a company or foundation and will use these for your benefit. Those of us who have been in the business for many years often do have such contacts. However, two factors limit our use of these contacts: 1. The priorities and interests of the funder, including the types of organizations, services, and programs they will and won’t fund 2. Our unwillingness to ‘‘use up’’ these contacts and friendships by constantly approaching them to open the doors to their foundation or corporation At larger foundations and companies, our contacts may not even be in the right areas; trying to get them to open other doors to other people can often be annoying to them. Foundation and corporate people, like many others, also see themselves as pressed for time and very busy. Some are and some aren’t, but it’s best to assume they are and both you and your consultant should use their time sparingly. Often, foundation staff especially, and frequently corporate staff, do not want to be interviewed for studies. This is understandable, as they are frequently asked to do so and could

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spend considerable time on this task if they accepted all such requests. One exception I have found to this is when a foundation or corporation has already been a long-term funder of an organization; they may want to participate in the interview process, especially when the organization is exploring a major fundraising effort and/or seeking to expand its funding base. These long-term supporters are usually committed to the continuing success of the organization and want to be helpful by providing advice and suggestions. Consultants can be particularly helpful in developing strategies for connecting with foundations and corporations beyond just sending them written materials and requests for support. I believe that strategies involving, wherever possible, personal contact before any specific written request is sent in can frequently be the most successful. This is especially true when someone such as a member of your board is also an employee of the company being approached, or another person connected with your organization has a personal or professional relationship with someone at a company or a foundation. Again, it is important not to ‘‘use up’’ these connections and to have a carefully thought out approach strategy in place before the contact is made. A consultant with considerable experience and success in designing such strategies can provide the needed advice on the best ways to carry out these approaches. And while a consultant may not want to reveal or use his or her contacts at a foundation or corporation, he or she may be able to provide more detailed information about some of your foundation and corporate prospects that may not otherwise be available in any of their ‘‘official’’ materials. When you need to identify specific major donor prospects and strategies for each (individuals, foundations, corporations) Earlier, at several points, I referred to identifying and prioritizing individual, foundation, and/or corporate donor prospects. While

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this process can be part of a more comprehensive service, such as campaign planning, counsel may also be retained for this and other very specific tasks, a few of which are discussed later. The process of prospect identification, prioritization, and strategy development for each can be time consuming and intensive, as well as requiring special skills such as research, facilitation of prospecting sessions, and raising of important questions about each prospect including each one’s estimated capacity to support the organization and interest in doing so. While some of these skills may be available from staff, it may be more cost-efficient and effective to retain a consultant or firm to carry out this service. In-depth prospect research is a highly specialized skill, and some consultants and firms have focused their services entirely on this area. The web has made much more information available on individual, foundation, and corporate giving; in fact, there is so much information available that a less skilled researcher can easily lose focus on the most likely priority prospects for an organization. A good prospect research consultant can quickly move through the information and locate what is most relevant to the organization’s needs and plans. He or she may also be able to help with or facilitate other parts of the prospecting process, such as assisting with strategy development for each prospect. A consultant may also be able to help an organization avoid the trap of becoming overwhelmed with the number of prospects available (I’ve seen initial prospect lists of over 100 people and philanthropic organizations) and assist your organization by working with you to develop a step-by-step approach to the prospect list—the prioritization of the prospects in accordance with the needs and goals of the organization, as well as each prospect’s ability and interest in making a major gift or pledge and the timing of these gifts or pledges. Here are some of the more specific processes a consultant or firm might use to assist your organization with the prospecting process:

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Reviewing current donor information from the organization Helping to identify the best prospects for major gifts among the current or recent individual, foundation, and corporate supporters of the organization Facilitating and assisting in collecting information through research, meetings with staff and volunteers, and other means Helping to prioritize current prospects based on the information collected Assisting with developing strategies for each priority prospect Facilitating assignment of roles and responsibilities for staff and volunteers in carrying out the strategy for each prospect Identifying, through research, new individual, foundation, and corporate prospects appropriate for the organization and its needs and providing this information to the organization Working with the organization to prioritize these prospects and develop strategies for each, including needed cultivation methods Ensuring that these new prospects are incorporated into the overall solicitation plan of the organization Monitoring the entire process to ensure follow-through, dealing with any issues that may arise, and motivating staff and volunteers to take the agreed-to steps in a timely manner

A consultant can often be a valuable asset during the prospecting process. He or she can provide outside information based on good research, can help to identify information and contacts of staff and volunteers, and can assist the organization in creating a road map for its cultivation and solicitation process. These steps can help move the organization forward more rapidly than it might be able to do on its own. Identification of contacts of staff and volunteers, as well as determining the capacity of prospects, may not always be an easy process. People are often reluctant to provide information on others who may have never supported the organization, in part because they

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may fear that these contacts (often friends or professional associates) will be asked for gifts or, worse, that they themselves will be asked to make the solicitations. A consultant can help set up some steps that can reassure the individuals concerned that cultivation and solicitation will not happen without their consent and involvement; frequently, this means making sure that each person is involved every step of the way in the entire prospecting process, and also that each person becomes comfortable with his or her role(s), if any, in the actual solicitation (see also the section on enhancement of development skills later in this chapter). An example of what can happen when prospecting for new donors occurred several years ago while I was working for the Alford Group. Jimmie Alford and I conducted a series of three prospecting sessions with an organization we were assisting with a capital campaign. We had prepared a list of some of the key business and philanthropic leaders of the city and were attempting to have board members and senior staff reveal personal or professional connections they might have to any of these people. During the three sessions, the usual answer we received for each person on our list was, ‘‘No, I don’t know that person at all.’’ By the end of the third session, Jimmie and I were fairly frustrated—nobody at the organization, despite all of their other involvements, seemed to know any of our targeted individuals. One of the people on our list was the head of the major pubic utility, served on a number of corporate and foundation boards, and was frequently rated among the five most powerful people in the city. After the third session ended, the board chair came over as Jimmie and I packed up our materials. He started talking: ‘‘That Bill Smith (a fictional name) we were talking about—he’s my next-door neighbor. We talk over the fence all the time. Oh, and I play golf with him at the club. I just never thought of him as one of the most powerful people in the city—just as my neighbor. . . .’’ Jimmie and I looked at each other in astonishment—after three frustrating

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sessions we were now hearing exactly what we needed to hear! We had learned a lesson that, as consultants helping with the prospecting process, we should always be sure that we encouraged the organization’s board and staff to think of all of the relationships they might have, not just the business and professional ones. And here’s one quick story about using the Internet for prospect research. I do not present myself as a professional prospect researcher for information on individuals. I know people who are expert at providing this service to organizations, and I will refer clients to them if the organization needs something more on individuals than the basics. However, from time to time I will carry out some online research on individuals selected by the organization. In one case, the client wanted some ideas about the gift capacity of a person on the committee that was leading an endowment campaign. He was very reluctant to talk about his own giving, although we suspected his capacity was substantial, in part due to his home being located in one of the wealthiest suburbs of a major California city. Fortunately, his name was not that common, so I entered it into Google. One of the referenced sites turned out to be for his undergraduate college, where he was heading up a major capital campaign and had given a $1 million lead gift to kick off the campaign. This information helped to confirm that his capacity was considerable, but also that the organization probably needed to develop a strategy that focused on a longer-term pledge or commitment from him since he was presently heavily involved in the college campaign. When staff and/or board need to enhance their fundraising and resource development skills. Anyone in the fundraising profession knows the refrain from volunteers, ‘‘I’ll do anything to help, I just won’t ask for money.’’ Some boards and volunteers don’t have this attitude and are very willing to make the ‘‘ask.’’ But many others just don’t want to do it, often

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for what seem like very good reasons. Here are the reasons I’ve heard over the years:1 ‘‘What if they say ‘no’?’’ ‘‘It’s begging!’’ ‘‘But he/she is my friend!’’ ‘‘What if I ask for too much . . . or too little?’’ ‘‘That’s not my job!’’ ‘‘That’s your job!’’ ‘‘I didn’t get on the board to ask for money!’’ ‘‘No one told me I would have to do this!’’ ‘‘I don’t know how.’’ Or, simply, ‘‘No!’’ Sometimes the answer might be a not-quite ‘‘No!’’: ‘‘I need more information.’’ ‘‘I don’t know what the money will be used for.’’ ‘‘I don’t have the time.’’ ‘‘Are we sure we want to do this?’’ ‘‘I’m pretty committed to another organization.’’ Some staffs have the capability and expertise to carry out the training to move the board and other volunteers into more active involvement with fundraising. Using an outside consultant or firm to provide training can alleviate many of the concerns of staff about taking on this role, while possibly being less threatening to those being trained. No matter who carries out the training, it is important to present it in a way that will engage the board and/or other volunteers, give them needed background information, teach them the necessary skills, ensure that they understand there are many ways they can help, make them more comfortable and engaged with the process of asking, and create the needed motivation to make it all happen. Consultants may provide fundraising and resource development skills through training as a standalone service or as part of more general 1

Derived from a series of presentations by the author.

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services, such as campaign planning. Elements of training sessions (I once had to call them executive seminars, as the client felt their board members might not react positively to the ‘‘T’’ word) conducted by experienced consultants might include: An overview of philanthropy and giving, including the total amount given by individuals, foundations, and corporations; where the money comes from; and the types of organizations it goes to (for more information, refer to Giving USA, published annually by the Giving USA Foundation for detailed statistics and analyses of philanthropy in the United States) The importance of volunteer involvement in the solicitation process The various roles volunteers can play in preparing for and asking for gifts (providing information on prospects, participating in prospecting sessions, informing others of the organization and those it serves, cultivating prospects, and being part of a team making the ‘‘ask’’)—it’s very important that volunteers understand there are many ways they can be part of the process and can help your organization be successful ‘‘Fear of asking’’—why this is common and ways to alleviate it, including reflecting on who really benefits from gifts (those served by the organization) Steps to prepare for and make the ‘‘ask’’ The value of using teams to make the ‘‘ask’’

What to do when you get a ‘‘No’’ answer

Follow-up steps with each person asked

The commitment of each individual participant to help with the solicitation process in the ways that he or she can best serve the organization

The best training sessions also usually include role-playing demonstrations of making the ‘‘ask,’’ with participants playing the roles of the solicitation team and the prospect. Ideally, every participant should be a part of the role-playing session, but time may allow

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only a few demonstration sessions. Each session is usually followed by reactions of first the ‘‘prospect,’’ then the ‘‘solicitation team members,’’ followed by reactions of the other attendees. The consultant provides insights and the strengths and areas for improvement of each session in a way designed to educate all attendees on the fine points of solicitation calls. Some organizations I have worked with required all board members or all members of a fundraising committee to participate in solicitation training. Some also include senior management and development staff in these sessions. When setting up these sessions, it should always be clear that requiring attendance and having everyone go through the training does not necessarily mean everyone will be asking for gifts. Otherwise possible participants may be ‘‘too busy’’ or have other obligations. Some organizations include a requirement in their board position descriptions that all board members participate in such training whenever it is available. A skilled consultant should be an excellent facilitator for training sessions. He or she should understand that adult learners must be active participants in the learning process if they are to retain the information and skills being presented. Discussions, group activities, interchanges of ideas and suggestions, and summaries of information covered should replace the lecture–question-and-answer format if participants are to receive the full benefits of the training. Feedback from actual cultivation and solicitation sessions can also help people fine-tune their skills. When outside facilitation of a task-oriented group is needed (longrange planning, strategy development, and so on.) Fundraising consultants frequently serve as facilitators of long-range/ strategic planning sessions as well as strategy sessions designed to address particular issues, concerns, or needs. Again, like other services, this may be a short-term engagement for just the planning or strategy development sessions or may be part of a more

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comprehensive service package. Often, I have been retained by an organization to provide advice on some fundraising-related need. Once the organization feels comfortable with me, has a better understanding of my skill set, and trusts my broader abilities, they sometimes ask me to take on other consulting tasks, such as facilitating a planning or strategy development session. An experienced fundraising consultant may also be able to provide services beyond advising and assisting with fundraising, as was pointed out earlier. An organization seeking fundraising counsel may have an outdated strategic plan or lack any strategic plan. Or it may need to develop strategies for such things as creating a new or enhanced organizational structure, responding to outside challenges, improving public awareness of the organization, or moving in a new direction. An experienced fundraising consultant or firm has probably provided such services elsewhere and may be an appropriate source to assist the organization with these needs, especially if the consultant is already engaged with the organization in another capacity. He or she may already have had a number of interactions with the board as well as the staff, and may have gained the confidence of leadership. It is easy to put someone classed as ‘‘fundraising counsel’’ in a small box and disregard his or her other experiences and skills (see also the later discussion of other skills). It is best to understand the full scope of experience and skills of a consultant or firm before the hiring decision is made. Meeting/workshop/retreat facilitation by a consultant may involve several activities, including: Meeting with staff and board leadership to determine the scope of desired roles for the consultant and outcomes desired by the organization Preparation by the consultant of a draft outline of the workshop, meeting, or retreat with suggested attendees, timelines, roles, areas and topics to be covered, materials needed, follow-up, and

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desired outcomes/products, as well as who will be responsible for these Review with senior staff and board leadership of the proposed outline and finalization of the outline Assisting with drawing up the invitation letters or e-mails Suggesting site and room(s) arrangements and needed equipment, supplies, break and meal items, and other session needs (sometimes these are handled entirely by an internal staff member, but it is best to work with the consultant on any areas and items directly related to the session) Possibly conducting presession surveys or interviews of participants and using the information collected during the session Suggesting outside resources (speakers, materials, and so on) for use during the session Ensuring that critical issues facing the organization are included in the session and resolutions for action are agreed to, if necessary Checking prior to the meeting that all arrangements are in place and attendance is at the desired level and includes key stakeholders Facilitating the session by serving as a leader, motivator, responder, focus and time keeper, and the many other roles that may be required of any good facilitator Summarizing key points, helping to resolve disputes, using small-group activities as part of the session as necessary, and ensuring that the group arrives at agreement on the areas to be covered, next steps, and an overall plan of action Recording information and actions, agreed-to points, draft language, and other outcomes, or ensuring that these are recorded Meeting with key leadership after the session to ensure agreement on outcomes and next steps If included as part of the consulting services, providing a written summary of the meeting/workshop/retreat outcomes along with recommendations from the consultant

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When you want ongoing advice to enhance your development operation and effectiveness Sometimes it’s just helpful to get outside advice and opinions from a knowledgeable professional or even just to talk with someone who understands fundraising about your development operation. We all do this at conferences, workshops, professional association meetings, and with our colleagues at other organizations. Those of us in the consulting profession, much to the surprise of some, frequently have informal conversations with our ‘‘competitors’’ about clients, issues, roadblocks, and other topics. Some consultants will provide general advice and counsel to an organization on its fundraising and other operations. This may be structured on a retainer basis (a fixed fee of X dollars per month for a specified period of months) or just on an ‘‘as incurred’’ basis with fees based on time actually used by the client. The retainer basis may specify an ‘‘up to’’ limit on the time incurred that will be covered by the monthly fee, with additional charges if that time cap is exceeded. This type of relationship can grow out of other services provided by a consultant and may represent the last stage of working with counsel. Or, as indicated earlier, it can be a standalone service. Organizations and their fundraising staffs may be able to benefit from a formal arrangement such as these with a consultant or firm. Ideas can be shared with the consultant, issues discussed, and suggestions and advice received that can avoid ‘‘reinventing the wheel.’’ Consultants who have been in the fundraising/development field for several years can provide a unique perspective based on their work with a variety of clients and probably on their preconsulting work experience with nonprofit organizations. If your organization feels a need for outside advice and occasional assistance with its fundraising, this arrangement might be one to consider.

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Summary The first two chapters of this book explored when you probably don’t need a fundraising consultant and when a fundraising consultant could benefit your organization. If any of the preceding services (and those covered are not intended to be comprehensive) may benefit your organization, it is probably ready to consider hiring counsel. But how does your organization start the process? Chapter 3 will discuss the first steps you and your organization should take.

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chapter

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3

What Should We Do First?

A

t this point, you and your organization might believe that you’re ready to put together a request for proposal (RFP) for consulting services or seek out a consultant more informally. I strongly recommend doing your homework before your organization takes any of the next steps. Doing your homework will help you avoid falling into one or more of the traps that were discussed in Chapter 1, especially the obvious one of ‘‘we need more money.’’

Step One: Know Your Organization The first step is to know your organization. This may seem like a step you don’t need to take; you might even be thinking, ‘‘I already know my organization.’’ Many years ago I served as a foundation program officer for a large foundation located in Chicago. When meeting with staff and board members from organizations that had submitted proposals, I would usually ask them a series of questions based on my review of the proposal and the materials they had submitted with it. These questions might include:

What is the mission of your organization?

Whom does it serve?

What are your major programs and services?

What are your organization’s plans for the next three to five years?

What are your major sources of support? 55

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what should we do first?

Have these sources of support changed over the past three to five years? Why?

What are the biggest issues your organization faces over the next few years?

How do you plan to address these?

Which other organizations do you see as competition for funding? For service delivery?

Now, you may believe that you can answer these questions without hesitation. But if I were to speak with other senior staff and board members, would I get the same answers? I often found that, when asking these and other questions of staff and board members separately, I would get very different answers. I also found this to be true at some organizations in my role as a consultant. In one case, the board chair described what the organization did in one way when in reality it was doing something entirely different. In many cases, the perceived needs of the organization may vary considerably, depending on whom one talks to within it. It will considerably facilitate any consulting process if the major volunteer and senior staff leadership have consensus on the answers to these and other questions related to the organization. Creating a common understanding will help ensure a successful consulting process because senior leadership will all be starting from the same basis of understanding the organization—not only a key to positive consulting outcomes, but a key to successful fundraising. Many times, after carrying out a study process, I’ve had to return to the organization and recommend that they start with a basic orientation of board members and even some senior staff to the purposes, programs, services, budget, sources of support, and other critical areas of the organization. The key messages given to any outsider, whether a potential funder, the media, those served, or the general public, must be consistent no matter who from the organization is presenting them. Mixed messages can be especially difficult for any fundraising (or other) consultant. Several of the consulting processes described earlier involve meetings and individual or group interviews with volunteer and

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step two: identify your organization's real needs

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staff leadership. If it is necessary to recommend internal consensus building as a first or early step in any proposed action for the organization, then essentially the organization is taking a step backwards before it can move forward and achieve the real outcomes focused on by the consultant or firm. Building consensus around the answers to these questions and identifying agreed-to key issues may be relatively easy in a smaller organization with a single focus. But larger, complex organizations may find there is little agreement among senior board and staff leadership on the answers to several of these and other questions. Fundraising planning and execution, strategic and operational planning, and many other areas where a consultant might prove useful all rely on building consensus around a basic understanding of the organization by its leadership.

Step Two: Identify Your Organization's Real Needs The second step to take is to clearly identify and reach organizational consensus on the specific needs that the fundraising consultant or firm will focus on through the consulting process. As Chapter 1 points out, there are many reasons an organization may think it needs consulting services. Hiring a consultant for one or more of these reasons may end up costing the organization a lot of money but with little return. So the task of the organization and its leadership should be to reach a second level of consensus on what priority need or needs a consultant or firm will address through its services. For fundraisingrelated consulting, the senior development staff may have to take a major role in bringing together leadership of the organization in order to define and reach consensus on these needs. Unfortunately, some individuals are very wary of using consultants in a nonprofit organization. These feelings may be based on previous negative consulting experiences elsewhere, or on the perceived cost-benefit return to the organization, or a belief that consultants are just out to make a lot of money for themselves. In some cases, an individual

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may believe that he or she knows more about the area for which consulting help is being sought than any consultant will. Convincing people with these feelings of the need for a consultant can be very difficult. Several years ago, two of my colleagues in our firm and I had a marketing meeting with two board members and the executive director of an organization that was interested in enhancing its development operation. One of the board members was a highly experienced older businessman and the other board member was very young. As we proceeded with the meeting, the younger board member started to challenge us with questions like, ‘‘How do we know you’re going to do what you say you will do?’’ We patiently explained that we worked under a contractual arrangement that spelled out our specific steps and the products/outcomes of the consulting process. He again challenged us by asking, ‘‘What’s to keep you from just taking our money and leaving?’’ We again explained that the contract would define a payment process tied to the consulting timeline and our progress on the tasks. After several additional similar challenges from the younger board member, my usual slow-burning fuse reached its end. Much to the surprise of my two colleagues, who had never seen me raise my voice in anger, I committed a possibly unpardonable sin by saying, ‘‘This meeting is over! If you can’t trust us or any consultant enough to do what we say we are going to do, then there is no point in working with you!’’ I gathered up my papers and got up to leave. My colleagues looked shocked. The older board member motioned to me to sit down, which I did, and said, referring to me, ‘‘He’s right—we need to trust whomever we hire to do what they say they will do. Maybe we need to talk among ourselves and sort this out before we continue to explore any consultants.’’ We all decided to end the meeting; on the way out, the older board member apologized to me for the challenges made by the younger board member. We never did have the organization retain us, but I certainly felt better for having spoken up and said honestly that someone who did not trust any consultant from the start was not someone we wanted to work with.

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the next internal steps

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The Next Internal Steps These first two steps—creating a common understanding of the foundations of the organization and creating consensus about the real needs to be addressed by a consultant—lead to the next internal steps. One of these is to have the organization’s leadership define the products or outcomes it desires at the end of the process. It also should include the actions that the organization will take when these products are received or the outcomes are achieved, as well as the methods for delivering them. For example, if a fundraising consultant were retained to facilitate a strategic planning process for the board and staff of the organization, the expected product would be a draft strategic plan, possibly in outline form. The consultant is often tasked with providing the written draft plan to the organization after the planning session or retreat is over. But what will the organization do with this document? Will it be shelved or poured over by a board committee and/or staff and finalized? What actions will the board take when it is in final form? And how should the draft and/or final document be presented to the board for action? Should the consultant return to a board meeting to review the planning session and present the draft? Should he or she be further involved with and facilitate the preparation of the final version? It will be helpful to any potential consultant or firm if the organization has a fairly clear idea of what it wants to have happen with the products or outcomes, as well as what the process will be for ensuring these actions or steps take place (see the later, more extensive discussion on wrapping up the consulting process). Sometimes an organization may start to think through these areas as it begins the interview process with a consultant or firm and is asked about steps and actions desired for both the consultant and the organization. Consultants may often propose specific steps and follow-up measures for the organization to take as part of the consulting process or after it is over. Here is another example: An organization seeks to hire a consultant to advise and guide it through a major campaign effort. The obvious task for both is to reach the desired dollar goal within the specified time

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period for the campaign. What else might be useful for the organization to receive from the consultant? One item might be a report developed by the consultant at the end of the campaign on ‘‘lessons learned.’’ This may be a very valuable document for the organization as it looks to possible future campaigns, as well as a way to enhance its present ongoing development operation. Another step that could be helpful to the organization is to have the consultant conduct a workshop with the development staff, senior staff, and board or appropriate board committee on these ‘‘lessons learned,’’ possibly based on the written report. Areas covered might include maintaining major donor relations, board training and involvement in fundraising, roles of board committees, policies and procedures, recognition, and other areas. Thinking through what final products are expected as well as how they will be delivered and used by the organization can help considerably when seeking a consultant or firm. Another critical internal step—all too often overlooked by organizations seeking counsel—is identifying the financial resources needed to pay for the consulting services and related costs. Consulting services usually but not always have two cost-related components. The first is the fee for the consulting services. Fees for service will usually be billed on three different bases: 1. A flat fee for the service being provided, usually payable in monthly increments or according to a schedule related to the completion of specific tasks. For example, a feasibility study may be projected as taking a period of four months. The total costs may be divided by the four-month period, with a monthly billing equal to one-quarter of the total fee. Or the billing may be split into thirds, with one-third payable upon acceptance of the contract by the organization (this is a very common practice in the field for many contracts), one-third due upon completion of 50% of the number of interviews agreed to or a similar benchmark, and the final third due upon submission by the consultant of the final version of the written report, or upon this step plus conducting a board session or workshop on the report and recommendations. Please note that flat fees are probably based on the consultant’s or firm’s estimate of the amount

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some possible alternative arrangements

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of consulting time it will take to carry out the project or service; this may or may not be shared with the client. There may also be a provision in the contract that, if the client wants to add or expand a component of the service, there will be additional charges. For example, if the original contract for a feasibility study specified the consultant would carry out 50 interviews and the organization decides during the study process it would like an additional 10 people interviewed, there may be additional charges. Some contracts spell out these charges in advance (with language such as ‘‘Each additional interview above the 50 agreed-to interviews will be billed at a cost of X dollars’’). 2. A retainer fee, with a set amount paid each month over the period defined in the contract, frequently 10 to 12 months or longer. This arrangement is frequently used for on-site or other campaign management. It is usually less dependent on a specific amount of time being projected for the services, and is more dependent of completion of major tasks. 3. A straight hourly or daily fee for consulting services actually used. Often, the organization will make ‘‘as needed’’ arrangements with the consultant, so that he or she is asked for assistance at particular points. This lets the organization keep control of the process and the costs. The consultant or firm bills only for time actually incurred for services. The organization may wish to establish a cap or limit on the costs for consulting services. One limitation on this arrangement for payment is that there may be times the consultant should be involved in some activity or event, such as an important meeting that will affect his or her work, but the organization may not see the need for attendance by the consultant. Also, at times the focus can end up being on the dollars spent rather than using the consultant effectively.

Some Possible Alternative Arrangements I should point out there are other arrangements that may be proposed to your organization by a consultant or firm. One of these is for the consultant to take a percentage of the money raised for a campaign. For

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example, I once received a rather dubious call from someone who claimed he had a way to bring about world peace. ‘‘All I need to do is to have your help to raise a million dollars or two million—that’s what it will take and we’ll have world peace!’’ the caller said. I said I really was not interested, so he decided to sweeten the proposition. ‘‘I’ll tell you what—you raise one million for me and I’ll give you 10%—$100,000. Two million and you’ll get $200,000—good deal, right? I explained that this type of arrangement was unethical according to the standards of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, of which I was a member, and then I ended the call. Another example was a small national organization located in Washington, D.C., that asked a colleague and me to come in to discuss providing consulting services for a major campaign effort. The person heading the organization—a former lawyer—proposed a percentage-based arrangement instead of a flat fee. In this case I explained there were basically two kinds of arrangements just like the two basic arrangements used by many attorneys for clients involved in lawsuits: contingency fee payment (when the lawyer wins a case for a client, he or she takes a percentage of the award), and retainer fee arrangements (the client pays the lawyer a regular fee for the period the attorney is engaged with the case). My comment was ‘‘we’re the retainer fee guys.’’ The discussion quickly ended. Paying consultants based on a percentage of dollars raised is considered unethical for many reasons. There have been notable examples of outside fundraisers taking as much as 80% to 90% of the money raised (including a long list of telemarketing/telephone solicitation firms doing this). There have also been examples of outside fundraisers taking their percentage from the first dollars raised and then leaving, or of fundraisers not accurately reporting what had actually been raised. In most cases, problems occur when someone is hired from outside to do the actual fundraising for the organization. Payment based on a percentage of dollars raised seems like an easy way for the organization to use the desired services without incurring any direct expense for these services as they would in a fee-for-time or -project arrangement. There are many legitimate firms and consultants who

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can act as solicitors for your organization (see earlier discussion), and are properly registered and bonded, where required, to handle contributions. But they will most likely work on a fee basis rather than a percentage arrangement. When considering the costs of a consultant or firm, your organization should be aware that the fee for services might not include the consultant’s expenses. Some consultants, when working with a client that is in their same immediate area, may not charge any expenses or may charge only for mileage and parking when directly related to the delivery of services. Some consultants and firms include expenses in the fee for services, especially when the client is local. However, when working with a regional or national organization or with an organization not in the immediate area where the consultant or firm is based, the expenses can be considerable. These should be taken into account when your organization is looking at the total costs, not just the fee for service. Even an organization that is in the same general geographic area as the consultant may incur considerable expenses in addition to the service fee. This is especially true for national organizations undertaking one of the consulting services which include an interview process. Board members of many national organizations may be located in several parts of the country and, if in-person interviews are desirable, the travel costs can be substantial. Major donors, even for some purely local or regional organizations, may be located elsewhere. In some cases, the organization may desire that phone interviews be carried out to save major travel costs, but there still can be considerable value in face-to-face interviews for some selected people, especially when there has been limited other direct personal contact by the organization with some major donors. If you are with a national organization, one suggestion that can save considerable money for travel expenses is to have the consultant carry out key interviews at your national meeting or other major meeting. National organizations, such as associations, frequently hold annual conferences and schedule board and committee meetings during these events, which can run for several days. Major donors or other important

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individuals may be attending. Exhibitors, sponsors, and cost underwriters will probably be there. By having the consultant at the conference, the organization can have many of the interviews carried out in person, can introduce the consultant to key leadership groups, such as the board, and can save considerable travel expenses. As an example, I once went to the major national conference of a client organization and was able to carry out 23 interviews, including sessions with prospective individual and corporate donors and with board members, over a period of three days. My expenses were for airfare to and from the meeting, three nights at the hotel (at the conference rate) and meals, plus taxis to and from the airports. The total costs were considerably less than taking several trips to different parts of the country to interview these same people. Another cost-saving method for in-person interviews and/or meetings is to determine if the consultant can combine travel to carry out your organization’s services along with work being done for another client. I was carrying out a feasibility study for a Los Angeles–based client (a statewide organization) that wanted a number of in-person interviews of their leadership and major donors. At the same time, I was doing another study for a national health-related association headquartered in the Washington, D.C., area. The latter group wanted in-person interviews with several of their members and corporate sponsors, many of whom were also located in the Los Angeles area. I was able to work out an agreement with both organizations to split costs such as airfare, hotel expenses, meals, and ground transportation; the actual split agreed to was about 50–50, which represented almost exactly the split of the number of interviews for each organization. So the lesson is to explore with any potential consultant ways to save as much as possible for travel expenses and other expenses related to the consulting services being sought. However, as was discussed earlier, there can be false economies that can influence outcomes of the consulting process. Phone interviews can save considerable money, but may have less value than in-person interviews with individuals such as major donors or corporate leaders. Your organization should carefully consider ways it can economize on consultant expenses, but should also look at

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what expenses related to the outcomes will have the most benefits in terms of the end products. I should also point out that some consultants I have known have a schedule of fees for service related to travel; these are in addition to being reimbursed for actual travel expenses. For example, one colleague would charge one-half her normal hourly service fee for any clientrelated travel over one hour. The rationale was that she was traveling for the benefit of the client, probably working on client materials while flying or taking a train, and therefore would charge for (and account for) her time. One of the firms I worked with as a consultant would allow us to bill the firm only for our time related directly to the services being provided. So our travel time was not considered billable in most cases. I was asked by a client to travel to the San Francisco area (actually about a three-hour drive from San Francisco) from Washington, D.C., to interview in person one of their largest donors. My total travel time was three days, but I had one billable hour! Based on the preceding, your organization should determine how the consultant or firm will be paid. Later, I will discuss several possible methods, but each organization will want to decide in advance what the source or sources of the money for fees and expenses will be. The actual total costs for the consultant or firm can vary considerably, based on many possible factors, including answers to the following questions:

What is the nature of the service desired or needed by the organization? Since consulting fees will be based on time expended or on a package price for the project, such as a feasibility study, more time-intensive work or larger-scale projects will cost more. A one-year contract for on-site campaign management will cost considerably more than a feasibility study involving 30 interviews and conducted over a period of four months.

What are the anticipated expenses (see the earlier discussion)?

What type of consulting firm or individual consultant will be considered? As a general rule of thumb, large national consulting firms will have larger fees for service than smaller firms that may serve only

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local or regional clients. Individual consultants will generally be less expensive than consulting firms, with those newer to consulting probably charging less than those who have been providing services for a number of years. There will be further discussion of the various types of firms and consultants as well as the possible values of each in the next chapter.

What additional internal support, materials, and other items might be needed as part of the consulting process? If your organization is planning on conducting a major fundraising campaign using a consultant, there will be other costs, such as campaign brochures and publications, possibly campaign committee meeting expenses, events, recognition items, and staff time. These will probably not be considered direct costs for the consultant but should be taken into consideration when discussing costs.

Funds to support consulting services can come from several sources, including the organization’s own funds or external sources. Your organization should determine which of the following sources or mix of sources are most appropriate to support the consulting services you need. These sources include:

The internal operating budget of your organization. Some organizations are very good at anticipating needs in their budget planning process and may appropriate funds for consulting services for the next budget cycle or fiscal year. When doing so, there should be recognition that the specifics of the needs and services desired may change and thus the amount appropriated may have to be adjusted. Also, it may be necessary to contact some consultants and/ or firms to get estimated ranges of possible fees for the service that may be needed so that the budget figures will reflect some reality. Good planning should also anticipate how these funds will be used if a consultant or firm is not hired; it is important not to use up these funds for other purposes if the decision is to defer the activity requiring consulting assistance.

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A special appropriation of funds from the current operating budget. In this example, current funds are tapped for payment of consulting fees; these funds may be available due to unfilled job openings, lower expenses than anticipated for some operations, canceled activities or programs, unplanned growth in operating or unrestricted income and contributions, or other sources. In such cases, it is important not to use funds restricted for other purposes to pay for the consulting services.

Drawing upon unrestricted endowment or investment income. If your organization has permanent funds, such as an endowment fund, it may be able to draw upon income from these funds for consulting services. Again, this should be done only if the income is unrestricted.

Borrowing from permanent funds. If there are provisions or policies in place to borrow from permanent funds held by your organization, this may be an alternative way to pay for a consultant or firm. Some organizations have such provisions in place, but borrowing should be undertaken only when there is also a clear plan and timeline for repayment.

Budgeting for the expense as part of a fundraising campaign budget. When planning for and carrying out a major fundraising campaign, it is usually considered acceptable to charge campaignrelated costs to dollars raised within some limitations. Comprehensive campaign budgets cover both direct costs related to the campaign (such as consultants, materials, events, meetings, recognition programs, and so on) and indirect costs (such as anticipated time to be spent by existing staff on the campaign effort— usually defined as a percentage of time applied to their salary and benefits). Campaign goals should reflect not only dollars needed to meet the campaign’s purposes (such as a new facility), but also the monies needed to recover expenses associated with the campaign. Earlier, I mentioned a general rule of thumb that campaign costs should generally fall within 7% to 10% of the goal of the campaign

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for its defined purpose(s), although this can vary considerably based on the nature of the campaign. However, it is always a good practice to keep the costs of the campaign as low as possible. As an example of how this method of budgeting works, suppose an organization needs to raise $3 million for a new facility—this represents the actual need. Using a figure of 10% for campaign costs and applying this to the $3 million, we arrive at estimated campaign costs of $300,000. Adding this to the $3 million for the new facility, the total campaign goal would be $3.3 million. Whatever the anticipated campaign expenses are, they should be established as a budget for the campaign with specific detailed line items. This can help answer potential donors’ and others’ questions about what the campaign expenses will be and the justification for them.

Obtaining funds from a current or recent major donor to the organization. At first glance, this might seem like an unlikely source for securing the funds needed to hire a consultant. But often major donors, as investors in your organization, want to ensure that it continues to operate effectively and efficiently, as well as meet present and future needs of those it serves. Because they have a ‘‘vested interest’’ in your organization, they may be willing to fund consulting services if they understand the reasons and benefits for hiring outside counsel as well as the expected products or outcomes. Individuals, foundations, and corporations can all be possible sources for such funds. Foundations that have been long-term funders of an organization may even encourage it to carry out a development audit, explore other possible sources of support, or want to have the feasibility of raising endowment funds tested. As a consultant, I’ve had my fee paid several times through foundation grants to an organization for services they are interested in for their grantees. Foundations in particular, but also individuals and corporations, may want to be involved in the process of selecting a consultant or firm. They may also recommend consideration of consultants or firms they are familiar with in other contexts. As much as possible,

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I recommend including their suggested consultants or firms along with others that you want to consider rather than just hiring their recommended resource. I also recommend not having a potential funder of consulting services insist that your organization use only a particular consultant or they will not fund the costs. This may take some ‘‘backbone’’ to do, but doing so can help avoid possible difficult situations, especially when the person hired does not fit with your organization or fails to deliver the needed products and services.

Obtaining funds from a new source that had not previously funded your organization. This can be a more difficult route to take and will require a very strong case as to why your organization needs a consultant. However, some funders, particularly foundations, may find it appealing to give support, through what they may see as a relatively small grant, to a service that can improve the organization and its ability to raise funds. Foundations, in my experience, are not great risk takers. So making an ‘‘introductory’’ grant to an organization to carry out a short-term fundraising consulting project, such as a development audit, may be a first low-risk step for the foundation. The final report and recommendations, if positive, can be shared with the funder to show the outcomes of its investment as well as the strengths of the organization. A positive report and a good relationship with the new funder could lead to future grants or gifts for other purposes.

Summary It is important that your organization take a number of internal steps before it actively seeks to hire a consultant or firm. Several critical decisions need to be made before you go forward with identifying and hiring a consultant. Once these are in place, your organization is ready to move to the next step, the request for proposal (RFP).

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The Request for Proposal—A Short Introduction

The Written External RFP The request for proposal (RFP) can actually take several different forms. It may be a formal written document with considerable detail about the organization and its services and programs, a description of the services needed and the rationale, expected outcomes from the services, the desired types of clients and/or experience of the consultant or firm and its scope (national, regional, local, or other), and possibly the budget or amount set aside to pay for the services. This document may be sent to selected consultants or firms based on past experience of the organization and/or recommendations of others, or may be widely distributed based on lists of consulting firms. Some RFPs may demonstrate little knowledge of fundraising consulting and may call on the consultant hired to carry out several tasks that most of us would see as mutually exclusive. A classic example of this was an RFP my firm received several years ago from an organization that wanted to build a new museum. Areas of service that a single consultant or firm was expected to provide included: carrying out a feasibility study and managing a campaign to raise funds for the facility, completing a site assessment to determine the best use of the land for the museum, and providing preliminary design and architectural concepts with drawings for the museum. I am not sure

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there was a single consulting firm or person in the country that could carry out all of these tasks.

The Written Internal RFP Aside from a formal written document, an RFP can be an internal document or even a board resolution that is used in discussions with possible consultant candidates. This form of RFP may not be distributed beyond the organization at all, or may be sent only upon request by consultants who have been initially contacted. The RFP described here is really a discussion piece to ensure that those contacting possible consultants on behalf of the organization are giving the same messages about the needs to be addressed by the person or firm hired. In one sense, it is the ‘‘script’’ to be used in discussions with possible candidates that might be considered.

The Unwritten Consensus RFP The third form of the RFP is not a written document at all. Rather, it represents the consensus of the board and/or senior staff and/or development director on what organizational needs can be met by consulting services. In my years as a consultant, my firm or I was most often contacted based on this type of RFP. In fact, some firms tend not to respond to the mass-mailed ‘‘To whom it may concern’’ written RFPs, some of which clearly indicate little understanding of the types of consulting services many of us offer (see the preceding example). Often, I was called by a staff member of the organization, who explained the consulting service they were looking for, and who asked about my background and experience, especially with organizations like theirs. The caller usually offered to send me information on his or her organization or referred me to the organization’s web site. If I asked, the caller might be able to send me more specific information on the service the organization was seeking or related information. This preliminary contact might result in a formal interview with the organization’s

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leadership (board members and staff in many cases). See Chapter 8 on interviews with consultants and firms.

Advantages of the Internal RFP and RFP Contents The advantage of having an internal written RFP is that it provides a document that expresses the consensus of the organization on its needs and also the expectations of consulting firms that will be considered. It also provides the budget anticipated for the services and related expenses. I strongly recommend that any organization that is seeking consultants develop an internal RFP. This will help guide any staff member, board member, or others who might be involved in the process and can ensure that everyone is on the same track. Following the earlier chapters of this book, the internal or external RFP may include:

Brief background on your organization, including its mission, a short history, programs and services and those served, staff size and service data, size of the operating budget and sources of support, and development-related information relevant to the services being sought from a consultant.

The particular need that will be addressed by the consultant and background on how this need was determined, and why this need is important to the organization.

The service(s) being sought from a consultant or firm. For example, the need may be a new facility and the related service sought from the consultant may be a capital campaign planning study.

The types and backgrounds of consultants or firms that will be considered. This section may include whether a national firm is desirable or the organization would prefer a local/regional firm, or an independent consultant would be acceptable, a statement about past experience of the consultant or firm (e.g., if the organization would prefer someone experienced with similar types of organizations), and other requirements or preferences.

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The information desired from the firm or consultant. Often, an outline or list of the specific information sought is provided in external RFPs or after initial contact with potential consultants or firms. At this point it should be noted that the process of seeking a consultant can involve having any firm or consultant submit a full proposal for services; selecting firms based on preliminary information to submit a full proposal; or selecting some firms/consultants for in-person or phone interviews based on initial materials submitted, followed by asking some of these firms or consultants to submit full proposals. Consultants generally prefer to meet with an organization before submitting a full proposal for services, rather than preparing proposals in response to mass-mailed RFPs, but the process is really an organizational preference. However, consultants can generally prepare better proposals if they have had conversations with the organization’s leadership as well as have reviewed the written and online materials of the organization.

The desired timeline for the consulting project. The timeline should be flexible and reasonable. While a few firms might be able to provide a feasibility study over a period of three to four weeks, your organization should have a realistic timeline for the consulting service you are seeking. Timelines may often be tied to events such as board meetings, where a final report from the consultant is expected, or to other organizational activities. As your organization narrows the field of candidates for counsel, you should explore the proposed timeline for the project with the firms and consultants you are considering. Consultants may have good rationales for recommending timelines for specific services; for example, interviews for a feasibility study may require scheduling them three to five weeks in advance for some individuals due to their other commitments.

The timeline for submission of a proposal for services or for other next steps. Again, a reasonable amount of time should be allowed for these parts of the process. Many consultants and firms prepare proposals

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after considerable time spent in conversations with the organization, reviewing materials, and internal discussions. Many of us tailor our proposals to each specific organization, rather than boilerplating the proposal (although some sections, such as the background information on each consultant, may be standardized). A good proposal takes time and thought to put together. So telling a firm or consultant on Monday that your organization wants a proposal by Thursday or Friday may result in a poorly prepared proposal and is not considerate of the other obligations the consultant may have. An organization also may call or e-mail a prospective consultant and want him or her to come in for an interview on short notice. Again, this may not be considerate of the schedule of the consultant; larger firms can be a little more flexible about such requests, as they may have staff free to prepare a proposal or to come for an interview. One pattern several colleagues and I have noticed over the years is a sudden rush at the end of the summer to seek out consultant prospects. Our theory is that many boards meet in late May or early June and ask staff to have some specific consultants ready for consideration by the fall board meeting, usually in September, or have some proposals for service in for consideration by the board. Staff tend to put this off until the end of the summer and suddenly realize they need to do something to get the process under way so they can report at the fall board meeting. So during the last weeks of August or first week of September, many of us are flooded with requests for meetings, proposals, or at least our basic information.

(Optional) The budget or funds set aside for the consulting project. This may include (see the earlier discussion) both the fees for service and the expenses or expense cap, or just the fees for service. As with other areas, inclusion or exclusion of a consulting budget or what funds are available should be a decision made by your organization. If your organization has based its figures on good information about the range of possible fees for the type of service you are seeking,

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inclusion of the budget or funds available may help guide the consultants in defining how they can best fulfill your organization’s need for services. For example, your organization’s budget for a feasibility study might be X dollars. A consultant being considered may be able to say that he or she could do Y number of interviews and Z number of focus groups in addition to carrying out a materials and internal review and preparing the final report and recommendations for that amount of money. However, some organizations feel that, by revealing the amount of money available, they will be encouraging possible consultants to raise their pricing in response to knowing the amount budgeted. Possible consultants seeing the budgeted amount may feel it is inadequate for the tasks the organization wants carried out, and therefore may not be interested in being considered. My best advice is to be sure your organization does its homework on the possible range of pricing, and then makes an internal decision as to whether to let possible consultants know the amount of money available.

Whom at the organization to contact, if interested. This information should be included in both internal and external RFPs. Having a single contact person can help avoid confusion, keep contacts and contact information consolidated, and ensure all consultants and firms are getting the same information about the organization and its consulting needs.

Summary Having at least an internal RFP document can help ensure that the same information and ‘‘messages’’ about the desired consulting services are available to those in your organization who might be involved in the process of seeking a fundraising consultant. Planning the process in accordance with your organization’s needs and being respectful of the other possible obligations of the consultant or firm will help ensure your selection process goes smoothly.

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Finding Consultants—Where Are They?

They're Everywhere, They're Everywhere! A long time ago I was working at the University of Tennessee. Every morning, the local radio station had a ‘‘continuing adventure’’ parody of a superhero named Chicken Man. The deep-voiced announcer would start off the latest episode with ‘‘It’s Chicken Man!’’ and a chorus of high-pitched female voices would loudly say, ‘‘He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere!’’ Where are fundraising consultants? They’re everywhere! They’re everywhere! The growth of the nonprofit sector, including the formation of many new organizations, as well as changes in public funding, foundation priorities, corporate giving, and how individuals give, has opened up many opportunities for consultants and ‘‘consultants-to-be.’’ Old-line consulting firms have expanded their staffs and set up new offices in other cities, new firms have been formed, and individuals have left the practice of nonprofit work to become fundraising consultants. People who have served as volunteers for nonprofit agencies have also become paid-for consultants, turning their experiences as volunteers and possibly donors into a career. Some individuals with only limited work experience in the nonprofit sector have become consultants. And people from the corporate sector, such as planning, public relations, and 77

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marketing specialists, have left their firms to set themselves up as consultants to nonprofits. Another likely trend is that retiring members of the Baby Boom generation may turn to consulting as a way to lend their expertise to the sector while supplementing their income. So fundraising and nonprofit management consultants are everywhere. When I was located in the Washington, D.C., area, very rough estimates were that there were several hundred independent fundraising consultants and one- or two-person consulting firms around Washington and Baltimore, as well as some offices of larger national consulting firms in our area. Consultants were and are active members of our Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) local chapter board, were frequent presenters at conferences and workshops, and networked with each other both formally and informally. As was mentioned earlier, individual consultants and small firms often work together on selected projects, especially where the project required more than one person or special expertise. An example of this arrangement was when I was contacted by a large national health association to carry out a feasibility study. I had no experience consulting with large national associations but extensive experience in carrying out feasibility studies. A colleague, who was an independent consultant, had specialized in working with associations. I contacted him, and we submitted a proposal for the services requested by the association. As we proceeded with the study, I learned a considerable amount about large national health organizations, and my colleague learned some new ways of doing a feasibility study. The client also received efficient and effective services and results, in part because there were two of us engaged on the project. As ‘‘friendly competitors,’’ we consultants would talk to each other about clients or issues, share ideas, and commiserate over problem clients or difficult people. When a potential client contacted one of us about possible services, we would frequently call colleagues to see if they had also been contacted. If one of us was ‘‘booked up,’’ we would refer client prospects to other consultants or at least pass on to the caller the names of some individuals or firms we felt appropriate to the needs of the organization. And, as in the example above, we frequently

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collaborated on projects, with one of us serving as the subcontractor to the other consultant. At times, a proposed client project clearly needed the services of a national or international firm rather than the services of a small one- or two-person firm; in these cases, those of us who operated independently would refer the prospective client to the national or international firm. If your organization is located in an urban area or in the suburbs of a larger city, there are probably a number of consultants working near you. If you are in a distant suburb or in a rural area, finding local consultants might be more difficult and your organization may need to consider firms and individual consultants from other locations. Contracting with a nonlocal consultant may have the disadvantage of travel expenses in addition to service fees, but this may be counterbalanced by the experience of the firm or individual and their success record with organizations similar to yours. Given that consultants are ‘‘everywhere,’’ and assuming your organization has done its internal homework to identify your needs, the desired services, and the budget, where do you begin your search for a consultant or firm? In this chapter, I have listed several possible generic and specific sources that may be helpful.

Using Your Own Organization as a Source The first source, one that is often overlooked because it is the nearest to you, is your own organization. If you are new to the organization or have been on the staff for only a few years, you might want to explore its recent past use of consultants. Did the organization have a recent major campaign effort before you arrived there? Was a feasibility study done before that campaign? Was a fundraising consultant providing services for either of these? Or was a consultant used for a strategic planning session, to facilitate a board meeting or retreat, or for other purposes related to fundraising? Ask staff and board members of your organization about the past use of consultants. If a consultant or firm

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was used within the last several years, determine what the organization’s experience was with the consultant. Was the organization generally satisfied with the person(s) providing the services? Were the outcomes satisfactory? Did the costs seem reasonable and appropriate in terms of the results? Were there any issues or problems with the consultant or firm? If the services were provided by a firm, who specifically provided them? Once you have some basic background information, contact the consultant or firm to get current information, determine (if a firm) if the consultant who previously worked with your organization is still with the firm, and if the services provided by the firm or the consultant are appropriate to your needs. After your initial information collection and review, you may want to further explore the use of this consultant or firm and include them on your list of prospects for interviews. One advantage of considering a fundraising consultant or firm that was recently used successfully by your organization is that they already have some familiarity with your organization and thus can ‘‘get up to speed’’ relatively quickly. They also may already be known to some of your board members and other staff, so their need to adjust to your organization’s culture may be minimal. But what if there were issues with the consultant or firm? If everyone you speak with in the organization seems to believe the overall outcome was satisfactory, you might want to further explore what was the cause of the issues or problems and how they were resolved. Not every successful consulting relationship goes smoothly. And not every issue is caused by the consultant or firm. Sometimes a few board members or staff members were not accepting of the recommendations, or a campaign had some major hurdles to overcome in order for the goal to be reached. But consultants can also be the cause of problems. The person providing the services may not be a good match to the culture of the organization, may be insensitive to certain issues within the organization, or may not have handled a situation that arose very well. If a firm provided the past services and there were issues with the consultant, how were these handled? Is that person even still with the firm? If your organization’s

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past experience was with a firm, you may have the option to use the firm again, but not have the particular ‘‘problem’’ consultant provide the specific services. To conclude this section, when looking at again using a firm or individual consultant, it’s best to look at the overall picture and focus more on outcomes and results rather than issues or problems that occurred during the process, unless these effectively blocked success.

Asking Other Organizations A second source, also overlooked at times, is the experience of other organizations, especially those similar to yours in terms of mission and services or programs, with consultants. Many of my referrals for new clients came from current or recent past clients who were pleased with my services. Check with other organizations in your area (or, for national organizations, with similar organizations) to see if they have recently used fundraising consultants or firms and what the purposes of the services were. If so, ask them about their experiences—both good and bad—with the consultant or firm. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the consultant? What could have been done differently or better? Were the products and outcomes satisfactory? Would they use the consultant or firm again? Other organizations’ staff members and board members can often provide insights and information on the effectiveness of consultants. Your colleagues at these other organizations can be very helpful in your search for consultants and firms to consider. They can also be helpful in suggesting additional organizations to contact that may also have used the same consultant(s).

Using Workshops, Seminars, and Conferences as Sources Workshops, seminars, conferences, and similar programs also can be a good source to meet consultants in both formal and informal settings. Many of us speak or serve as panelists, facilitators, or in other capacities

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at these programs. At larger conferences, it is important carefully to select the particular sessions to attend if your organization is in the market for a consultant. For example, if you are seeking a consultant for a feasibility study, see if a consultant is presenting a session or sessions on feasibility studies and/or major campaigns. You should also check the backgrounds of presenters to see which of them are consultants that may have expertise in the areas your organization needs services, even if the particular presentation topic is not directly related to your organization’s consulting needs. The educational sessions themselves can be very helpful for tips and techniques as well as the experiences of others. Sessions often include time for questions and answers, and at the end of the session there may be an opportunity to meet informally with the presenter(s). It is important to take advantage of both the formal and informal parts of a conference and gain at least a preliminary understanding of some prospective consultants. As you listen to them present and interact with the audience, you might want to ask yourself some questions:

Does he or she seem to have depth in understanding of the topic, or is the presenter merely repeating information and ideas you’ve heard elsewhere?

Does he or she have some new and creative approaches to the topic?

How is the person as a presenter? Is the presentation very academic, or is it creative and engaging? Often, the success of a consulting engagement is in part due to the skills of the consultant in presenting the information, conclusions, and recommendations in written form and verbally to an audience.

Does the presenter seem to be able to apply the knowledge and information he or she is presenting (such as using specific, real examples), or is it only information without application?

How would the presenter fit with your organization and its culture? Is he or she a person who would fit in and be accepted by your leadership?

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How does the presenter interact with the audience? When it’s time for the question-and-answer session, does he or she answer the question directly or seem to never really answer it? Does he or she manage this part of the session effectively and engage audience members? If there is a group process, such as setting up small groups during the session, how does he or she manage this process?

Does the person have a sense of humor?

If anything unexpected happens during the program (technical problems with equipment, and so on), how is that handled by the presenter?

What other characteristics does the presenter have that might indicate he or she could be an effective consultant with your organization?

While seeing a consultant presenting a session at a conference may give you some ideas about his or her experience, expertise, and fit with your organization and its needs, remember it is only one way to begin to get some ideas about prospective consultants for consideration. Also, some people can be very effective presenters but are not as effective when it comes to the complex task of carrying out a consulting engagement effectively. The information and perceptions you collect about a prospective consultant during a conference, workshop, or other session should just be one part of your total effort to identify the best possible consultant for your organization, and should be added to the overall picture. As a consultant, I believe that presentations and workshops are one of the best ways to market my services and myself. I have presented, facilitated, and led discussions at over 100 events in my immediate geographic area, nationally, and even internationally, usually at no cost to the sponsoring organization (except for expenses in some cases). Why do I do this? Because it enables me to get my name and any expertise I have conveyed to many people at one time. They have also self-selected

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the particular topic I will cover, so there is at least a minimal level of interest to start. Most organizations prohibit direct marketing by presenters during their sessions, as they should. But there can be many opportunities to meet informally and network with people at conferences and workshops. Additionally, your attendance will also enable you to speak with your colleagues about any suggestions they have for consultants, based on their own experiences.

Professional Organizations as Sources Professional organizations can also offer good opportunities to get to know consultants in different settings. Examples include the Association of Fundraising Professionals (www.afpnet.org), the Association Foundation Group (www.afgnet.org), the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (www.case.org), and many others. Consultants are often involved with these organizations, serving on boards, committees, sponsors, and in other capacities. National organizations, in addition to their own conferences and workshops, have local chapters that usually have a number of educational programs and social events, such as breakfast or lunch meetings, their own conferences and workshops, roundtable discussions, and other activities. These activities offer informal networking with colleagues and consultants as well as educational content in the formal sessions. The key is to take advantage of these opportunities by becoming active with the organization and its local chapter, if there is one in your area. Serving on a committee, volunteering to help with an event, or even just attending the meetings and events can be a way to start to meet consultants and get to know them. As they do with presentations, consultants see being active in professional organizations, both locally and nationally, as a way to very informally market themselves and their services through networking. National organizations and local chapters’ offices and leadership may be able to suggest some consultants and firms for your organization’s

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follow-up. However, they are very aware of not seeming to endorse a particular firm and so will usually suggest several firms and consultants for you to contact.

Professional Organizations of Consultants as Sources There are also professional organizations of consultants. These are national or local and regional groups of independent consultants and/or firms that meet together for both educational and networking purposes. The oldest national organization is the Giving Institute (www.giving institute.org). Founded in 1935, and until recently known as the American Association of Fund Raising Counsel (AAFRC), this professional organization promotes the highest ethical and practice standards for its member firms. You may be—or should be—familiar with the annual publication Giving USA (www.givingusa.org), a report on private giving statistics in the United States, including sources of support, recipients of gifts and grants, trends and issues, and much more. This publication, which should be on every fundraiser’s shelf, is published by the Giving USA Foundation, an organization closely related to the Giving Institute. The members of the Giving Institute represent some of the larger and better-known fundraising consulting firms in the country, including several that have been in business for many years. Firms generally have regional or national—and in some cases international—consulting practices and can provide services in a number of areas, such as annual campaigns, capital campaigns, feasibility studies, development planning and assessments, direct mail, strategic planning, and many other areas. Not all firms provide services in all of these areas; the web site can be very helpful in sorting through the firms, including the services they provide and the geographic areas where they work. On a personal note, for several years I was actively involved with the then AAFRC and with the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy (now the Giving USA Foundation). There, I found the willingness to share

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information, ideas and issues and the collegiality at first surprising, since the member firms were also competitors. But the meetings, social events, and networking created many friendships, some of which continued long after my direct involvement ended. The Giving Institute’s members have a strong code of ethics, and all members also agree to a code of standards of practice. The web site contains a brief guide on how to select counsel, as well as information on each member firm. Giving Institute member firms generally have long lists of clients served, in part due to the longevity of many of the firms, but also due to their general effectiveness and experience over the years. In term of the costs of their services, they can probably best be described as at the higher end of the range of fees as compared to what other firms and consultants charge, although there are exceptions. In return for this higher level of fees, your organization will usually be receiving experienced counsel or a team of experienced consultants and a strong level of support from the firm itself. But also remember that not all firms are members of the Giving Institute, and there are many national and regional firms that have qualifications and experience similar to the Institute’s members. There are also regional and local organizations of consultants. These may be primarily composed of independent consultants and small (oneto-three-people) firms. The Washington, D.C., area has such a group, as do other areas of the country and other countries. Some of these groups include consultants who do not provide fundraising services, while others focus only on those who do provide these services for nonprofit organizations. Some of the groups are not formally organized but meet together occasionally to share experiences, hear a speaker, or just network. Others are more formally organized, with regular meetings and events. These organizations and informal groups can be sources for consultants that are located in your area. However, because they are primarily focused on consultants only, it may be difficult to find out about the organizations unless you know or can identify a consultant who is a member.

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Using the Internet Also, there is the Internet. When I put ‘‘fundraising consultants’’ into Google, it returned 317,000 links. These included individual consulting firms, aggregated listings (some from organizations of consultants or online services) of firms and individuals, and links to some organizations. Also included under ‘‘consultants’’ were organizations providing services for high school fundraising events, totally online services, legal references for those consulting in different states, publications on consulting, and many other links. While some of this may be helpful in your search for prospective consultants, and a more refined set of search terms may narrow the number of returned links, the Internet is probably best used to get information on specific firms once you have identified them through other means.

Summary There are many possible sources to use when you begin your search for consultants. Using your organization’s needs and internal request for proposal as guides can help you identify the best sources for your search.

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Three Ways to Find Consultants: A Quick Review Let’s review an important point made earlier. An organization can proceed with its search for a consultant in several ways. One way is to issue a request for proposal (RFP) to several firms and individual consultants based on a preliminary list of prospects prepared by the organization. The RFP could be a printed document or posted on the organization’s web site. The prospects may have been compiled through the use of names located on lists of consultants and firms, referrals from other people and organizations, consultants used by the organization in the past, or other sources. Information collected on each firm at this point may be minimal—possibly visits to their web sites or a brief phone call to each prospect to see if each is interested in receiving the RFP. Respondents to the RFP may be further researched; references, if provided at this stage, may be checked, and the list of prospects will then be narrowed down based on organization-defined criteria, such as results of reference checks, projected costs as stated in the proposal, local or located elsewhere, experience with similar organizations and similar services to those requested, and so on. Those individuals or firms in the top-priority list may be invited for interviews with board and staff, and a final selection made based on agreement within the organization as to which of the candidates will best meet the needs of the organization.

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A second way is to not send out an RFP, but rather carry out more extensive research on firms, including viewing their web sites and/or receiving written information from them, more extensive discussions with people at organizations who have used the consultants or know of them, service to similar types of organizations, experience in providing the services the organization seeks, and other information that can be located on each prospect. At this point the list of prospective consultants and firms will probably be much smaller than the list used with the RFP process described earlier. This process can be more selective at the start because more homework has been done by the organization through its review of potential firms and consultants. Some of the prospects or even possibly all of them, if the list is small, are invited in for interviews. At this point references may already have been checked if they were requested prior to the interviews. After the interviews and based on the agreement of those who carried out the interviews, a few of the firms (or possibly all of those interviewed or only one firm) are asked to submit proposals with references, costs, timelines, process and outcome descriptions, and other information (see Chapter 7). A final selection is made based on the interviews and the proposals submitted. A third method relies more heavily on the advice and opinions of others who have experience with a consultant or firm, or where the consultant or firm is already known to the organization. In this case, only one firm is interviewed or possibly just asked to submit a proposal without a formal interview process (especially when the consultant was used by the organization in the recent past). One version of the process is even less involved—the consultant is asked to submit a contract rather than a formal proposal. This happens most frequently when the consultant is already well known to the organization and may involve a preliminary meeting or two to inform the consultant of the needs of the organization. As was discussed earlier, it is recommended that several firms still be considered, even if the consultant is already known to the organization.

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In each of the above methods, it is critical that your organization collect and carefully review information on the consulting firm and consultants you are considering. I will discuss the proposal itself and what to look for in Chapter 7, but here I want to cover the other sources of information and provide suggestions on ways to review it and analyze it. We can all suffer from information overload, so it is important to be both analytical and critical of what you find in these sources.

Using the Consultant's Web Site or Printed Materials The firm’s or individual’s web site and/or printed materials may be one of the first pieces of information you examine. Web sites can be elaborate or simple. Some are updated frequently, while others seem to be almost static. I am familiar with one consulting firm’s web site that for years seemed to be about 6 to 10 months out of date, with staff who had left the firm still listed, and speaking engagements of staff long since over with still shown under ‘‘Upcoming Events.’’ My first impression of this web site was that the firm did not seem to care much about how it presented itself—maybe I shouldn’t care, either. When looking at firms’ or individual consultants’ web sites or printed materials, notice if there is a statement of mission or purpose. Just like many other organizations, consultants often define a mission or purpose statement. If there is such a statement, does it seem to be generic or does it resonate with you and your organization? Does it seem to set the firm or person apart from others you might have already looked at? Does it state or seem to imply a niche for the firm? One firm, for example, has defined its niche as community/technical colleges and K–12 school districts. Another firm’s mission focuses on the nonprofit sector generally. Often, there may not be a mission statement, only a tagline. In either case—a mission statement/purpose or tagline—there may be enough information to enable you to decide if you want to continue your exploration of the site or that it is not an appropriate firm or consultant

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to consider further. In the example of the firm that has defined its niche, unless your organization falls into one of their categories (community college, technical school, school district), this is likely not a firm for further consideration. Does the firm or individual have a statement of values or ethical principles? Some firms and consultants clearly state their values and ethical principles; others may make reference to principles or beliefs about the consulting process and the nonprofit sector, or endorse ethical principles and codes of practice from other sources (such as those of the Giving Institute). Ethical principles and, possibly even more so, ethical practice are increasingly of concern in the nonprofit sector and beyond. We’ve all seen or read about abuses by both nonprofit organizations and fundraising consultants. Values and ethical statements are an important consideration when looking at possible consultants, but also there should be some evidence (possibly from those organizations that have used the consultants) that they practice what they preach. Some firms and individual consultants also have what they describe as a philosophy of their approaches to the consulting relationship. This can be helpful as a guide when speaking with clients and former clients about the firm or consultant; how does this philosophy translate into the actual consulting relationship? Do the members of the firm or the individual consultant really seem to embody the philosophy in their work? Does the web site or printed information describe in detail the services provided by the firm or consultant? Does it explain what they mean by such terms as feasibility study, management services, or organizational audit, or do they assume you know what these terms mean? Unfortunately, there are no standardized definitions of many of the terms used in the nonprofit sector, so it can be very helpful to know how the firm or the consultant understands these terms so you can relate what they do to your organization’s specific needs for services. Does the web site or printed information state or imply that the consultant or firm works in partnership with the organizations it serves? Some firms and individual consultants seem to have the

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attitude that they have all the answers, while others ensure that they tailor their approach and services to each client and its specific needs. Does the web site seem to show a standardized, ‘‘packaged’’ approach or an effort to work with the client in ways that will meet the client’s specific needs? How much information is available about the firm itself or the individual consultant (usually listed under ‘‘About Us’’ or a similar area)? Is there a history of the firm or detailed background information on the individual? If the firm or individual has been in practice for some time, this may (but not necessarily) set them apart from brand-new firms or those who have just entered into consulting practice. In some cases, newer firms or individuals may lack a long track record when compared to others, but may have the right experience and skills to work successfully with your organization. They may also be more competitive in terms of their pricing structure so they can build up a base of clients. Does the ‘‘About Us’’ section include a full list of staff (if a firm) with biographies of each, or does it just profile management? I am familiar with one organization (not a consulting firm), that, despite its almost 100 staff members, lists only the president/CEO with his picture. Staff biographies can give you, at least in capsule form, some idea of the depth of experience of the firm or the individual consultant. Sometimes staff biographies present only background of the firm itself (such as clients served, specialty areas, or other information) rather than past employment. Some may include only the most recent past employer, while others may give more extensive backgrounds on each person. Do consulting staff members seem to have work experience relevant to your organization? While it is not likely that every firm or individual consultant you explore will have worked in an organization exactly like yours, some may have worked in a general area similar to your organization, such as health-care associations or human service agencies. Again, the specific work backgrounds may be outweighed by the consulting skills and consulting success of the individual.

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The biographies may also include professional and volunteer activities of the individuals. If these are listed, do they seem to indicate real commitments both to the nonprofit sector and to professional development? As was pointed out earlier, many consultants are active members of organizations such as the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) or the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and frequent presenters at conferences and workshops. Some can truly be called leaders in the field, with credentials such as the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), as well as a long list of publications and presentations, and a history of providing educational programs. Some people with very strong backgrounds in particular areas may have only recently turned to consulting, but still exhibit a strong commitment to the sector. Firms and individuals may have in a section of their web site or include in their published information recent and scheduled presentations by their staff, publications of the staff, awards received, and so on. I always tend to believe that the best consultants have a real commitment to the field and realize they must both give back and continue to grow and learn. One note of relevance at this point is that web sites can be used by their creators to give very specific impressions of the firm or individual. Near the beginning of this book I spoke briefly about ‘‘virtual’’ firms— consultants that may usually operate as individuals or as very small firms, but that partner with other consultants when special skills are needed or the project is too large for one person. Well-prepared web sites may give the impression that a firm is larger than it really is. People may be listed as ‘‘associates’’ of the firm, or ‘‘senior consultants’’ or ‘‘of counsel,’’ and may appear to be full-time staff (these and other titles may also be used with actual full-time staff), but may in fact be engaged only on a subcontract basis. This point is not to imply there is anything wrong with such arrangements, just to point out that what may appear to be a larger firm can in fact be a smaller firm. Some ‘‘virtual’’ firms can bring together very strong teams of experienced consultants and can be very competitive with the larger firms. So, when looking at web sites and

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following up, be sure to get a good understanding of the real structure and operation of the firm. Another area for exploration when reviewing the individual consultant or firm’s information is the location(s) of their offices. Location and possible travel expenses may be a consideration in your organization’s budgeting for consulting services, so this can be important. You should also be aware that some firms list offices in other locations than their headquarters. These ‘‘offices’’ may be phone services or mail/address services and not staffed offices. Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with these arrangements, but you should check to see if the offices are actual locations, as this may affect your selection process because of travel expense–related budget factors. Does the web site or information include quotes from past or present clients of the firm or individual? While I have never seen negative comments listed, such as ‘‘We’ll never use this firm again,’’ these can be useful as references for future checking, even beyond the specific references that the firm or consultant may provide to you. These comments, when included, can give you some ideas about how clients feel about the firm’s or consultant’s delivery of services and possibly some insights into what the firm really means by its descriptions of its principles and process. Firms and consultants will often include statements about the number of clients they have served—‘‘Over 2,000 clients served since 1978’’— and may include on their web site or in published information some or all of the clients that they have assisted. Sometimes, instead, examples of clients are listed under various categories of agencies, such as ‘‘hospitals,’’ ‘‘human service agencies,’’ ‘‘associations,’’ and so on. Client and type-ofclient lists can be of considerable value as you search for a consultant or firm. A firm or consultant having some basic understanding of how organizations in your field operate and their special needs can help save considerable time and effort on your organization’s part, and can result in more successful outcomes of the consulting process. For example, membership associations operate very differently from human service agencies and have constituencies and stakeholders that are not at all similar to other organizations. Members pay dues and may or may not

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provide additional support to the association, depending on how they personally see the value and benefits of membership. Those helped by a human service agency may not be in a position to provide support despite the benefits received, and the agency may have to make its case based on the cause addressed, its success stories, or its general mission. Consultants and firms without some basic understanding of these and other differences—those who either lack work experience or have not delivered consulting services to similar organizations—may not be able to provide the best possible services to your organization. Reviewing lists of clients served can give you some idea of the range and probable understanding of the differences among organizations and whether the firm or consultant may be appropriate for your organization. These lists can also help supplement the list of references provided to you by the firm or consultant. As I indicated earlier, I have at times suggested that a prospective client contact others on my present and past clients list beyond the specific references I provide to them. The firm’s or consultant’s client list may also give you an indication of the geographic area they operate in; office locations alone do not always determine where clients will be served. Some national firms, even though they might have only a few offices, in fact do serve a national clientele. Other firms may claim to be national but primarily serve clients in the immediate area of their offices or within their selected region of the country. So the client list can be helpful in this respect, even if the actual locations of clients are not identified; their names may give you their locations, such as ‘‘Atlanta Chapter of the American Red Cross’’ or ‘‘Anchorage Home for Senior Adults.’’ Some firms and even individual consultants also list on their web site a board or an advisory board. Members may include people familiar to those in your organization, or recognized community and other leaders. While these people are probably very supportive of the firm or individual, they can be an additional resource for contact and further information on the consultants. Also, seeing who they are can give you some indication of the firm’s or individual’s commitment to diversity, as does the makeup of the staff.

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Firms and individuals may include other information on their web site, such as tips and techniques, articles on the nonprofit sector and fundraising, or generic ideas about campaigns, professional development, or other areas. While inclusion of this more general information is another way for the firm or the individual to market itself and its expertise, the information can also be helpful for learning more about how the firm or consultant sees the consulting and fundraising processes. What else does the firm include? Are there links to client web sites, to ‘‘partner’’ web sites (some consultants and firms partner with other organizations and companies for mutual promotion and other purposes), or to professional organizations? These might be helpful but may not add much of substance to your collection of information. Is there a clearly identified contact person for any additional information, or just a general number to call? Larger firms may have a staff member or members designated as the marketing person or area; in smaller firms and one-person operations it is likely that your contact person will be the president/CEO or owner. Finally, each web site is supposed to represent the firm or person behind it (as well as the web designer, of course). What are your subjective reactions to the web site? Does it seem clean, easy to navigate, and up to date (see my earlier discussion about old information on sites)? Can you find the information you need quickly? Or is the site cluttered and hard to navigate? Is there a lot of generic information as well as claims about the ‘‘successes’’ of the firm or consultant with little to back these up? Is there a lack of a client list or examples of clients served? Does the site present only generalities with few specifics? Is information on the background(s) of consultants only brief and general (‘‘He has worked in the nonprofit sector for over 15 years’’ or ‘‘Her experience includes work in the corporate and nonprofit sectors as well as volunteering’’)? A friend of mine once described his wife, a former waitress, as ‘‘having experience in the food service industry.’’ Nothing wrong with being a waitress (I only made it to busboy), but his description gives a different impression of her background. Is the

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web site a lot of flash but not really very helpful for learning more about the firm? I have taught a graduate-level online class for several years; one of the first class exercises is to select and observe three to five corporate and nonprofit web sites, and then for each student to subjectively report on his or her reactions to the sites. Some sites, including some of the largest company sites, are reported to be a lot of flash and focused on selling products, but have little substance about the company itself. Other sites can combine effective marketing of their products with corporate information and even helpful ideas, suggestions, and tips. According to the students, nonprofit sites often exhibited the same characteristics. So, when you are looking at consulting firm and individual consultant web sites, you might want to note your subjective reactions and think about how the site may—or may not—reflect the consultant or firm and its ways of doing business. A lot of visuals are nice, as is clever use of the web interface’s possibilities, but these are not a substitute for specific information that can be essential to your review of prospects for consulting services. Also, expensive printed materials (used less frequently but still somewhat common) may be pleasant to look at but may not say much about the firm, its experience and capabilities, and its services. If the information presented, no matter what the format, seems to raise more questions than it answers, it may be time to look elsewhere. I just visited the site of a consulting firm I am familiar with here in the Northwest. It started off not with information about the firm, but with a sequence of pictures of clients they have served, their basic contact information, their tagline, and ‘‘$1 billion across the Northwest.’’ That simple start tells me a lot about them and reflects their focus on the clients rather than just trying to get my business. Another site I visited has a lot going on—flashing pictures of (I assume) clients with captions like ‘‘Education,’’ ‘‘Health,’’ and so on, flying over the pictures; at the same time, pictures of staff are rapidly changing at the top. Staff members are listed under ‘‘About Us’’ but I could not find pictures of the staff linked to their names and biographies in some cases, except for senior

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management. Also, the site had a lot of text on the home page along with other options such as signing up for e-mails from the firm. My opinion? Too much going on at once on their site, with little effort for a clean design that welcomes you and lets you navigate quickly to the information that is most important to you. To conclude this section, web sites and published information represent the consulting firm or consultant speaking directly to you. The information they provide—or what they don’t provide—can give you good insights into what they do; their mission, ethics, and philosophy; their services; who they are; and whom they have served. By ‘‘reading between the lines’’ you might also be able to get some insights into how well they’re organized, their focus on clients or merely selling the firm, and their commitment to the field, as well as how they carry out their mission, philosophy, and ethical principles.

Using Examples of the Consultant's Work Examples of the firm’s or consultant’s work and products might also be shared with you. One immediate caveat is that most of the reports, recommendations, and other materials developed by the consultants are actually the property of the clients for whom they were produced, and are probably considered confidential by the client organization. Consultants might be able to share generic sample reports or reports with critical and identifying client information deleted, or possibly just the table of contents for a report. At the request of a prospective client, I once tried to prepare a sample report but, after deleting all of the specifics and identifying information, the report was virtually useless, as there was almost no substantive content. At times I have put a prospective client in touch with a past client when there is a request for a specific product I produced, such as a feasibility study report. This allows the past client to decide what and how much they are willing to share. Some reports have much of the confidential information attached as appendices and, with minimum revisions, can be shared by removing

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the appendices if the client decides to do so. Sometimes a client will be willing to discuss the report’s basic contents, comprehensiveness, and usefulness over the phone with a prospective client, while not including specific details.

Reference Checks as Critical Sources The third source of information about consultants and firms is reference checks. The first source we discussed—the information from the firm or consultant—is specifically designed to market the firm effectively. This source is, of course, very subjective: it is the firm’s or consultant’s effort to separate them from and put themselves above their competition. In most cases, information will be honestly presented, with few, if any, extravagant claims. But it is still information selected by the firm or consultant and represents the image they wish to project. There is nothing wrong with any of this. But this information should be considered as only one part of the full picture that you need before decisions are made. The second source—actual work of the firm—can be very helpful, but, as was discussed, is often not available or may be only partially available. Ideally, this information could also be very useful. Because of the limitations of the first two sources, references are one of the most important means you have of collecting information on a prospective consultant or firm. As was mentioned earlier, references are usually provided to you at some stage in the process of exploring and selecting a consultant. They may be included as part of a formal written proposal for services, sent after a series of interviews with prospective consultants has been completed, or given to your organization prior to either of these. But, like web site information, references are also selected by the firm or consultant in order to give you the best possible picture of them. I always selected my references carefully. My criteria included recent successful completion of a project with the client, similarity of the organization I served to the prospective client (health associations were given other former client health associations as

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references), and similarity of the service being sought by the prospective client with that of a recent client (organizations seeking feasibility study services were given references of recent clients for whom I had completed this service). Sometimes there might be a ‘‘prestige’’ factor involved in my selection of references. I felt that a certain individual, possibly a board member of a client organization, might be recognized as someone of importance or already known to the prospective new client organization. An example might be a community leader or a person who was on the board of a local foundation. At other times I might use a reference of a former client I had not worked with for several years, but felt that the nature of the organization or its subsequent success could reflect well on my work. And, occasionally, I would provide some references to show the diversity of types of organizations I had worked with; presenting this picture could be helpful if an organization very different from my usual clients was considering me. In most cases I either specifically asked potential references if it was okay to list them for a particular prospective client, or had an unwritten agreement that they could be used as needed. In some cases I would ‘‘prep’’ the reference about the potential client and the services I was proposing to deliver, and let each reference know who might be contacting them. This way they would recognize and were prepared for the contact and would hopefully respond quickly. I was often surprised that organizations I was marketing to did not bother to contact my references, or possibly spoke with only one reference when I had provided at least three or four. I would always encourage them to check the references provided and, as mentioned earlier, to even contact other past and present clients who were not in my list. In the past, references were often asked by the prospective client to provide a letter of reference for the consultant or firm under consideration. Now, e-mails might be used for written references, but it still seems to be more common for an organization to check references by phone. Checking references by phone can give fairly consistent information if the same person from your organization is doing the checking. But the information will be less consistent and reliable if more than one person is

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involved. Just as with the internal RFP document, having a clear idea of the specific information your organization needs from references should help frame the questions asked of references. Following is a list of questions I would ask any reference for a consultant or firm:

When did you use the services of the consultant?

What led you to select this consultant or firm?

What was the service(s) provided to your organization?

Who specifically provided the service(s) (if a firm was used)?

What is your assessment of the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the consultant in delivering these services?

Were you satisfied with the final results or outcomes of the services? Why or why not?

Do you think the service was fair value for the costs?

Were there any problems or issues with the consultant? If so, how were these resolved?

How did the consultant relate to your board? To your staff? To others?

How did the consultant relate to the purpose and culture of your organization?

Did the consultant take time to learn about your organization?

How accessible was the consultant?

Was the consultant proactive in communicating with your organization and keeping it informed of progress?

What was the impact of the consultant and the project on your organization? What changed or is different as a result of the consulting services?

Would you use this consultant or firm again? Why or why not?

These are just examples of the types of questions that should be asked of references. It might also be helpful for the person speaking with the reference to have some background on the reference’s organization.

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Using Informal Contacts with Colleagues The fourth source of information is more informal contacts with colleagues at other organizations. These may not be formal, structured interviews with references but can be helpful and may result in actual interviews. When considering a consultant or firm, I always think it is a good idea to ask others if they are familiar with the consultant or firm, and if they have heard anything about it and its work. While colleagues may not have directly worked with the firm, they may know about it through their contacts at other organizations that used the firm or consultant. Having a contact name as well as the name of the organization can give you someone specific to speak with and possibly interview more formally. Also, sometimes just general comments from colleagues, such as ‘‘That’s a really good firm—I’ve never heard anything negative about their work’’ or ‘‘I understand that they helped the XYZ organization with one of the most successful campaigns in its history,’’ can be helpful in providing more information for assessing a particular service provider.

Using Colleagues Active in Professional Associations Another source is colleagues who are active in professional associations, such as AFP or CASE. As was mentioned earlier, consultants are often involved members of associations and your contacts might be able to give you their perceptions of the consultant in his or her roles on a board or committee there. This can be helpful to get some general perceptions of the person, but may not be helpful with information on his or her consulting skills. At least you may be able to find out if the prospective consultant is a ‘‘people person,’’ is organized and productive, and is effective in working with groups, along with other observations that might be relevant. I knew of one consultant who served in several leadership roles at a local association. Most people who knew him described him as ‘‘bossy,’’ ‘‘not listening to other ideas and opinions,’’ and very

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much a ‘‘you’ll do it my way’’ person. This raised questions in my mind about how effective he would be as a consultant.

Using an Online Search Engine Finally, there is the opportunity to do a search on the person or firm using Google or another search engine. There can be many problems with this, including getting many irrelevant ‘‘hits,’’ especially when the person has a common name. It can be more helpful with locating information on firms beyond their own web sites, but you will likely still receive a lot of unrelated information. I just did a Google search on a well-known national fundraising consulting firm. The first hit was the firm’s own web site, but there were an additional 205,000 hits, including other firms with the same or a similar name, a consortium of churches with the same name, press releases related to the fundraising consulting firm, profiles of the firm from third-party sources (including some that are as much as eight years out of date), profiles of some staff members and their activities, and other information, some of which was helpful and much of which was not helpful. However, among these pieces of information were some comments by organizations using the consulting firm; these sources, especially if relatively current, can be helpful and again might serve as contacts for references.

Summary There are many sources for collecting information on a consultant or firm your organization is considering. If your organization is seeking a successful consulting experience, it is critically important to do your homework. Researching consultants and firms should involve multiple sources in order to enable you to have the most accurate picture possible of each of the providers being considered to meet your organization’s needs. I often think of the process as similar to taking snapshots of a building in order to better understand both its appearance and what is inside. You can take a single photo of the front of the building—that

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may not tell you much. Or you can move around the exterior and take several pictures, but you still won’t know what is inside. Finally, you can go inside and take even more pictures to get a better idea of what really happens there. Your best picture of the building is really made up of all of your pictures plus possible other information you have collected, such as the directory of offices in the building. You still may not have a complete understanding of everything that goes on inside, but at least you have a much better understanding of the building and how it is used.

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The Proposal for Services

Overview of Proposals This chapter and the next chapter, which covers interviews of prospective consultants and firms, may not be in the same order as your organization’s process. As was mentioned earlier, interviews of prospective consultants may occur before those firms and/or individuals selected are asked to submit written proposals for service, or the interviews might take place after written proposals have been received. I prefer preparing a proposal for service after I have completed an interview with the organization because at that point I usually have a much better idea of the specific needs of the organization and how I can meet these. However, if the client insists on having the proposal first, I will prepare my proposal based on the organization’s information and any conversations I have had with them about their needs. If there is a written request for proposal (RFP), and especially if it specifies the information desired and the format to use when providing it, this will be my guide to the specific content of the proposal. Proposals can be prepared in many ways. If I have been selected as the consultant but the organization still wants a proposal, I will provide them with a very brief document with information on the project, the products, and the outcomes. However, in most cases, the prospective client wants a more detailed proposal for services. There is no standard format or content outline for proposals, with consulting firms and

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individuals having their own opinions about what should or should not be included, the order of information, and what is most important.

Objectives of Proposals I believe that proposals should accomplish a number of objectives, including:

Demonstrating that the consultant has at least some basic understanding of the organization and its needs

Reviewing any meetings, interviews, or other conversations between the consultant or firm and the organization

Defining the consultant’s or firm’s understanding of what the organization wants to accomplish through the use of counsel

Defining the methods to be used

Defining the specific steps in the consulting process

Defining the roles and responsibilities of the consultant and the organization in the process

Specifying the outcomes or products of the consulting process

Specifying the expected timeline to carry out the process

Specifying what happens if additional tasks are requested by the organization or if the timeline is exceeded because of circumstances beyond the control of the consultant, organization, or both

Defining how any final contract can be canceled by either party and what happens if this occurs

Ensuring that the client organization is properly registered with regulatory authorities wherever it may operate (see the earlier discussion in the Introduction about laws and regulations for consultants and nonprofits)

Providing information, such as defining the use of any intellectual property created or used during the consulting process (e.g.,

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final reports and recommendations are the property of the organization, but methods and materials developed by the consulting firm and used during the process are the property of the consultant or firm)

Including ethics statements by the consultant or firm, such as endorsement of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Code of Ethics and Professional Practice

Specifying fees for the services to be provided

Providing a payment schedule for these fees, how expenses will be accounted for and paid, the billing process, and the amounts or portion of the total fee to be paid at the specific defined intervals

Providing a list of references with contact information and services provided, if any, to the organizations the references represent

Defining who specifically will provide the services and giving detailed background information on the consultant or consultants

Providing other information or details requested by the organization

A Sample Proposal Outline Following is an outline of a recent proposal for services that I prepared. This will give you an idea of how I include the preceding information: Sample Proposal for Consulting Services Outline I. Introduction, Background, and Objectives of Services A. Introduction (a brief statement introducing the proposal and referring to previous meetings and conversations with the organization) B. Background (describes the organization briefly and defines the organization’s needs related to the consulting services to be provided)

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C. Objectives of Service (provides a list of the specific areas and activities that will be examined and assessed, and/or what will be done to prepare for or execute a campaign) II. Methodology (describes how the services will be carried out, for example, what will be done to do internal and external reviews; indicates whether an interview process is to be used and/or if a materials review is to be carried out; or, if other methods are to be used, they will be defined as part of the methodology) III. Steps in the Process (describes in order the specific steps to be carried out as part of the consulting process and includes responsibilities of the consultant, the staff of the organization, and its board if they are to be involved; specific products and outcomes are also covered in this section) IV. Content of the Final Report and Recommendations (if a final report and recommendations are one of the products, this section covers the outline of the major sections and the content of each for the final report and recommendations) V. Brief Background on the Consulting Firm and Its Philosophy of Service VI. Timing (the expected length of time to carry out the work and factors that may change the timeline, such as the availability of key interviewee prospects) VII. Contingency Time (a statement about how additional services or steps beyond the contract, if desired by the client, will be billed) VIII. Cancellation (a statement on how either party to the final contract can cancel the contract and that services already carried out as part of the contract will be paid for by the organization if the contract is canceled) IX. Registration (a statement that by accepting the contract the organization certifies that it is properly registered with all necessary agencies and has met their reporting requirements)

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X. Intellectual Property (a statement defining who owns which materials, reports, and other components of the consulting process as well as restrictions on sharing the proposal for services and the requirement that the consulting firm give permission to do so) XI. Fees (the total fee for the consulting services described in the proposal as well as the schedule of payments, how the schedule can be changed, what happens regarding payment if the contract is terminated by either party, and what the fee covers and does not cover) XII. Expenses (how expenses will be accounted for and billed, any organization-defined cap on expenses, limits on expenses that can be incurred without the prior permission of the organization, and what areas of expenses are anticipated as well as rates to be used for mileage, types of airfare travel, such as flying coach, and so on) XIII. Ethics (a statement endorsing the AFP Code of Ethics and Professional Practices, as well as statements on the basis for billing, protection of confidentiality of information provided by the organization and from any interviewees, and the need for the organization to share with the consultant any current or recent legal or ethical issues that may affect the consulting process) XIV. References (a list of references, usually three to four, with phone and other contact information; sometimes the service provided to each organization is also listed, and a statement that additional references will be given upon request is included) XV. Consultant’s Background (background on the consultant(s) who will provide the services) XVI. Closing Statement (sometimes including a deadline by which the organization should respond to the proposal; usually, there is an offer to meet to further discuss the proposal)

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This is only a sample of what a proposal might contain, although it follows the general format I prefer. At times there might be other sections, such as a statement that the organization will provide office space (especially for out-of-town clients), a specific list of background information needed from the organization, or other needs of the consultant, preferably those that have been discussed previously with the organization. Proposals that are written in response to RFPs will usually follow the format defined by the requesting organization, if any, or at least provide the information requested in the RFP. Proposals written without an RFP will be more likely to follow the format usually used by the consultant or firm, with adjustments made for the particular organization that is to receive it.

Analyzing the Proposal's Content The proposal is one of the most important items for your organization to review. Consultants and firms often use proposals as the basis for the final contract with an organization. This helps ensure that there is little chance for surprises when the client receives the final contract and is one reason I prefer fairly complete proposals with the information described above. Because of this, each section of the proposal should be reviewed carefully to ensure that the proposed services, process, outcomes and/or products, respective roles and responsibilities, costs and schedule of payments, and all other parts are in accordance with the needs of your organization. Any piece of information your organization specifically requested be included should be a part of the proposal. For example, a cancellation clause with a defined procedure is essential and may be required by law. There may be many reasons to cancel a contract, not all of them negative. One example from my own experience was when a colleague and I were assisting a client with a capital campaign effort over a period of time defined in the contract. Due to an extraordinary gift, the campaign goal was reached and exceeded within a few months after the start of the campaign. The client and our firm agreed to cancel the contract for campaign consulting services.

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The proposal should be as specific as possible about what the consultant or firm will do, how the process will be carried out, what the products will be, the costs and payment schedules, information on the consultant who will actually deliver the services, roles and responsibilities of both the organization and the consultant, and other information. It is especially important to review what the proposed outcomes will be. Are these in line with the expectations of your organization and what it has defined as essential for your next steps? Other questions to ask include whether everything is clearly stated in the proposal. Are there parts that are not as clearly defined as your organization would prefer? For example, the term feasibility study can mean different things to different people. If this is the service your organization is seeking, does the proposal explain exactly what the consultant or firm means by this term, and are the steps in the process stated clearly? Are the outcomes of the study, as defined in the proposal, what your organization is seeking? Feasibility studies can have various and very different outcomes proposed by consultants. One outcome is to define whether the proposed goal of a possible or planned campaign is achievable—a ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ answer to that question. Another approach on a feasibility study outcome is to define how much money potentially can be raised. Even here, the outcomes specified in a proposal may be different. Some firms and consultants will promise to determine a dollar amount that can be raised, while others will determine only a range. If a specific dollar amount is one of the proposed outcomes, does the process described in the proposal to determine this conclusion seem appropriate to generate the information needed to arrive at this outcome with some certainty? If an interview process and number of interviews are defined in the proposal, are these likely to provide the information and outcomes your organization wants? Will the consultant or firm define criteria for selecting prospective interviewees and assist with the process (criteria and draft or sample materials are often provided once a contract is in place)? Is it clear how the information from interviews will be used? Does the number of interviews and targeted group(s)

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seem consistent with the desired outcomes, and what is the rationale for the proposed number of interviews, if any?

Who Does What Does the proposal discuss who is responsible for what? It is very important that your organization clearly understand what the consultant or firm is expecting of the organization, as well as what your organization should expect the consultant to do. Earlier, I said that effective consulting work is really a partnership between the organization and the consultant or firm, and if one of the partners does not carry out its responsibilities, the consulting process can easily be derailed. Most consultants have had the occasional client who suddenly is ‘‘too busy with other things’’ to do the tasks the organization, not the consultant, must do as part of the process. For example, a colleague and I recently had a contract with a client to carry out a campaign feasibility study. We had prepared the draft e-mail letters to be sent with prospective interviewees, worked with the organization to indentify these prospective interviewees, and prepared the case prospectus to be sent with the e-mail. We were on a fairly tight schedule, as the organization wanted our report and recommendations for an upcoming quarterly board meeting. Everything was ready to go to get the interview process started, but nothing happened for weeks, due to ‘‘other priorities’’ at the organization. After several attempts on our part to get the process moving, we finally had to inform the organization that we could not meet their deadline and our report and recommendations would not be ready until a later board meeting. Your organization should clearly understand from the proposal what will be expected from your staff and board during the consulting process. Some organizations expect the consultant or firm, once hired, to go off and ‘‘do their thing’’ with little or no involvement of the organization until the final product is ready. The proposal should make clear what is expected from your organization in terms of possible meetings, access to information, drafts of materials to review, items

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to be distributed by your organization, and any other involvement. I learned at one point in my consulting work to even specify in my proposals how many copies of the final report and recommendations I would provide to an organization (usually one bound copy and one loose copy for duplication). This was included in my proposals and contracts after an organization asked me to provide about 50 bound copies of my final report and recommendations, which were about 50 pages long. Another area related to expectations defined in a proposal is support for the work of the consultant or firm. What support functions will need to be provided by your organization? I know of one rather unethical consultant who was using a small organization’s support staff to do much of the work he supposedly had contracted to do himself, including a considerable amount of ‘‘his’’ written work; the fact that this was happening was not known to the CEO until one day she found out from a staff member. The consultant was terminated. Support functions might include the provision of an office and phone service, secretarial support, preparation of materials and arrangements for meetings, distribution of and tallying survey results, or any number of other things that may be essential to the consulting process. Your organization should be clear, after reviewing the proposal, about which support functions it will be expected to provide versus those that the consultant will provide.

Confidentiality Confidentiality is also an area that the proposal should cover. It is understandable that the consultant will want to protect the confidentiality of information collected in interviews and focus groups, as doing so will help ensure that people speak freely about the organization. The consultant should also respect the confidentiality of any information your organization shares with him or her or the team. The terms of confidentiality—where and how it applies—should be clear in the proposal.

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Fee and Expense Structures in Proposals Your organization’s leadership will probably pay considerable attention to the fees to be charged for the consulting services and the payment schedule, as well as how expenses will be handled by the consultant. If your organization receives more than one proposal, you may see a considerable variation in the fees to be charged for what are essentially the same service models. Some possible reasons include:

A consulting firm, especially a larger firm, may have a higher fee schedule than an individual consultant. The firm might be assigning a team to your organization but also may generally have a higher fee schedule than smaller operations. The firm’s fees may be based on the rates of other firms they see as competitive, their years in the business, the need to support administrative overhead, or other factors. However, some independent consultants have fees comparable to those of firms, especially if they have considerable experience in the sector and as consultants. Occasionally, those starting out as consultants establish rates comparable to those who have been in the field for some time so they can appear to be similar. At other times they will charge lower fees in order to build up their business and portfolio of clients. Individual consultants are likely to have fewer overhead expenses—some work out of their homes—and usually have no support staff or a one- or two-person support staff. The individual consultant may have as much as or more experience than the consultant from a firm. However, the larger firm may have more depth and ability to provide support services for the project, as well as the ability to provide a team or backup, if needed. A larger firm that has been in operation for several years may also have considerable experience with many organizations and be able to provide a range of services beyond those of a single consultant. If you are comparing the fees for a larger firm with those of an individual consultant, and judging these possible service providers

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strictly on the fees, the individual consultant will probably have a lower fee schedule. But you may also be comparing apples to oranges, especially if your organization overlooks some of the possible advantages of a larger firm discussed earlier. However, you may be able to get a high level of experience and professionalism from an individual consultant, possibly at less cost than a consultant with more limited experience but with a larger firm. Also remember that, as was also discussed earlier, individual consultants may join together to provide your organization needed services. Sometimes these partnerships will ensure that your organization receives consulting services from highly experienced senior professionals.

Fees may be charged on a time basis or a project basis, as was discussed earlier. Project-basis fees are usually calculated by the consultant based on an estimate of the time involved to carry out the project (e.g., 20 interviews projected at one hour each = 20 hours), but the proposal presents a total fee for the entire project, often without the projected time breakdown. Thus, a feasibility study with X number of interviews might be priced at a total cost of $24,000. Capital campaign consulting services might be priced at X dollars per hour or day, with a total of 20 hours per month of service projected. The proposal may also include a provision that extra time incurred over the projected time will be billed at a specific hourly rate. If this is the case, be sure to know how the consultant will track and report time incurred on your organization’s project.

Fees may also be charged based on the consultant’s perceptions of which other firms or consultants may be competing for selection by your organization. Consultants and firms often have at least some estimate or even specific knowledge of the rates charged by other firms. If they know they are competing with these other firms for a contract, they may reduce their normal rates, especially if they see a prospect for further business with your organization.

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Consultants may adjust their rates depending on the size and/or the budget of the organization. The same service performed for a smaller, local organization might cost less than the cost of this service being provided to a large national organization. Many consultants have a range of hourly or daily fees they use and can adjust their fees based on the nature of the organization, the possible competition, and their desire for business.

Different parts of the country may have different expectations about acceptable ranges for consulting fees. Organizations in more rural areas might be less accepting of what they consider ‘‘big city’’ rates from out-of-town ‘‘big city’’ firms than lower, ‘‘more reasonable’’ rates from consultants in the area. Organizations in New York City might be more tolerant of higher consulting fees than organizations in small towns.

The consultant’s fees may include or exclude expenses. For example, I often did not charge any expenses for local clients I could travel to on public transportation or drive to without paying for parking. As was discussed earlier, using an out-of-town consultant may involve considerable expenses, especially if your organization is the only client being served in your geographic area, and there is no opportunity for the consultant to split expenses among two or more clients. Some organizations prefer to set a cap on expenses for the consulting services. If this is done, consulting firms being considered should be notified of the amount of the cap prior to having them submit a proposal. Always be sure to understand what is and is not included in the consulting fee. If the proposal does not provide this information, be sure to ask the consultant or firm to do so, as your organization will be and should be concerned if there are ‘‘hidden’’ costs. If your organization is concerned about expenses more generally but does not want to set a specific cap on total expenses, you may want to consider the alternative of setting limits on expenses per day or defining the levels of travel (flying coach class, and so

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on) that you would like to see. Again, it is best to let the prospective consultants know of any limitations so they can account for these in their proposal and planning. I once was working with a client in another state and knew that they were very concerned about my expenses, so I tried to keep these to a minimum. At one point the development director of the organization called and expressed concern over the cost of a dinner I had submitted for reimbursement. Knowing I had been trying to save the organization money, I was at first surprised he had called about an expense item. He said, ‘‘I wanted to check with you about the expenses you submitted, especially the dinner cost—I think there is a problem.’’ I thought back to my most recent visit and did not remember any extravagant meal or other costs. He continued, ‘‘I think there’s a mistake—it shows your dinner as costing $4.25, but there’s no receipt. Is that right? How could you eat dinner for $4.25, anyway?’’ I responded: ‘‘Oh, yes, that was for a tuna fish sandwich and a Diet Coke out of the vending machines at the motel—sorry I could not get you a receipt!’’ Consultants being considered may be flexible about how expenses can be handled and even suggest ways to save your organization money while still carrying out the essentials of the consulting process. National organizations may look at the cost/benefit value of parts of the process, such as doing in-person rather than phone interviews with key individuals, and may decide the extra expenses are outweighed by the benefit of personal contact. More than once I’ve flown cross-country and back to carry out a single interview. I mentioned earlier the trip to California for one interview; the person I interviewed there was the head of a major company and was consistently one of the larger contributors to the organization where I was the consultant. While my interview was only to get his opinions and ideas, and no solicitation could or did occur, a secondary result was that he sent a personal contribution of about $240,000 to the organization within two weeks of the interview. In this case, the unexpected gift more than covered the cost of my travel!

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The lesson for your organization is to be sure to understand what is and is not covered in the fees and how expenses are expected to be monitored, accounted for, controlled, and paid. I am personally in favor of the consultant’s having to get prior approval from a designated person at the organization for any specific expenses over $100 that may be incurred, and I include this in my proposals.

Timelines Expected timelines for the consulting process should be covered in the proposal. These may be included as a range, such as ‘‘ . . . three to four months,’’ or a specific time period, such as ‘‘ . . . services will be provided for a period of one year from the date of signing of the final contract.’’ Feasibility studies, development audits, capital campaign planning studies, and similar services are more likely to have somewhat flexible time spans unless there is a specific end point desired by the organization (or at times by a funder, who may want the information for a review and decision process related to the organization). Remember, when reviewing time frames in a proposal for these types of services, it may be to your organization’s advantage to also be flexible, especially if interviewees who are critical to the objectives of the process cannot be scheduled for some time. Workshops, retreats, training sessions, campaign consulting, and similar services are more likely to have specific beginning dates (usually the date the contract is signed by the organization) and end dates specified in the proposal or at least in the final contract. The proposal may or may not also include detailed timeline expectations for the entire consulting process. Using a feasibility study service as an example, the proposal might specify that the material review by the consultant will be completed within one week after signing of the contract, the draft case prospectus and draft invitation letter to possible interviewees will be provided by the consultant within three weeks after the contract is signed, and so on.

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Who Will Deliver the Services? The proposal also should be specific about who will deliver the services. This is especially true when one of your prospects is a larger consulting firm. Earlier, I mentioned that some firms have a separate staff that does the marketing, but they may not be the people who deliver the services. Often, I have had prospective clients tell me that before they contracted with consultants, they wanted to know about, and often actually meet, those with whom they would be working on the project. At times, I got the consulting assignment because when I marketed to the organization, I was also able to say that I would be the person delivering the services. This was especially true in cases where other, larger firms had sent their marketing person for an interview (see also Chapter 8). Larger firms also may indicate in the proposal who will deliver the services but say that the consultant will be supervised by another, more senior member of the firm. If this arrangement is in the proposal, be sure that the firm has defined what ‘‘supervision’’ means—what is the reporting relationship specifically; whether the supervisor will actually come to your organization and, if so, how frequently; how these trips and his or her time will be charged to the organization; and other questions should be asked about this arrangement. I know of cases where ‘‘supervisory’’ arrangements were part of a final contract. A relatively junior consultant was assigned to the project, and periodically the senior-level supervisor would fly in; meet briefly with staff of the organization; pat the consultant on the shoulder and say, ‘‘You’re doing great work’’; and fly out. His fee was built into the contract and probably added a considerable amount. Although I don’t know for certain, I would guess his travel expenses for each trip were billed to the organization. In essence, he did little, if anything, to benefit the organization.

Reviewing and Editing Materials One area that can be a source of conflict at times: based on my experiences, I have learned to define in some of my proposals who will prepare

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drafts of major items for the consulting process and what the review/ editing procedure will be. This may sound like a simple thing, but it can be a source of major delays and frustration for both the consultant and the organization. The case prospectus (sometimes called the case statement or case for support) is an example of a document that has caused these problems. When I started consulting, our proposals would usually have us preparing the draft case document, if the organization did not already have one. We would do this after our review of the organization’s materials and after clarifying any pieces of information with the staff. The organization would review our draft and return it to us for changes and corrections; we would make these and give it back for a final okay before it was distributed. That would be the ideal arrangement. But what happened more frequently than not was that several people on the staff and possibly even board members would review the draft and each would individually give us his or her changes and corrections—often very different takes on what should be said. We had now become negotiators and mediators, while trying to please several people with often very different opinions about how things should be stated in the case. Drafts flew back and forth, people still weren’t happy with changes, and the process dragged on and on over a period of weeks, delaying everything else. The number of drafts and redrafts we prepared mounted and, at times, we threw our hands up and said to the senior staff, ‘‘You do it!’’ No one was happy, and the tight timeline was a shambles. During this back-and-forth process with one client, I received an edit from a staff member saying, ‘‘Delete this sentence—we would never say that about our organization!’’ I had to point out that the sentence in question was a verbatim quote from the organization’s most recent annual report. Proposals may provide details for the preparation and review of documents in order to avoid these situations. In recent years I’ve tended to recommend that the responsibility for preparing first drafts of documents such as case statements rests with the organization, with my role being to review it and make suggestions. If I am to actually draft an item, I may say in the proposal that I will prepare a draft, submit it to the

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organization, and make one set of edits based on their combined feedback. Regardless of the procedure, it is always best for your organization to clearly understand the process for preparing any written materials and who will be responsible for which parts of the process.

Registration and Contract Filing Issues In the proposal outline I included a section to ensure that the organization is properly registered with the Internal Revenue Service and meets any state and/or local registration requirements. I pointed out a case in the Introduction where both the organization and the consultant were fined because the organization had never registered with the state it was in; the consultant was fined because she had contracted with an unregistered nonprofit organization. While this issue may not be raised in the proposal itself, your organization should make sure that it is properly registered wherever necessary. You should also check with your state regulatory authorities about their requirements, if any, for filing of contracts with consultants and, more generally, using consultants. Some states with which I am familiar require that contracts be filed by the organization with the state before they are signed by the organization. States that require this will probably be concerned about the specific language of the contract, such as our earlier example of a consultant’s being part of meetings with foundations, even though there was no specific ‘‘ask’’ in the meeting. So it is essential to ensure that the proposal (which may be the basis for the final contract) anticipates your state requirements about consultants.

Legal or Ethical Disclosure In addition to registration issues for both your organization and the consultant or firm, the proposal may ask, in some form, for ‘‘full disclosure’’ from the organization about any legal or ethical issues it is facing. While many proposals will not include any reference to this, some will. There is growing concern both in the sector and in the consulting

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profession about unethical practices and possible violations of the law. After two experiences where clients had not been making their payroll tax payments for their employees and after one case where a client admitted it had falsified an audit, I decided to include a statement asking that the possible client fully inform me of any actual or potential legal or ethical issues.

Solicitor Registration If the consulting firm or consultant is going to be actually raising money, the proposal, or at least supporting information, should demonstrate that the consultant is appropriately registered in the state or states that require this and where the fundraising activities will take place. If your organization is national or regional and a campaign using counsel will cover more than one state, you need to be sure that the consultant is properly registered in the states that require this. Remember, some states may classify the consultant as a solicitor depending on his or her roles within the campaign, and may require such things as a bond’s being posted by the consulting firm or individual consultant.

Product/Outcome Definition Does the proposal define the final product and/or outcomes in detail? For example, if the final product is to be a report and recommendations, does the proposal give some idea of the content areas of the report and areas the recommendations will cover? Are the areas clearly explained? Are these the areas that will be most useful for your organization? Does the proposal define or suggest what will happen after the final product is delivered? I usually recommend in the proposal that, when my end product will be a report and recommendations, I meet with the board and senior staff to go through the report and offer them the opportunity both to ask for any clarifications and to start to take action on the report (see also the later discussion on wrapping up the consulting relationship). I believe this approach can help avoid having the organization just

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file the report—this is why I usually include this step in my proposals for studies. If the consultant or firm is providing counsel for or conducting a campaign, the proposal might also contain having a session with the staff and board, a written report, or both on ‘‘lessons learned’’ or something similar. The purpose of this would be to ensure that the experience and lessons of the campaign encountered by the consultant or firm are passed on to the organization.

Seeking a Revised Proposal and Negotiating If a proposal is not clear on some points, lacks some information desired by your organization, or otherwise needs to be more complete, but your organization is still interested in considering the particular firm or consultant, it is best to explain what is needed and ask for a revised proposal. Again, a reminder: there is no standard format for a proposal for consulting services. Consultants will use an RFP from your organization to define the specifics of their proposal, but, in lieu of an RFP, each consultant and firm will have its own approach. Some may present only the services they will provide and the process, costs, providers, and so on, while others may want to demonstrate they have done their homework by showing their understanding of your organization and its needs. Also remember that much of what is presented in the proposal may be negotiable. Negotiable items and areas might include the number of interviews for studies (fewer interviews = less cost, but may also mean less useful information), the fees themselves (if a consultant or firm is seeking additional business or sees your organization as helping to open up a new market or geographic area, they may be more willing to negotiate the fee), the number of people who will work on the project, who specifically is assigned to your organization (especially for firms), travel costs, expenses (see the discussion of expense caps and per diem limitations), and other areas. It is best to check with each consultant or firm submitting a proposal to determine what areas or items they are willing to negotiate and which areas are fixed and therefore nonnegotiable.

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Consultants will usually have specific rationales for areas such as the number of interviews suggested in a proposal, why focus groups should or should not be part of the process, the process steps themselves, and other components of the proposal. If these are not stated in the proposal itself, be sure your organization asks about the rationale for each area where you want more information or want to negotiate some other options.

Summary Proposals from consultants or firms are a critical step in your organization’s selection process and should be reviewed and considered carefully. It is best to involve several people in the review process, including representatives of your board, senior staff, and others, so that the decision to proceed to the next step is not seen as the decision of one or two people. The interviews with the prospective consultants or consulting firms are an ideal opportunity to review the details of each proposal and ensure that your organization is clear about all of the details.

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The Interview

Overview of Interviews Interviews with consultants, to recap, usually take place under two different circumstances. In the first, the consultant or firm has not yet submitted a proposal to your organization. In the second, the consultant or firm has submitted a proposal. There are many variations on these two basic sets of circumstances. Some organizations carry out a series of interviews to narrow down the consultants they want to seriously consider (sometimes this first round is done by phone); after a first round of interviews, they may select some consultants or firms to return for a second round of interviews (usually in person). This second group may or may not be asked to submit proposals before the next set of interviews. Alternatively, the organization may ask for proposals from only one or two of the consultants or firms after the second round of interviews. Based on my experience, interviews proceed very differently depending on whether a proposal has already been submitted by the consultant or firm.

Focus of Preproposal Interviews When a proposal has not been submitted, the interview is most likely to be focused on these areas:

Learning more about the consultant or firm generally. Ideally, the organization has already researched the consultant or firm, but 127

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the interview offers an opportunity to clarify information presented earlier by the consultant or firm or uncovered through research.

Getting to know the consultant in order to determine if he or she would be a good fit with the organization and its stakeholders. This is somewhat of an intangible process, but generally those doing the interviewing want to be sure the consultant is someone with whom board members, staff, donors, and others will feel comfortable and who will mesh with the organization’s culture. Often, but not always, consultants who either have considerable experience with a wide range of organizations or have elected to specialize in one particular category of organizations (such as health associations) are able to effectively present themselves in interview situations. However, there is also the personality factor involved. Does the consultant seem to be strongly opinionated and dogmatic, having all the answers? I was once working with a consultant who, because he had been a development officer in some hospital systems, believed that all hospital fundraising campaigns ran according to the same pattern. The hospital campaign we ended up working on together never did follow his ‘‘pattern.’’ If he had expressed his belief in the interview process rather than after we had the contract, I doubt we would have been hired. Making such a statement would have revealed a lack of understanding of the unique circumstances we faced with this hospital campaign. Sometimes, after I was hired as the consultant on a project, staff members of the organization would make comments about other consultants who had been interviewed but not selected, such as: ‘‘He seemed too slick for us,’’ or ‘‘Our donors would not be able to relate to her,’’ or ‘‘He only seemed interested in our business, not us.’’ As anyone who has interviewed people for a staff position knows, there are many intangibles in selecting or not selecting someone, despite apparent similarities in experience, skills, and the like. This also happens when consultants are interviewed.

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Learning more about the specific experiences of the firm and consultant as they may apply to both the organization and the services it seeks. Many of my colleagues and I have shared experiences of being interviewed by organizations and hearing about how unique, special, and different they are. Ironically, these points are often followed by the question, ‘‘What other organizations like ours have you worked with?’’ Organizations need to understand to what extent the consultant or firm, but especially the consultant who may be delivering the services, has carried out similar projects before. For example, has the consultant actually carried out many feasibility study processes or only a few? Have several of these been done with organizations similar to your organization? If your organization is seeking a feasibility study process, does the consultant seem to have a good understanding of the process based on real experience? What does he or she see as the differences in doing a feasibility study for an organization like yours versus doing it for other types of organizations? What does he or she see as the parameters for a successful feasibility study? What can be the problems that may be encountered or the pitfalls? Based on the experiences of the consultant, how can these be avoided or minimized? Can the consultant discuss specific cases of studies that went well and some cases where they did not? I have often been surprised, in situations where I was being interviewed as a possible consultant, how little was asked about my related experiences with similar services and organizations. When questions were not asked about these areas, I usually would fill in what I saw as the information gaps by expanding on my experiences with specific examples, as well as some more general principles I have learned over the years.

Understanding the general framework within which the consultant operates. Most consultants being interviewed are asked about their own backgrounds, including previous work in the nonprofit sector (or elsewhere), how they got into consulting work, their

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educational backgrounds, personal backgrounds, and other information. There may also be questions about areas such as why they got into consulting work, their beliefs about the nonprofit sector, what they see as ‘‘hot’’ issues in the sector, and possibly their (and their firm’s, if relevant) philosophical and ethical beliefs. If I were on the ‘‘other side’’ and interviewing possible consultants, I would like to have some idea of the depth of their understanding of the sector, their beliefs about its importance, and their underlying philosophical and ethical beliefs. These can all have an impact on the quality of their work and the final products and outcomes. This and other information, such as their professional involvements and volunteer activities beyond their work, will give me some indication of their commitment to the nonprofit field. In short, I would be looking for a consultant who sees his or her work as more than a job and a way to make money, and who is a leader, not just another consultant.

Learning more about how the firm or consultant operates in terms of proposals, contracts, working arrangements, and other details related to possible engagement by your organization. This is separate from factual information about the firm or consultant, such as number of staff, clients served, leadership, and other details (see earlier) and is more concerned with how business is carried out—the next steps in the process as he or she sees them.

Learning how the consultant sees the process for delivering the service your organization is seeking. Can he or she present a clear step-by-step process as well as the rationale behind it? Does he or she seem flexible on the details and willing to explain what the advantages and disadvantages of alternative steps might be? Using our feasibility study example again, if the consultant suggests a range of 30 to 35 interviews for a feasibility study, can he or she explain why that number, as opposed to a higher or lower number, is appropriate? Can he or she explain what might be the impact on the study of fewer (or more) interviews being carried out? How does he or she

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respond when members of your organization want to discuss other changes in the process? Does he or she have a strong rationale as to why the steps the consultant presented are critical to the process, or does he or she seem willing to change some parts of the process, while talking about what the impact might be?

Understanding the fee structure and the rationale for it, as well as how flexible it is. If a proposal has not been submitted, it is likely that the consultant being interviewed will give a range of possible fees for the service being explored with your organization. He or she should be able to give the justification for this range (see earlier section on how consultants charge fees), as well as be able to talk about options that may affect the fee such as the number of interviews carried out, whether expenses are included, the involvement of other consultants from the firm who may have different rate schedules, or other factors. Organizations sometimes ask if there are ways that the process can be more economical, such as doing out-of-town interviews by phone. The consultant should be able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these options, but let the organization make the final decision about whether it wants them as long as it is clear what the impact might be on the final products or outcomes.

Understanding how expenses will be handled. Please refer to the earlier discussion about various ways that consultant expenses can be handled. It is important that your organization have a good understanding of possible expenses that may be incurred by the consultants and billed to your organization, as these can considerably affect the total costs of the services. Your organization may want to discuss possible limitations, standard travel rates and provisions, and possible expense caps with the prospective consultants being interviewed.

Understanding the expectations of staff and board of your organization and any possible needs for support services. Again, as was discussed earlier, there will be either written or unwritten expectations of

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your organization during a consulting process. It will be very helpful to get each prospective consultant’s understanding of what these may be as well as the rationale for him or her. Also, the criteria for your organization’s final selection of a consultant or firm should take these into account, but the selection should not be based on which consultant had the least expectation for involvement of staff and board.

Understanding who will actually provide the consulting services. Earlier, I talked about larger firms that may have specific staff assigned to the task of marketing to organizations, but who may not actually be the ones delivering the services. At other times a firm may assign a team to a project, but only one member of that team may actually be involved in the interview session. Your organization should try to find out as much as possible about the other people who may be working with you. Some firms may not provide this information until the submission of the written proposal, as actual assignment of the consultants may not be able to occur until work schedules and other arrangements are determined.

Finding out if the consultant has done his or her homework about your organization and community. By the time they reach the interview process, prospective consultants should have reviewed as much information as is available on your organization. Once I understand I am under serious consideration by an organization as a possible consultant, I review their web site (if any), and ask them for any printed information, such as annual reports, fact sheets, strategic plans, or other documents. While the list of materials I will review during the actual consulting work is more extensive and includes several internal items, I want to know as much as possible about an organization before I go into an interview with them. That way, I can ask my interviewers important questions and get information that will enable me to better shape my proposal to them. Also, having this information enables me to create more of a dialogue with the interviewers, rather than just having me respond

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to questions. In fact, one of my objectives when I am interviewed is to have the interviewers spend at least as much time talking about their organization and its needs as I spend talking about my experience and possible services for them. One technique I use often is to start off the interview by asking the interviewers some questions that I see as critical, based on my review of their organizational information. Doing so enables me to accomplish several things: it demonstrates to them that I have done my homework, it gives me important information to help shape the interview and a possible proposal, and it creates a dialogue with them.

Determine possible next steps and timelines both for a proposal, if appropriate, and for the consulting process itself. Your organization will probably want to wait until after the interviews are complete to decide which of the consultants and firms will be invited to submit proposals, but it will be helpful to determine how soon a proposal can be submitted as well as a probable timeline the consultant envisions for the process. At the same time, your organization needs to convey to the prospective consultants its own timelines for the process and the reasons behind these timelines. There should be discussion with each candidate of alternatives to these timelines if, for reasons beyond the control of either the organization or the consultant, they cannot be met. For example, what might be the alternative if the organization would like to have the final report and recommendations ready for a particular board meeting, but interviews with individuals such as major donors cannot be scheduled in a timely manner?

Getting buy-in to the process of selecting a consultant from other staff and board. Although not directly related to the consultants being interviewed, a very important part of the interview process is involving at least some board members and other staff in interviews to ensure that they understand the specific needs of the organization and how these may be met by the prospective consultants. Having others involved in the process of selecting a consultant or firm will

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also ensure that, as the actual consulting process proceeds, people will feel they have been involved from the start. When services such as development audits are being sought, development staff should be involved in the preparation and interview process. Doing so can help avoid development staff ’s feeling that their positions and performance are being questioned and will hopefully enable them to feel more comfortable with the consultant selected because they have had a part in the selection process. At this point it should be mentioned that staff and board members participating in interviews should always have opportunities to give their views and feedback on the interviewees after the interviews are over. Some organizations use a written rating sheet, while others prefer a postinterview meeting or conference call with everyone who was part of the interview process. Using the latter method enables everyone to exchange views and perceptions of the candidates and reach some agreement on the best prospects. A third method is for a staff member to individually poll each of the participating staff and board members on whom they see as the best candidates. I strongly recommend that your organization use the meeting or conference call method, as it gives everyone the opportunity to express his or her opinions and have a full discussion, and can pave the way toward consensus.

Understanding each interviewee’s ability to listen and respond. This is a more subtle aspect of what happens in interviews with prospective consultants, but focuses on what I believe is one of the most critical skills in consulting (or in any profession)—the ability to listen and accurately understand what is really being said and to respond appropriately. During the interview process, does each candidate respond clearly and directly to questions or does he or she seem to be evasive, ramble on with unrelated information or thoughts, or answer inappropriately? What differences, beyond the informational aspects, do you see in how the candidates answer questions?

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Do candidates interrupt or cut off interviewers’ comments or questions? Are candidates able to disagree without being confrontational? I have found that interviewers are willing to respect me more if I honestly disagree with them and explain the reason why I did so. As I indicated earlier, I consider a marketing interview to be more successful and likely to result in a request for a proposal or a contract if the representatives of the organization are doing much of the talking and I am listening rather than presenting. Having them talk helps guide my questions and comments and helps me write a better proposal. At times in interviews, I have seen some of those interviewing me disagree with each other. This can present an interesting situation, in that I don’t see my role during the interview as taking sides with one or the other person’s views. My usual approach in such situations is to try to ask questions in order to help clarify what each person is saying; this gives me a better understanding of the basis for the disagreement and also can enable them to see what they are really saying. However, if there is a misstatement of factual information, I am very willing to step in and provide the correct information if I am sure of the facts. For example, more than once in interviews someone may make the claim that ‘‘foundations are where the money is, so let’s go after them.’’ In such cases I will refer them to the Giving USA figures on sources of support for the nonprofit sector, which, year after year, show that the largest single source of gifts is individuals.

Focus of Postproposal Interviews The second circumstance for interviews is when the prospective consultants being interviewed have already submitted proposals. These interviews should cover much of the preceding, but also tend to focus very closely on the details of the proposal. Chapter 6 covers what should be

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reviewed and clarified in interviews where the proposal has already been submitted. If interviews are done one on one rather than in a group session, it may be that some staff (probably senior staff) and board members will use each proposal as their focus, while others will focus more on getting to know each prospect. In group sessions, the details of each proposal will be discussed and each prospective consultant will likely be asked about specific parts of his or her proposal, so it is important that all participants from your organization have received and reviewed copies of the proposals in advance. In my experience, board members (and sometimes staff members) who are or were attorneys tend to pay considerable attention to the wording of parts of the proposal. One of my favorite stories about the interview process was when I was being interviewed by some board members and staff of a senior residence facility in another state. The organization wanted a feasibility study for a capital campaign to build a new wing, and was interviewing a number of firms that had submitted proposals. Because the organization was about a six-hour drive from our firm’s office, one of the provisions in the proposal was that the organization would designate an office for my use during the consulting process. As we reviewed the proposal during the interview, it became apparent that one of the board members, an attorney, was looking carefully at the wording of each item and what it meant. We got to the section stating that they would provide an office for my use during the project, and, lowering his glasses on his nose, the attorney said, ‘‘We need to spell out what is meant by ‘ . . . an office’ here. I want to have this section say ‘ . . . shall provide an office, which shall include a desk, a light, and a phone for local calls only.’’’ He peered over his glasses at me, and I said, ‘‘You forgot something—a chair. I’ll need a chair in the office. In fact, I want to reword this to say that you should provide a chair, and, if I don’t think it is comfortable, I want the option to get another chair until I find one that is comfortable!’’ We all had a good laugh, including the formerly very serious attorney, and our final contract incorporated what became known as the ‘‘Comfy Chair Provision.’’

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Alternative Interview Methods A final word on the interview process itself: as was mentioned briefly, interviews can be done in a group setting (sometimes several groups might be set up, with the consultant candidates moving from group to group) or on a one-on-one basis, with the consultant candidates moving from individual to individual, with possibly a few people in some of the sessions. As a consultant, I prefer the group interviews because they are more efficient, and I also have the chance to see how board and staff members of the organization interact. The one-on-one interview arrangement tends to take more time, and questions are frequently repeated. However, I sometimes learn some details about the organization, both positive and negative, that I would probably not hear in a group interview session. The method used usually depends on the organization and whom it selects to be involved in the interview process. At times, board members who may be important to the selection process may not be available when group interviews are set up; thus, one-onone interviews for these board members can be the best approach. One approach I do not recommend, which I experienced once, is having a group interview with the prospective consultants present at the same time. I was very surprised once when I walked into a room for an interview with staff members of an organization and found out, as people introduced themselves, that a competing consultant was also there. I should have excused myself right away but did not. As questions were directed to one of us, the other consultant or I would respond, and then the director would say to the other one, ‘‘And what’s your response?’’ This arrangement made me very uncomfortable because I did not expect it and was caught off guard, and because the format did not really allow the kind of interaction I prefer with the interviewers. Also, we had each submitted a proposal and the questions and discussion of these items meant some of the information and processes that should have been shared only between each of us and the organization was now in front of the other consultant. If I were confronted with this situation again, I would probably excuse myself as soon as I became aware of it.

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Summary Interviews are among the most critical parts of the selection process. They provide an important opportunity for your organization to learn about the various consultants in terms of their backgrounds, experience, and ways they would deliver the services your organization is seeking, as well as the opportunity to see if the fit and personal attributes of those being considered are appropriate for your organization.

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Selection and the Contract

Importance of Group Process Once your organization has received and reviewed proposals, completed the interview process, done the interview checks, and received input from participants, it is time to make a selection of the consultant or firm that will be asked for a contract. In some organizations the senior staff member, such as the executive director or the CEO, will make the final decision, while in other organizations it may be a committee of the board (such as the development committee) or even the entire board that makes the final decision. I believe it is best for a group to make the decision rather than a single person. Doing so enables all of the information, opinions, perceptions, and other input to be reviewed before a decision is made. Also, having a group making the decision, especially when at least some of them are board members, creates the necessary sense of involvement with the consulting process about to take place. A group decision also can help avoid the ‘‘It’s your project’’ view of the consultant or firm and the consulting process; your entire organization should be committed to ensuring a successful outcome to the process and should believe it is an organizational decision, not the decision of one or two people. Another advantage of having a group involved is that the group can identify and review any items in the proposal that may need refining or further explanation, or may need to be negotiated before a final contract is presented. Consultants and firms are often open to negotiation on 139

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such areas as pricing, the number of interviews (see the earlier discussion on this topic), the time period for providing the services, the payment period, ways to save on expenses, and other areas. For example, one organization I contracted with wanted the start of the services delayed a few months so that my billings would fall into their next fiscal year. Having a group involved in the review process can ensure that some of the nuances and details are worked out and conveyed to the selected consultant or firm before a final contract is prepared.

Contract Preparation Alternatives Contracts can be prepared by one of two sources. The first is the organization itself. Some organizations, especially larger ones, may require that they initiate contracts with any service providers. There may be a standardized process for issuing contracts through the organization and possibly a standardized format that contracts must follow. These organizations may have to issue purchase orders from one department to the business or administrative area, and may even have a standardized contract form that any supplier must use. In my experience, this is frequently the process used by colleges and universities as well as larger quasi-government organizations. In some cases it may be necessary for the organization, consultant, or firm to make some alterations to the requirements or standardized format because of the nature of the services to be provided or other factors. For example, a requirement for a diversity statement from the provider might be difficult to meet if he or she is functioning as an independent consultant with no staff. Other organizational requirements for any service contracts might include a limit on per-diem expenses, a standardized mileage reimbursement for car travel, a requirement that providers fly coach, or other restrictions. It is best to have your organization inform your selected consultant or firm of any such requirements early in the process of finalizing arrangements so that your contracting requirements are clearly understood. Sometimes providing the consultant or firm with the requirements and

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a sample contract can help the process move more smoothly. It will also help the consultant to indicate which items in the process are flexible or open to negotiation and which items are specific requirements. The second source for a contract is the consultant or firm. A wellprepared proposal should include most or all of the major areas that will be part of the contract, so there should be few, if any, surprises for your organization when the contract or draft contract is received. My proposals sometimes leave out areas such as the cancellation clause, the intellectual property statement, and a few other similar items. However, my contracts leave out the references, my background, and the firm’s philosophy, as these no longer need to be conveyed to the organization. At times, a new client may want only a simple letter of agreement. When preparing this, I include the basics, such as the objectives and timelines of the services, the fees and payment schedule, a cancellation clause and the intellectual property clause, and a few other areas. The client may not feel a need to have me repeat every step in the consulting process, respective roles and responsibilities, or some of the other details presented in the original proposal. It is generally up to the client as to how much detail is preferred, although I always want to be sure that the critical items are included no matter which format is used. Each organization should be sure that its requirements for any contract are met. Your organization also needs to ensure that any local or state requirements for contractual arrangements are met, such as what the consultant can and cannot do in terms of fundraising (see the earlier discussion), any specific wording requirements such as cancellation clauses, or other areas. Remember, some states require that signed contracts (and possibly unsigned contracts) be submitted to the state attorney’s office or another appropriate office prior to any work starting. Before doing this and before accepting the final contract, be sure that your organization understands state (and any local) requirements for contracts, registration and bonding requirements for consultants and solicitors, and state registration requirements for nonprofit organizations. This is also a good time to be sure that your organization’s letter of determination of tax-exempt status—the (501)(c)(3) letter from the

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Internal Revenue Service—is still on file and your organization’s status has been reviewed and updated, if appropriate.

Contents of ConsultantPrepared Contracts Contracts from consultants may also contain other areas that may not have been covered in the proposal. Some of these I have seen include:

Specific references to the registration of the consultant or firm in various states

A statement, if necessary, about state bonding requirements being met by the firm

Some specifics about how any disputes between the organization and the firm or consultant will be settled

Disclosure of specific information about the consultant or company, especially if it might impact the consulting process (this might include any reference to possible conflicts of interest)

Other services (such as executive search, data mining, and so on) of the firm that might be useful during or after the consulting process but are not part of the current contract

Specific details on expense justification and reporting and/or other reporting by the consultants

Other information or specifics requested by the organization after the original proposal was submitted

Contracts from consultants or firms will probably include standardized sections, but should also include the specific steps of the process, timelines, and the products or outcomes desired by your organization and presented in the proposal. The contract is the final agreement between your organization and the consultant or firm about the consulting relationship and what will actually be done in terms of the services. Therefore both parties need to be sure that the wording accurately

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describes the relationship and the process. Here is an example of how what appears to be clear wording can lead to issues: Originally, the feasibility study, development assessment, and planning study contracts I prepared said that I would ‘‘ . . . do 30 interviews. . . .’’ While most clients did not have a problem if I did only 29 (or 31) interviews, one client insisted that ‘‘30 interviews’’ means 30 interviews, no more or no less. My explanations that we could locate only 29 people who were willing to be interviewed were not received well by the executive director; the staff members I was working with and I scrambled and finally got a 30th interview completed. After that, having learned my lesson, my contracts stated I would ‘‘ . . . do a maximum of 30 interviews.’’ I would make every effort to reach this number, but sometimes circumstances would prevent this from happening. If I did not reach the number, I always felt I owed an explanation to the organization, but the number of interviews no longer became an end in itself.

Review of Contracts by Attorneys Some organizations may require that their attorney review any contracts before they are signed. Although this can be a good idea, the particular attorney may not be aware of some of the nuances of fundraising consulting and therefore may insist on more specifics, such as stating exactly how much money will be raised for a campaign. This is something that cannot be guaranteed by a consultant (or anyone), as many factors can influence the success or failure of a campaign and not all of these are under the control of any one person or organization. I remember once having a conversation with an organization’s attorney about exactly this point. He wanted me to specify in the contract how much money would be raised. I resisted, pointing out that I could not control everything about the campaign and its outcomes. I finally said: ‘‘Suppose the campaign is going along smoothly and suddenly it hits the news that the executive director or another senior staff member has been using the organization’s funds for his or her personal benefit.

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How would your potential major donors react, especially when they consider a large gift for the campaign?’’ He agreed to more flexible wording in the contract.

Summary Contracts, then, whether originated by your organization or by the consultant or firm, should be clear, be understood by both parties in the same way, meet any legal requirements, and be thoroughly reviewed before being accepted. As an additional note, in order to ensure the understanding of and involvement in the consulting process by the staff and the volunteer leadership of the organization, I usually have the CEO or executive director and the board chair sign the contract. This commits the entire organization, not just the staff, to the project and knowing what the process is. It might be something for you and your organization to consider.

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Working with Your Consultant

Keeping Focused on the Project Many years ago I wrote and had published an article titled ‘‘How to Kill Your Consultant.’’ The original proposed title was ‘‘How to Murder Your Consultant,’’ but the publisher felt that was ‘‘a little too strong.’’ The article was somewhat fictionalized, as it told the story of one consultant meeting a longtime colleague on a street corner. The colleague was asking for handouts and, when the consultant asked what had happened to bring him to this unlikely state, he told a story of how he always tried to keep clients happy with his work, but found himself drawn into helping them with everything from other organizational issues to their personal lives (such as helping to plan a wedding for the daughter of a staff member). While the article was intended to be a cautionary tale to other consultants and, to some extent, organizations, it was based on situations I had already seen early on in my consulting career. Once your organization has selected and hired a consultant, it will need to continually ensure that both it and the consultant stay focused on the project and the specific tasks the consultant was retained to carry out. It’s easy to cast the consultant into other roles, to engage him or her with other activities of your organization, and, if the organization is not careful, to draw him or her away from the major tasks at hand. And sometimes it’s difficult to avoid a situation, as one of my favorite clients said to me, where the consultant becomes ‘‘family.’’ This chapter will 145

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explore in detail the consulting relationship and offer some cautionary tales, as well as my advice on ways to ensure a productive and efficient consulting service.

Consulting Partnerships Earlier, I used the term partnership in reference to the consulting relationship. However, there are some major differences between the consulting partnership and other professional and personal partnerships:

The consulting partnership is very task and outcome centered. It is not broadly focused on many areas but narrowly focused on accomplishing one major objective for your organization, such as a feasibility study or campaign management.

The partnership is time limited. Unlike a marriage (okay, some marriages), there is a definite beginning and end to the relationship. In addition to ensuring that the tasks and various steps are carried out, your organization needs to monitor the timelines for the project and any benchmarks that have been established.

The partnership is also time intensive. From the consultant’s standpoint, most projects are very focused on the efficient and effective use of time, and your organization needs to be mindful that the consultant, unless hired on a retainer basis, is making every effort to keep to his or her projected time commitments.

The consultant is a part of your organization, but only on a temporary basis. He or she is in somewhat of a paradox during the consulting relationship as the consultant is both ‘‘inside’’ the organization and ‘‘outside’’ it at the same time. Your organization hired the consultant, in part, to give it an outsider’s more objective view of an important function or a planned effort; yet, in order to do this successfully, the consultant must become, to some extent, an insider.

The consultant most likely has other partnerships at the same time, and these may be more or less intensive than the partnership with your

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organization. These other partnerships can also vary in intensity over time. I think many of the organizations I have worked with have, at times, assumed I was working only with them and had no other clients. A colleague once said, ‘‘Every organization assumes their consultant only has one client—them.’’ I try to be sure that each client understands I have other obligations, but I am not always successful.

The partnership is a professional one. Yes, many consultants have become close friends with staff and board members of clients. Over the years, I have tried to keep the relationship on a professional level while I am carrying out the consulting work, and then, after the project is over, move to a more social/friendship basis with some people. There is also the danger that having personal friendships during a consulting assignment might influence outcomes, especially of studies such as development audits. No matter what the personal relationships with people on the staff and board of an organization, the consultant and your organization should keep the consulting relationship on a professional level.

The partnership is based on someone who has been hired for his or her expertise, including the ability to relate to your organization. While the consultant may have broad expertise in many areas, including fundraising, management, and organizational development, your organization’s partnership with the consultant is usually based on using his or her expertise in only one or a few of these areas. It may be easy to draw on the consultant’s other expertise (see also the later discussion), but this may hinder the process that the consultant was specifically asked to carry out.

The partnership can include areas where, due to confidentiality considerations, some information cannot be shared with everyone involved or must be shared on a very limited basis. ‘‘Partners should share everything’’ is a principle for most successful personal relationships. Many successful organizations also rely on widely sharing critical

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information with other parts of the organization. Consulting partnerships, however, can mean that the consultant may be able to share only pieces of information and may not be able to attribute them to the actual sources. This is especially true with interview and focus group information. The partnership with your organization’s consultant is therefore very different from other partnerships, such as those with other staff, with board members, and with other volunteers, constituents, and stakeholders. However, it is easy to forget these differences once the consultant is on board.

The Staff Trap One way not to work with your organization’s consultant is what I call ‘‘the staff trap.’’ Often, those new to consulting, and even some of the more experienced consultants at times, fall into this trap with a client. I am a consultant working with an organization where I get along well with the people there. I personally identify with and care about the mission of the organization and the cause it serves. In some cases, I’ve even made a gift to the organization (more about that later). The staff treats me well, gives me what I need when I need it, and is apparently very committed to the consulting process. I occasionally get asked to do something not directly related to my work for the organization, and I do it because I want to keep the client happy and like working with them. A few more things to do, attend a few extra meetings, give some advice about an upcoming event, and . . . wait! I’m on the staff! This is ‘‘the staff trap’’—it occurs when the client organization starts to see the consultant as a staff member, and the consultant, eager to please or not even realizing what is happening, complies with the various requests. A younger colleague had just started her consulting career with our firm and was working with a relatively small client (I‘ve changed some of the details in this story). She seemed to be getting more and more

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pressed for time to give to all of her clients, and one afternoon in our office I happened to notice she was frantically working on a document. I asked her which client the document was for and what it was; she indicated it was materials for an upcoming board meeting of the client. I looked at the materials and commented that they seemed to be the general board meeting items and agenda, not any specific report on the firm’s consulting work for the client. She said she would have to work late that night to catch up on her other client work, as the board meeting materials needed to be ready by the end of the afternoon, and the organization ‘‘was too busy’’ to put the materials together themselves. Another senior consultant and I said that this was entirely a staff function and the organization’s responsibility, not ours. We pointed out it would also take time from her other clients (therefore resulting in her staying late to do that work) and from the primary tasks that needed to be accomplished for this client. She said that this was one way they would be happy with her work—and she would gladly do whatever they asked her to do, even if it was not related to our contractedfor services. Her supervisor, the other senior consultant, needed to have many more conversations with her about the differences between being a consultant and being considered a staff member of a client organization, and how to keep the needed separation, but I’m not sure she ever really moved beyond her belief that doing ‘‘anything to keep the client happy’’ was for her part of her role as a consultant. She really did want to help them in any way, and, when asked, would do whatever they wished her to do. Much of her time had to be reported to our firm as nonbillable hours, as otherwise we would have easily exceeded our programmed time for the contract with this organization. She certainly had a ‘‘good heart’’ about all of this, and wanting to please a client is something we all strive to do as consultants. It was just that she and the organization had a symbiotic relationship that combined her willingness to please with their need for extra help. So one lesson from the preceding story is to be sure that both your organization and the consultant do not fall into the staff trap. It’s

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easy to do and often happens gradually enough that neither party realizes it is occurring. In my story ‘‘How to Kill Your Consultant,’’ the poor consultant ends up on the street without a dime because his clients, who all love him and his work, gradually involve him in everything but the consulting work he was hired to do, and his billable time is eaten up by the many nonbillable hours he puts in ‘‘to keep his clients happy.’’

The First Day and First Steps The first day your consultant arrives to start working with your organization is a good time to have him or her meet staff members. This will help avoid the ‘‘who is that person’’ situation when the consultant is at your organization’s offices. It’s generally a good idea to have the consultant meet not only the immediate staff he or she will be working with for the project, but also other staff, such as those in the business or administrative offices, support staff, receptionists, and others. Even if the project does not directly involve program staff, this is another group that should meet the consultant. Often, if the organization does not arrange for it, I ask that a meeting be set with senior staff of the organization on my first day there. The purposes of this ‘‘get acquainted’’ meeting include learning about their individual positions and roles in the organization as well as explaining to them the consulting process, why it is being carried out (if the organization’s senior staff does not explain this), the desired outcomes and products, the time frame, what specifically I will be doing, and how they might be involved in the process. If the organization is planning to have a final meeting or session where I am to present my report and recommendations and if it is acceptable to senior staff, I encourage other staff to be part of the final meeting. Having this first-day session and meeting with staff can often help limit any anxiety about why the consultant is there and what he or she will be doing for the organization. Another important task for the first meeting with the consultant is to clearly establish who at the organization will be his or her primary

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contact. This point may have been covered in the contract but, if not, should be set on the first day that the consultant meets with the organization. In my experience, my primary contact has usually been the executive director/CEO or (usually at larger organizations) the chief development officer. Occasionally, I have reported to the board chair or to the chair of the development committee, but it is almost always best if the primary contact is a staff member who will be more likely to be available. Having a single person to report to can considerably ease the work of the consultant. If the primary contact person at your organization will be away for more than a short period, an alternative contact person should be designated and the consultant should be informed immediately who this will be.

Materials for Review If the consultant has not already done so as part of the earlier proposal process, he or she will probably want your organization to provide materials that will be essential to understanding the organization. Following is a generic list of the materials I usually give to the organization at the start of the consulting process.

Materials for Review: Generic List Listed below are the materials we would like to review as part of our consulting process. This is a general list, and you may not have all of these items. If some specific materials are not available, please do not attempt to create them. All information provided will be kept in confidence, and where duplicate copies are not available, materials will be returned. A. Institutional, Organizational, and Board Materials

Mission statement

Organizational chart (board/staff/departments)

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Board list (current and past three years with professional affiliations and committee assignments)

Bylaws and governance structure (committees, roles, members)

Audits for past three years

Fact sheet

Current operating budget

Long-range, master, or strategic plan

Board roles and responsibilities, position descriptions

Board recruitment/training/orientation materials

Policies and procedures (general)

Position descriptions for senior staff

B. Fundraising and Development Program Materials

Fundraising plans for past three years

Current fundraising software

Gift income reports for past three years with information on giving by source and purpose (including foundation, individual, and corporate gifts and sponsorships, underwriting)

Number of donors greater than $1,000 by source for past three years

Giving history for board members for past three years

Sample donor information files/records (four to five)

Gift acceptance and approval policies

Donor recognition policies

Other fundraising-related policies and procedures

Any past capital campaign information and donors

C. Materials Used for Cultivation and Solicitation

Case statement

Sample annual and/or other direct-mail appeal materials

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Personal solicitation donor materials

Solicitor training materials

Event sponsorship materials

Planned giving information

Memorial/honor donor information

Sample foundation proposals (two to three)

Donor acknowledgment letters and materials

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D. Public Relations Information/Materials

Annual reports for past three years

Newsletters (three or four)

Publicity kits or brochures

Sample press releases and media coverage clippings

Invitations and programs for special events (past two to three years)

Videos/slides/overhead presentations

Samples of ads, public service announcements, and the like

Anything else that you feel might be helpful

At times, some new clients have been very concerned about the amount of material requested. As this list says, I am not asking them to create anything new or even locate older items if they are not readily available. These types of materials can be very helpful to your consultant by building a more in-depth understanding of your organization and its plans, operations, and finances. In fact, one of my objectives as a consultant is to know the organization as well as, or maybe even better than, most of the staff. Reviewing these materials can help me toward that objective and also raise additional questions that I can ask staff or board members to fill in any gaps. If your consultant does not ask for these or similar materials at some point near the start of the process, I encourage your organization to take the initiative so that the consultant is as fully informed as possible about the organization.

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Sharing Unwritten Information Another tip in working with your consultant is to openly share other, often unwritten, information with him or her. Here are some examples of the types of information that will be very helpful to your consultant:

What have been some recent positive achievements of the organization?

How has it changed over the past 5 to 10 years?

Has it had to confront any major issues, and if so, how were these resolved?

What were some of the highlights of recent programs?

What were some highlights of recent fundraising efforts?

What are some of the achievements of individual staff members with the organization?

What are some of their achievements in the community served?

Who are some of the key board members, and why are they important to the organization?

Who are some of the current and recent key donors/funders of the organization?

What organizations, if any, are seen as competing with your organization for stakeholders, volunteers, funding, and attention, and why are they seen as competition?

What are some of the most important things the organization needs to accomplish over the next few years?

Is the organization now confronting or will it soon confront any major issues?

What were any recent roadblocks to success, and what has been done to try to overcome these?

If your organization were to close tomorrow, what would be the impact on those you serve?

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How would you describe the effectiveness of staff? The morale of staff?

If you could change anything at the organization, what would be your top priority?

I may not ask all of these questions directly during first meetings with staff (some may be reserved for the interview questions), but I will want senior staff especially to be open and honest with me when I ask for information critical to the consulting process. Your organization should be prepared to be open and honest with your consultant and willing to help find or disclose any information he or she requests. At times, some of the requested information may not seem to directly relate to the consulting process, but it is important to trust the judgment of the consultant as to what is and is not important. Also, be sure to always make very clear that any information provided, either written or verbal, is confidential.

Working Arrangements Another part of the first meeting with your organization’s consultant should be to clarify any working arrangements with him or her. These might include office space to be used by the consultant, operation of the phone system, provision of board and staff contact information (e-mail addresses and phone/extension numbers), meeting with any staff member who will provide support for the consultant’s work, providing a tour of the office and other facilities, informing him or her how any meeting rooms can be scheduled, briefing the consultant on access to the offices through any security desk (some organizations require passes for both staff and visitors), or other arrangements defined in the contract or necessary for the work of the consultant.

Timelines and Meeting Review Your organization should also be sure that the consultant and senior staff review any timelines for the consulting process as well as any key

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upcoming organizational meetings (such as an annual conference) and also any regularly scheduled board or staff meetings. The consultant may want to develop a schedule of these meetings that he or she will want to attend, possibly to report on progress or just to observe the meeting process. Even if I am not scheduled to present a report, I often like to attend a board meeting as close as possible to the start of the consulting project so that board members are aware of who I am and I can meet them individually for a brief period before or after the meeting. If the consultant has not already done so, he or she and senior management will probably want to develop and finalize a step-by-step timeline for the consulting process, as well as clarify roles and responsibilities of staff and the consultant so that everyone is clear what these are and how the work will proceed. It is particularly important that any written or verbal progress reports your organization would like from the consultant are included in the timeline so that the consultant can have adequate preparation time. While some of this information may have been included in the proposal and the final contract, they should be reviewed again at the start of the consulting process and adjusted, if necessary, to reflect changes in or additions to the organization’s schedules of meetings and events. If timelines are not spelled out, adjusted, and agreed to, there can be conflicts between the need to move the consulting process forward and other activities of the organization. One example of such a conflict I encountered was the attempt by a colleague and I to move the planning effort forward for a major campaign. As we sought to arrange meetings of the volunteer planning committee for the campaign, the vice president for development would defer scheduling meetings because of his involvement with other activities of the organization. ‘‘Can we hold off scheduling that meeting? I have to work on the upcoming gala.’’ ‘‘I think we’ll need to defer having another meeting—I’m working on the upcoming golf tournament.’’ ‘‘We’ve got a big meeting coming up with the United Way—I’ll need to get ready for that, so maybe we should schedule the next meeting in another two months.’’ It soon became apparent to us that the campaign

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effort was one of possibly too many priorities for the vice president. In fact, as the process developed, we finally had to insist that the campaign planning become a real priority for both the vice president and the organization or it would not have a successful outcome. One lesson of this example for your organization is that it needs to have a clear sense of its priorities, and the consulting project should be one of them. The consulting project is or should be a major priority for the consultant; if your organization does not see it as being important, or everyone is too busy to carry out their roles with the consultant (see Chapter 1 on when you don’t need a consultant), then the project may not be as successful as it could be, may take much longer than anticipated, or may fail.

Procedures Defined In addition to the above, other procedural points need to be clarified with the consultant early in the relationship. One of the most important of these is how arranging interviews and focus groups will happen if they are to be part of the consulting process. Earlier in the book, I discussed the preparation of interview request materials such as the letter/ e-mail inviting people to be interviewed or to be part of a focus group, and development of the case. At times, organizations have asked why these materials could not come from me. I pointed out that those receiving the letter and case likely would have no idea who I was and would not pay attention to it. A letter co-signed by the executive director/CEO and the board chair would be much more likely to generate a response. I also ask that the letter indicate responses should all go to a single person at the organization and that those agreeing to be interviewed will then be contacted directly by me to set a time and place (or a phone interview). Early in my experience as a consultant, I would set aside blocks of dates and times on my calendar for interviews, inform the client organization of these, and have them schedule the interviews. This proved to be very inefficient, as I was often left with empty days on the calendar

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when the client could not get anything scheduled. Now my process is that once the client has informed me that a person has agreed to be interviewed or be part of a focus group, I have the client fill out a onepage information form on each person. This form includes contact and background information (profession, company or other employer, position), details on their involvement with the organization (board and committee service, and so on), past and/or present giving, and other information that will be useful for conducting the interview or focus group. When I receive this form from the client (usually by fax or e-mail), I contact the person and set up the interview myself at a mutually convenient time. In the past I had to rely on the client or the interview prospect to give me directions to the interview location. The Internet or a global positioning system in the car is now my usual source for directions. Your organization needs to be prepared for this or similar procedures when an interview and/or focus group process is to be part of the consulting work. It is especially critical that, however information on each interviewee is conveyed to the consultant, the important details are included. There is nothing as embarrassing to both the consultant and the organization as having an interview session start with the interviewee’s saying, ‘‘Did they tell you I was the biggest single donor to the last capital campaign?’’ or ‘‘Did you know I was one of the founders of the organization?’’ and having to honestly say, ‘‘No—no one told me that.’’ This has happened to me at least four or five times! Having your organization pull together important information on each interviewee may not seem to be a very important task, but it can dramatically affect the quality of the information obtained during the interviews as well as how effective the consultant can be in conducting them.

Defining a Process for Written Materials Review Your organization also needs to be prepared to have a defined and efficient process to turn around written materials prepared in draft form by the consultant. Earlier, I discussed this process as having the potential to

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create major delays in the work of the consultant, especially when several people in your organization are editing draft materials and each is responding separately to the consultant with the edits. Two of my colleagues were caught in this situation and ended up preparing seven different drafts of a case before they finally asked the organization to reach agreement internally on edits and then submit the agreed-to changes to the consultants. The best arrangement, if more than one person in your organization is to edit materials, is to have a single person designated to coordinate the process and also designated to make the final decision on any edits submitted to him or her. Written materials that may be needed for the consulting process are discussed below.

The Case The case (often called the ‘‘case for support,’’ the ‘‘case statement,’’ or the ‘‘case prospectus’’) is a vital document for many consulting processes. Shorter versions (three to five pages) of the case are often used for development audit, feasibility study, and campaign planning study interviews, while the longer version (often over 10 pages) is used as a core document for the development of campaign materials, such as brochures, booklets, media kits, press releases, and other items that will be used during a campaign. Some organizations already have a case or the documents that can easily form the basis for creating a case, such as fact sheets, strategic plans, or other primarily internal documents describing the organization. Other organizations will need to create a case from scratch. It is often more efficient for the organization to first get advice from the consultant on the content that is needed, next develop a draft case internally, and then have the consultant review the draft, making suggestions for any changes or additions to improve its impact. The contents of a case can vary considerably depending on the organization, but a typical case will contain the following information about the organization:

Mission (may also include the organization’s vision statement)

Goals

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Objectives

Programs/Services

Finances and general sources of support

Governance

Staffing

Service delivery

Planning and evaluation

History

Cases may also contain brief stories about how the organization has impacted people’s lives through its services and programs. Your organization’s case may cover the preceding areas in a different order. If the consultant is to prepare the first draft of the case, your organization should ensure that he or she has all of the necessary materials and background information to create a draft that accurately reflects the organization and the needs it serves. The materials list provided earlier is very comprehensive, and many of these items will help the consultant develop a strong case.

Letter of Invitation to Prospective Interviewees This letter (or e-mail) is inviting people to be interviewed for a development audit, feasibility study, campaign planning study, or other purposes. It is usually accompanied by the case (short version) and describes the importance of the interview process for the organization and the project; indicates who will be carrying out the interview; stresses that interviews will be done in confidence; states that people will be asked only for their opinions and ideas, not for money; and presents to whom the invitee should respond. Consultants often have a somewhat standardized format for these letters, but each organization should ensure that the letter reflects the organization’s best interests and the particular audience it is addressed to, such as donors, board members, foundations, and others.

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Interview Questionnaire There can actually be several different interview questionnaires, depending on who will be interviewed. Questions may vary for staff members, board members, donors, nondonors, foundation staff or board, and corporate people. Questions may also vary depending on the nature of the project, such as a development audit or a campaign planning study. Generally, the consultant will prepare draft questionnaires based on all of these factors as well as his or her previous experience, and the planned products and desired outcomes of the project. As with other materials, your organization should review these carefully before they are used for interviews. Because interviews can be a good way to get the reactions, advice, and ideas of key constituents, I often suggest to organizations that they can add other items to the questionnaire in order to collect information on some areas that may not be directly related to the study itself. For example, if an organization has a new logo or is considering a revised mission statement, interviewees could be asked for their reactions to these changes. Consultants’ questionnaires collect two basic types of information: qualitative or quantitative. Many of the questionnaires I have seen or developed collect both qualitative and quantitative information from interviewees. There are philosophical differences among consultants about which type of information is more valuable. My questionnaires tend to be more heavily weighted toward qualitative information. If the interviewees represented a scientific sample of the organization’s constituents, I would feel more comfortable with focusing more on quantitative information. Also, when interviewees give ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ answers to questions such as, ‘‘Should the XYZ organization carry out a major capital campaign?’’ the summary of the results needs to be very clear that the sample is not a true cross-section of the organization’s constituents, and therefore responses are not a ‘‘vote’’ on the possible campaign. Your organization should also understand that consultants might not exactly follow the questionnaire during interviews. There can be considerable value with some interviewees to use a more conversational

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format, especially when the discussion focuses on topics or areas the person is very passionate about, such as his or her own giving to the organization. An example would be when an individual starts to talk about the legacy he or she would like to leave behind for the organization. A consultant might try to redirect the discussion back to the next item on the questionnaire when it would be far more productive to keep the conversation focused on what is important for the person being interviewed. In my view, questionnaires are really an outline for the interview but should not be rigidly followed if the interviewee is providing valuable opinions and ideas. Organizations sometimes want to delete or substantially change interview questions that have been prepared by the consultant. Reasons for this might include some perceived sensitivities among constituents, previous or current issues the organization has, or opinions of particular staff or board members. I was once asked by the head of the committee coordinating a major feasibility study for an endowment campaign to delete all questions related to possible ranges of giving for the proposed campaign. He was extremely sensitive about his own giving, feeling that it was a private matter that should not be shared with anyone. Because doing so would essentially eliminate any valuable information about the potential for success of the campaign, we elected to continue to include these questions after consultation with the executive director of the organization. If there are concerns about the inclusion or exclusion of questions on certain areas, my advice is to go through these with your organization’s consultant and reach some agreement as to what information will best meet the desired outcomes of the project.

Campaign Materials Campaign materials can include fact sheets (usually used by those making gift solicitations), campaign brochures, campaign booklets (usually glossy publications for potential major donors), solicitation letters, press releases, invitations to events, special newsletters or articles in existing newsletters, progress report letters, online materials, and

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many other possible items. It is important to be sure that your organization and the consultant mutually agree on which of these the consultant will be responsible for drafting, which will be prepared internally, and which may be contracted out for preparation by outside providers. It is best to have the specifics about these materials spelled out in the final contract. Having a comprehensive case in place and agreed to by your organization can provide much of the copy for many of these items and can considerably assist the consultant if he or she is to draft materials. Consultants may also be able to provide advice on thirdparty providers, such as writers, design firms, printers, or other needed services if your organization elects to outsource some of these tasks. Or your organization may want to rely on those providers it already uses. As with any written materials and as was recommended earlier, be sure there is a process in place to ensure rapid review and turnaround with a minimum of ‘‘back and forth’’ caused by several people individually responding to the person drafting the materials. It is also best to have a single person designated by your organization who is the final authority for approval of any written materials prepared by a consultant or a third-party provider.

Policies and Procedures Many consultants can provide generic campaign or fundraising-related policies and procedures or provide drafts of these for your organization’s consideration. Examples might include gift acknowledgment and gift acceptance policies and procedures, gift recognition policies, guidelines for restricted gifts, planned giving policies, and other items. If your organization does not have some or all of these in place, a consultant may be very helpful in getting the process started. Because policies and procedures will probably require board action, it is best to have the consultant work directly with any appropriate board committee(s), such as a development or campaign committee, as a first step in putting policies and procedures in place.

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Meeting Materials Your organization’s consultant will want to work with the staff to plan for meetings that are relevant to the consulting project, so the staff should be prepared to involve the consultants in planning the meetings. Consultants may prepare or work with staff to prepare agendas and written materials that will be used for the meeting, such as reports, handouts, media presentations, background information, or other items. In preparing for meetings, the consultant and the staff should clearly identify each of their respective roles and responsibilities in the meeting as well as the roles and responsibilities for others, such as board members and committee members. Agendas play a key role in creating productive meetings and achieving the desired outcomes. Agendas should be constructed to ensure that:

The committee chair (if a committee is involved) opens and closes the meeting.

The lead person or people on each agenda item are clearly identified.

A time period for each agenda item is included.

The time devoted to reviewing written reports (which should be distributed sufficiently prior to the meeting to give everyone an opportunity to read them) is minimal.

Items needing action are clearly identified.

The consultant will be the lead on selected items or areas relevant to his or her work.

There is ample time for full discussion of critical issues.

The next meeting time and date is set at the end of the meeting, or at least agreement is reached about how the next meeting will be scheduled.

The consultant may work with your organization to develop two versions of the agenda. The agenda for distribution to all of the attendees should be in a brief outline form. A second or working agenda may also

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be prepared. This can include details of what each of the lead people will cover under each agenda item. In some cases the consultant may want to work with your organization to develop a script for those who will take the lead on agenda items, or the consultant may want to prepare a draft presentation for their use during the meeting. Scripts can be very helpful for first meetings of newly established committees such as a campaign committee, especially when the committee’s volunteer chair is also new. Any script prepared should be developed with the chair so that it reflects his or her interests and style, but also conveys to the group the information the consultant and the organization feel is most important to cover.

Training Materials Consultants are often called on to provide gift solicitation training for board members, other volunteers, and staff. Many consultants have developed training materials and presentations that can be used effectively with a variety of organizations. These should be reviewed with appropriate staff before being used, but, as with the questionnaire development, staff should rely on the expertise of the consultant to develop these, while also taking care that the needed information is given to him or her so that the final materials reflect the needs and plans of the organization and are not too generic. Training materials might include, for example, background information on giving (see the earlier discussion of Giving USA), tips and techniques, organizational fact sheets, and role-playing materials.

Prospecting Materials Consultants also can play valuable roles in conducting meetings to identify, develop strategies for, and prioritize major gift prospects. Typically, the consultant will work with some development and senior staff to identify current major donors and other prospects. The consultant may provide grids for recording information and the potential ‘‘ask,’’ or cultivation steps for each identified prospect, with space for assigning

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priorities to prospects, and for designing a specific strategy for approaching each prospect, including the person or team that will be responsible.

Other Written Materials The consultant can also be a valuable resource for other written materials for the project, and can help guide staff in their preparation.

Consultants as Creative Resources Consultants can also be resources for the creative needs of a campaign or other areas related to their work. Through either facilitating creative sessions or providing their own ideas, they can help with developing campaign themes, themes for events, or a focus for major announcements and messages related to a campaign. Because of their experiences elsewhere, and hopefully because of their own creativity, consultants may be able to generate some good ideas to encapsulate the campaign or for key messages to be used for gift solicitations. One of my personal favorite experiences was to be involved early in my consulting career with a feasibility study and campaign for an Easter Seal Center. The Center was housed in an old, dilapidated building. The first day we arrived to meet the director and staff, it was raining very hard. Upon entering the building, we noticed everyone was running around trying to find buckets and waste cans for the rain pouring in from huge leaks in the roof. As we learned more about the Center and its needs and as we conducted the feasibility study, we came to understand that the Center staff took great pride in the unique therapy methods it used to treat the children coming there. These methods enabled many of the children to achieve almost normal mobility. But, despite their successes with the children, the facility was proving more and more inadequate, and space for carrying out their work was hindering the treatment process. The Center’s need for a new facility was obvious and the feasibility study showed that there were sufficient gifts to

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make the purchase and rehabilitation of a now-empty school building that was located nearby and up for sale by the county. As the campaign planning got under way, everyone realized that a campaign theme was needed both to present potential donors and the public with a key message about what the Center accomplished with the children it treated, as well as tie in the need for money for a new facility. As I thought about the Center, I remembered that the Center had not had a major campaign effort in many years or possibly never had had a capital campaign. Fundraising from individual, foundation, and corporate donors was relatively minimal, with the United Way and public agencies providing much of the budgetary support for the Center. Therefore this campaign would be a big step for the Center, especially since the goal for purchase and renovation of the school building would be almost $2 million. Then I thought about the kids I had seen undergoing their treatments. They, too, were learning to take big steps. And that became the campaign theme: ‘‘Little Steps, Big Steps.’’ The campaign was a great success, exceeding the goal by a considerable amount. This is a tribute to the hard work of many people—volunteers and staff—but I also like to think that the campaign theme played an important role.

Events Consultants can also help with the planning and carrying out of events, although again their roles in these areas should be defined in the contract. The consultant should be involved in the planning of any events directly related to the project, such as a major event kicking off a campaign, a donor recognition event, or other such activity. There are, in many areas, consultants who entirely focus on working with organizations to plan and carry out major fundraising events—this is a special category of fundraising consultant and is not the focus of this book. Generalist fundraising consultants often have at least some experience with events, and, while some of us prefer not to be too heavily involved with specifics, such as site selection, food and beverages, decorations, and so on, we are often involved with the fundraising aspects, such as

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identifying and working with the planning and table sales groups; defining the program; and helping to identify honorees, speakers, hosts, and sponsors/underwriters. Consultants may also take the broader view, when working with your organization, that all events are at least indirectly related to the project they are working on, and therefore they may seek to have input into these so that they are more strategic. A common issue for some organizations is that various parts of their fundraising program are seen as separate from other parts; this can be especially true in organizations where there are separate fundraising staff for the annual campaign, fundraising events, foundation and corporate giving, or other areas. The areas can become isolated from each other and focused on reaching their own goals rather than achieving the overall fundraising goal of the organization. A consultant may want to provide advice on how to better integrate these events and other areas into a more effective overall fundraising operation. For example, one organization I had as a client conducted an annual golf tournament. The tournament was very popular with the area corporate community and attracted several corporate CEOs and senior staff members. But the organization did nothing further with these corporate people. Our consulting effort was focused on the planning and carrying out of an endowment campaign, the first in the organization’s history. We encouraged the organization to engage these corporate people in other ways with its work, and especially encouraged the organization to bring some of the ‘‘regulars’’ from the tournament onto the campaign committee after some necessary cultivation steps. We were not totally successful in breaking down the barriers separating the different fundraising areas, but at least the organization began to think more strategically about their events and what would happen to participants afterwards.

General Advice and Counsel Some consultants include in their contracts that they will provide, upon request, ‘‘general advice and counsel’’ to the organization. I like to include this as a service beyond the specifics of the project tasks. Often a

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consultant will be seen by some staff and/or board members as a person who can serve as a more objective observer of the organization, and also someone who can be relied on for advice and help with several areas that may not be directly related to his or her specific project. Senior staff especially often appreciate another person who can provide advice, be used to bounce ideas off of, or just act at times as a counselor rather than a consultant. These roles can be an important part of the consultant’s work as long as they don’t distract substantially from the major tasks at hand. I like to think it is a good sign for the consulting relationship when a staff or board member wants to confide in me or get my suggestions about a particular situation. It shows they trust me and value my opinions and will rely on me to keep confidences when it is necessary. If the issue involves a dispute within an organization, it is part of my role professionally not to take sides but rather to suggest ways to bring about a resolution to the issue. While consultants are working with your organization, they need to keep an appropriate professional distance and not take sides on any major disputes that might happen while they are engaged. It becomes very difficult for a consultant when he or she is pulled into such disputes, especially when one of the parties is trying to get the consultant to support his or her side of the issue. Part of the consultant’s role in working with your organization is to remain as neutral as possible on such disputes.

Some General Considerations In addition to the preceding areas, there are some more general considerations when working with consultants. The first of these is the availability of the consultant. When I started in consulting, most of my work involved being at each client’s offices for a scheduled period, usually one-half day or a full day. Since most of the clients were local, all meetings, materials reviews, and other major activities related to the contract, except most nonstaff interviews, were carried out on-site at the client. Scheduling and my availability were therefore fairly well defined, although a good rule of thumb for any consultant is that when working

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at a client’s offices, the consultant should not do other clients’ work, and keep phone calls to them to a minimum. Later, as I started working with clients that were not in the immediate area, meetings and activities became more scattered across my schedule, so some of my work took place ‘‘off-site’’ in my office. As national organizations became clients, the focus of the on-site work was usually only meetings, with most of the other work occurring off-site. Interviews for studies might require me to travel to different parts of the country, often far from where the organization was located. The end result was more time traveling, fewer days actually spent on-site at the client’s offices, and more time spent in my office but still doing client work. At times, a few clients complained about my failure to return calls immediately. One claimed, ‘‘I called you four times this morning but you never returned my call until this afternoon.’’ I explained I had been on a six-hour plane flight to the West Coast, but the client was still not happy with my lack of availability during the six hours. One of the lessons of being a consultant is that real emergencies rarely occur. The best ‘‘emergencies’’ can be things like receiving notification of a major gift or grant, acceptance by a key individual of a campaign committee chair position, or a successful fundraising event. However, there can be perceived emergencies or the occasional real crisis situation, and clients often expect the consultant to be immediately available to respond. Cell phones increase the likelihood of connecting with your organization’s consultant no matter where he or she is. But there will still be times when the consultant is unavailable because of meetings, travel, or just a need to meet an upcoming deadline. We also occasionally take vacations and may not want to be on ‘‘24/7’’ during that time. Consultants will and should keep clients informed when they will be unavailable for longer than a day or two. I once took a vacation to a fairly remote place and told my clients they would not be able to reach me, as the small hotel had no Internet or fax services or phones in the room. When my wife and I arrived and were checking in, we noticed a small room off of the lobby with an ‘‘office center’’ sign over it; we both agreed not to tell anyone.

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Most consultants are and should be reluctant to take calls when in client meetings or carrying out interviews, although I know a few who do not see this as a problem. I personally feel that taking such calls from others is a disservice to the client or the interviewee. My time at those points should be devoted totally to that client. Also, consultants may not always be available when your organization tries to contact them, whether by phone, e-mail, or fax. Unless there is a real emergency, it’s best to keep messages brief and to the point, schedule conversations to avoid ‘‘telephone tag,’’ and, increasingly, use e-mail more effectively to connect with your consultant. It’s also probably best to not try to leave long voice mail messages. The voice mail system in my office would allow about two minutes of talk time per call; I once had 12 or 13 messages on voice mail—all were actually the same person and one continuous message, which had to be restarted after the two minutes were up. Also, at least some of us may have other priorities beyond work, so family, volunteer responsibilities, and the occasional day off may mean we won’t immediately respond. I once returned about 10:00 P.M. from a meeting and heard the fax machine in my home office running. The cover page indicated our main office was sending a 75-page fax in preparation for an 8:30 A.M. conference call the next morning. When I got on the call, I said ‘‘Sorry, I didn’t read the fax; I need more time if you want me to be prepared, and you shouldn’t assume I’m always available any time day or night!’’ I think they got the message.

Keeping the Consultant Informed Generally, beyond messages and other contacts, it is very important for your organization and consultant to communicate effectively and frequently. The consultant should be kept informed of major events and activities that may seem unrelated to his or her work, as well as any internal changes in the organization. It’s best to include the consultant on the mailing or general e-mail list, have newsletters and event announcements sent to him or her, and otherwise keep the consultant fully up to date. Also, he or she should be told of any changes in major

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plans, new programs, new board or staff members, major awards given or received, media coverage, or other such activities; frequently, this can be accomplished by including the consultant on the internal general e-mail list. All of these may have an impact on the work of the consultant, but even if they don’t directly affect the project, it will be helpful to be sure that he or she knows what is happening rather than assume this to be the case. I had a client that was carrying out a major endowment campaign. The single largest donor to the organization, a lady who was a prospect for a very large gift for the endowment fund, was being discussed at a campaign committee meeting. I suddenly noticed that the discussion was being carried out in the past tense. I asked if she was okay and the CEO said, ‘‘No, she died about two weeks ago.’’ The committee had assumed I had heard about her death, but I had not. Her death meant we would need to reevaluate some strategies for the campaign. The lesson—and the point of the above section—is that communication with your consultant of major activities and events is very important. It’s best not to overwhelm the consultant with everything that is happening, but it is equally important to be selective and communicate items that are important enough to be known throughout your organization. Besides, many of us see our clients as more than just a job—we genuinely are interested in all that they do.

Planning and Scheduling Your organization’s effectiveness in planning and scheduling will impact its relationship with the consultant. It’s best to plan ahead as far as possible when setting up meetings, conference calls, or other contacts involving your consultant. While consultants try to be flexible, it is not always possible to schedule something involving them at the last minute, as was indicated in the earlier discussion of availability. There may be times when doing so is necessary, and most consultants may be able to change other activities when there is a conflict. At times, such as when a trip is scheduled for another client, this may not be possible. Consultants also

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don’t want to appear too willing to make such changes frequently. If a particular client perceives the consultant to be frequently changing or canceling scheduled meetings or not attending meetings when he or she was supposed to be there, the client may rightfully raise questions about the organization’s being treated as a secondary priority by the consultant. It’s best, as was recommended earlier, to schedule next meetings or conference calls when wrapping up a current meeting or conference call. If it is necessary to have a detailed conversation by phone with a consultant, it’s also best to set a specific time in advance as well as inform him or her of the topics or areas your organization wants to cover. Conversely, your consultant should respect your organization’s other needs for meetings, conference calls, and other activities and should schedule his or her contacts when convenient with those the consultant needs to confer with, while informing them of the reasons for the contact in advance.

Meetings and Conference Calls The meetings and conference calls held with consultants, no matter which party originates them, should, whenever possible, be conducted with a previously distributed agenda and should keep focused on the topic at hand. It is probably best for the organization to set up these major conference calls or meetings, but the consultant should be involved in preparing the agenda and focus of the meeting (see the earlier discussion of meeting agendas). Often, consultants will draft an agenda for review and finalization by the organization; when this is done, be sure to have a conversation with the consultant so that everyone has the same understanding of what will be covered and the desired outcomes for the meeting or conference call; also, use the working agenda concept discussed earlier when appropriate. One area in particular to be concerned about is planning meetings or conference calls where the consultant is to present as only one part of a longer agenda. Your organization should first decide if the consultant needs to be at the entire meeting, should participate in the entire

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conference call, or should be there only at a designated time to do his or her presentation. Also, you and the consultant should determine how much time he or she will need, within the constraints of the overall agenda, to adequately cover the topic. Here is an example of how not to manage a conference call involving a consultant (or anyone): A colleague and I had completed our campaign feasibility study report for a client. Since the organization was a small national association, most of their board meetings were conducted by conference calls. Although we preferred to present our report and recommendations to a ‘‘live’’ meeting, the organization decided that we should do this on the next scheduled board conference call. The executive director informed us we should call in at 10:00 A.M. on the designated day and plan on spending about one hour discussing the report with the board. My colleague arrived at my office about 9:00 A.M. so we could prepare for the call. At 10:00 A.M. we called in; we heard the board members in a deep discussion about—what? They were talking about something that was not on the agenda at all. In fact, although they had been on the call for over an hour, they had not yet reached the first agenda item! We waited patiently for about 45 minutes, and they still had not started on the first agenda item. Finally, we called the executive director on her cell phone and asked what we should do. She managed to confer with the board chair briefly, and they agreed that we should call back in about 2:00 P.M., which we did and presented our report. Fortunately, neither my colleague nor I had another event scheduled, but we essentially ended up wasting much of the day waiting for our one-hour slot on the agenda.

Your Consultant's Other Skills When working with a consultant, it is important to get to know about other skills he or she may have that could be useful to your organization. While the project may not require these skills, at some point they might become valuable depending on shifts in the project’s direction, its outcomes, or other needs of the organization. One example of this is research on potential funders.

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Some consultants and consulting firms have strong research skills. Engaging them to do formal research on prospects and current donors may require expansion of a current contract with your organization or development of a separate contract to carry out the research. Alternatively, your organization may want to contract with a specialist in prospect research to carry out this work. However, your current consultant may enable your organization to acquire some basic prospect and donor research information as part of the current work of the consultant. Many fundraising consultants have access to the Foundation Center’s Foundation and Corporate Directories Online (see www.foundationcenter .org/, the Foundation Center’s general web site, for more information) or other similar services. Other consultants may have access to resources such as Hoover’s (see www.hoovers.com/), which can provide considerable information on both the corporate sector and the people who run the companies. And some consultants are very adept at using Google and other search engines to identify information on individuals. Asking your consultant if he or she has access to these types of databases or if he or she can perform searches through other means may enable your organization to acquire valuable information quickly. Frequently, I use Google to informally search prospective interviewees for feasibility and campaign planning studies. I am often surprised at how much information I can find on these individuals. But I am also sometimes dismayed at how little of this information the organization itself has collected, especially on its own board members and major donors. So be sure to ask your consultant about his or her access to databases and if he or she would be willing to carry out some focused research for your organization, even if it is not in the contract. Another skill some consultants have is the ability to connect or link people. Most people are familiar with the principle of ‘‘six degrees of separation,’’ the concept that you can link anyone to anyone through no more than six people. This led to the game ‘‘six degrees of Kevin Bacon,’’ in which the actor could be linked through movies he appeared in and other movies to almost any other actor. However, most people don’t realize that the concept was actually the result of an experiment

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carried out many years ago; this was pointed out in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point (Little, Brown and Company, 2000). Six degrees of separation can actually work, although some claim it is more like seven degrees and others disparage the entire concept. How might a consultant having this skill benefit your organization? Fundraising consultants who work in particular areas of the country, and who have worked with many organizations in those areas, often come to know board members and major donors of client organizations. Many of these are frequently serving on other boards, are senior-level executives of companies, or have other involvements in the community such as being members of service and business organizations. Some may also be board members of funders, such as community foundations or family foundations. So the chances are fairly good that your consultant, if he or she has worked in your area for a while, has met others who may be helpful to your organization. A good consultant can often work with your organization to identify the ways to best connect to these people through your board members and staff (a method he or she probably prefers to making the link himself or herself—see the earlier discussion about ‘‘using up’’ connections).

Dealing with Issues Issues may arise between your organization and the consultant. These can be caused by simple misunderstandings, lack of clear communication, inaccurate perceptions on the part of the consultant or someone in your organization, personality conflicts, or real problems created by the consultant or others. Most consultants are very conscious of trying to keep the process on track and also keeping the client pleased with the results. And most organizations want the consulting process to proceed smoothly. But, because humans are involved, issues may develop. Some issues can be settled quickly, while others will take a sincere effort by all parties to be resolved. And, at times, the best answer may be for the organization and the consultant to end the contract early and part ways.

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Anyone who has been a consultant has probably made mistakes or created issues with clients. I mentioned earlier working with a client to develop a questionnaire for an endowment feasibility study and having the chair of the committee object to any questions dealing with interviewees’ potential gifts. When it came time to interview the committee chair, I clearly stepped over the line when I asked him about his possible giving. He became very tense and then very angry with me for doing this. However, our final report and recommendations, as well as my efforts to mend fences with the chair and his willingness to do so, enabled the process to come to a smooth conclusion. Another time, a colleague and I were presenting the final report for a campaign feasibility study to the committee and staff members. One of the committee members made a statement, and my colleague, without thinking, blurted out ‘‘But you said in your interview X, Y, and Z!’’ Several people in the room, including me, gasped, and the committee member, somewhat stunned himself, said, ‘‘I thought the interviews were confidential!’’ It took a while for us to recover from that situation, and we ended up apologizing many times. If a consultant makes a major mistake that severely impacts the organization and the consulting process, the honorable thing to do may be to apologize and end the contract rather than cause any further harm. If there are disputes over final payments because the organization feels the work completed was not what they expected, it may be best for the consultant to settle the dispute by canceling any final payments due. However, I would almost never see a situation where a complete refund for the entire contract should be given unless the consultant committed a major ethical violation or did something illegal. The example in an earlier chapter where the consultant was having the staff do most of his work would probably justify having him repay the entire amount of the contract fee to the organization. Consultants realize that much of their ability to acquire new clients depends on their success with current and past clients—their reputation. If a consultant has had many clients over a long period of time, there will probably be some failures of the consulting relationship. Blame might be assigned to the consultant or to the organization, or possibly to causes

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neither could control. There are often two (or more) sides to every story of a failed consulting relationship, just like most relationships. And, as I discussed at the very beginning, it is often easy to pin the blame entirely on the consultant. Here are a few tips to at least start to ensure that your organization’s consulting relationship will be able to proceed relatively smoothly and get back on track when issues arise:

As soon as anyone in the organization perceives a possible issue with the consultant or the consultant’s work, that person or those people should fully inform the designated contact for the consultant. All of the details should be presented to the contact person as objectively as possible and with specifics.

The organization’s designated contact person for the consulting relationship should, once this process is completed, speak with the consultant and inform him or her of the issue and all of the available details. If possible, this should be done in a face-to-face meeting.

The contact person should then listen carefully to the consultant’s response.

This should be followed by a full discussion of the issue and its potential impact on the organization and the consulting process and desired outcomes.

During the discussion, both parties should make every effort to separate the emotional components, if any, from the factual components. Every effort should also be made to avoid the ‘‘he said– she said’’ situation.

The two parties should work toward a mutually agreeable solution as well as a plan for its rapid implementation.

The organization’s contact person should inform any third party of the solution and the rationale behind it. This might best be done with the consultant present so there can be a full discussion.

If the issue is primarily a personality dispute and does not directly involve the contact person, the consultant and the other person involved should be brought together to settle things.

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Any issues or disputes should not be widely aired within the organization, and staff should be informed of the results only if there is a major change in the consulting relationship.

Disputes over payments of funds due the consultant (see the following item) should be settled by mutual agreement and in the best interests of both the consultant and the organization.

Any issues involving sexual harassment, offensive language or remarks, or other such issues should be handled according to organizational policies and procedures as much as possible.

Payment Issues The next-to-last point above addresses a common issue many consultants have faced: delayed payment or nonpayment of fees for service and expenses not related to any disputes. Organizations may have many reasons for cash flow problems: nonpayment by public agencies, decreased revenue from fees for service or other income-producing functions, lower-than-projected gifts from an annual campaign effort, or other reasons that the organization itself cannot control. Often, one of the first vendors who have payments due postponed is the consultant. Other vendors, such as food suppliers, Internet service providers, landlords/leasers, utilities, and so on, are seen as more important, and of course payroll and taxes must take first priority. The result can be the organization’s deferring payment to the consultant, possibly over a period of months, and keeping the consultant at the bottom of the list of payees. This can be a major problem for an independent consultant, especially one who has only a limited number of clients and little or no reserve funds. But it can also be an issue for consulting firms, including the larger ones. Firms and individual consultants may have a provision in their contracts or on their bills that interest will be paid for bills past due for a set number of days, such as 60 or 90. Sometimes a firm or consultant may also have a provision in the contract or on a bill that, if

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payment is not received after a certain period, services will be discontinued until payment is made. The issue for even the largest firms is that, if a substantial number of clients are behind on their payments, the firm itself will have cash flow problems. Firms will often inform each consultant which of their clients has payments overdue. This can place the consultant in an awkward but necessary position of being both an adviser and a bill collector. Some firms have business staffs that will carry out the collection function. And, occasionally, clients will just not pay at all. A colleague and I had one client—a very small organization—where the two principals suddenly moved out of town with no forwarding address (which taught us to be more careful in the future). If your organization encounters a cash flow situation or other problem with paying your consultant, it is best to inform the consultant immediately and, as would be done with many other vendors, negotiate a payment plan, possibly involving partial payments or an expanded schedule for the payments. Simply ignoring the consultant’s bills but expecting the consultant to continue work without payment does not make for a strong and open consulting relationship.

Some Background Points In wrapping up this chapter on working with your consultant, I want to make a few final points that might be useful as background information:

Most consultants genuinely like doing the work they do and the organizations they have as clients. Consultants, like many in the nonprofit sector, identify with many of the causes or missions of the organizations they serve and like to help the organizations be successful.

Because of their often wide range of experience, consultants can be helpful to your organization in a number of ways, including some that may not be in the contract or may not be anticipated as the consulting process proceeds. Ask your consultant if he or she can help in other ways when there is a need, but always keep in

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mind that the contract and the process it defines are the guide to the consultant’s focus.

The consultant does not have all the answers but, working with your organization, can often help find the answers. Beware of ‘‘by the book’’ consultants who seem to have a formula—and an answer—for everything. Each organization is unique, and those of us who have been around a while know the process will always vary and must be tailored to the special circumstances of each organization.

When there are difficulties with a consultant, seek to resolve them quickly and in the best interests of both parties. The best interests of your organization are also the best interests of the consultant.

Many people assume that consultants make a lot of money. Some do, but many see as their real goal not to make more money but to help good organizations become better. Most of the senior development people I have worked with over the years were making one and a half to two times as much as I was, and that’s okay.

Many of the better consultants see the process as being almost as important as the product or goal of the services. For example, good interviews with major donors carried out as part of a feasibility study process can help build stronger relations with the organization. Many of the people I’ve interviewed over the years have commented that they were very pleased the organization wanted to hear their opinions. Keep your organization focused on both the process and the products and doing what is necessary to keep both successful.

Some of us consultants like to ‘‘walk the talk’’ by giving our own financial support to the organizations we serve as clients, especially if a campaign is being planned or is under way. If I like an organization and identify with the cause it serves, I will often make a gift or a series of gifts to it. Being a donor gives me a different perspective on the organization, and also enables me to relate to other donors and potential donors in a qualitatively different way. I

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become an insider—someone who is committed to the organization not just because of a contract but because I believe in what they are doing. As an aside, it also is an excellent way to test how effectively an organization handles gifts.

Finally, being a consultant is always a learning experience for me. Every client I worked with over the years taught me something new, whether it was about a cause, or a health problem, or how the client was trying to make lives better for people, animals, or the world as a whole. I feel that it has been a unique privilege to serve these organizations and to learn from them. And hopefully they learned something from me so they could be more successful.

Summary This is a long but important chapter. I hope it has given you some tips, ideas, and guidelines for working with consultants. I am sure that my colleagues could add to what I have written here. But at least it’s a start for your organization.

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Wrap-up and After

The Consultant Always Leaves It’s a fact—no matter how good your organization’s consultant is, no matter how successful the outcomes and the consulting relationship are, sooner or later your consultant will leave. Some of my consulting relationships have lasted as long as five years, while others were over in about four to five months. But all of the work ended at some point. Just as your organization prepared for the consultant’s arrival, so, too, should it prepare for the consultant’s leaving and the end of the contract. How your organization prepares will in part depend on the nature of the work of your consultant.

Delivering the Report and Recommendations When consultants carry out feasibility studies and campaign planning studies, as we have seen, there is a specific end product: the report and recommendations. The report and recommendations can be very long and detailed or short and focused on an overview of the study process, outcomes, and recommendations. The consultant will probably want to present the report in a session or sessions with your organization’s leadership so that there is a clear understanding of why the recommendations were arrived at and why they are important for the organization’s consideration. The consultant may also ask or the board chair may direct 183

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the board to vote to accept the report and recommendations. This does not mean every single recommendation will be accepted; it does mean that the organization is formally acknowledging that the report and recommendations have been submitted and it meets the requirements of the contract. Occasionally, the board may ask that changes be made in parts of the report. However, consultants may have had the report reviewed by senior staff, the board chair, and/or a board committee prior to the meeting; this strategy usually means that someone from the organization will endorse the report and recommendations, thus easing its acceptance by the board as a whole.

What's Next? So the report and recommendations have been accepted, the consultant thanked for his or her work, final billing for fees and expenses have been submitted and paid—now what? It is up to your organization to take the initiative and follow through with the next steps. I often tell clients that they do not have to necessarily agree with all of my recommendations (even though the recommendations are all related to each other), but I do ask that they review and act on each one, or, alternatively—and ideally—act on the entire set of recommendations as a single entity. Often, my recommendations are integrated and each is connected to the others, so it can be difficult to act on some without acting on others. For example, if the first recommendation is that the organization should proceed with a campaign, most of the rest of the recommendations are designed to support this conclusion. Sometimes the organization will act on all of the recommendations in the meeting where the report and recommendations have been presented, but more likely this will happen in subsequent board meetings or be referred to a committee for further review and eventual action by the full board. Some of the recommendations may be very time sensitive. For example, interviews carried out for capital campaign planning studies or feasibility studies may have ‘‘primed’’ potential major donors for being approached by the organization about their possible gifts. If

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nothing happens for many months or even a year or two, this effect will be gone or at least diminished. Other changes in the organization or the external climate may also impact the ability of the organization to follow through with the recommendations if it delays too long. Even when the basic recommendation is to not proceed with a campaign, there may be other steps the consultant encourages the organization to take to prepare the foundation for a later effort.

When Nothing Happens The worst scenario from the consultant’s point of view is the ‘‘shelving’’ of the report and recommendations by the organization. Sometimes this happens through a decision to ‘‘defer’’ follow-through so the organization can move on to other priorities. And sometimes nothing at all happens. In my view these two consequences are somewhat irrational, especially after all the time, effort, and money that have gone into the consulting process. Doing nothing or deferring any action may indicate a board that is more driven by fear of failure than by a desire for positive action, even if it involves some risk. If the board was committed to the consulting process from the start and kept engaged through progress reports, individual interviews, and other means during the process, this end result will probably be less likely.

Ensuring Follow-through Staff working with the consultant should help ensure that the board is engaged through some of the means listed above and also discussed earlier. Special attention throughout the consulting process should be given to the board chair and his or her role in the process, as well as to appropriate committee chairs, and other board members who may have been reluctant at the start. If the consultant’s recommendations are implemented, the board should be kept fully informed on progress in achieving the recommended steps, what will be happening next, and any roadblocks that have been

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encountered along the way. Of course, if a campaign is being planned or started, the board should already be fully involved. If the consultant was retained for a short-term project, such as conducting a workshop or a strategic planning retreat, the end product from him or her may be an outline of a strategic plan or the goals related to the workshop’s purpose. Consultants who are effective facilitators should help ensure that the organization’s next steps or an action plan are defined during these processes, but again it is up to your organization to carry out the follow-through. It is easy for the staff and board of an organization to complete a workshop or strategic planning session and then go back to business as usual. Responsible staff may need to establish benchmarks to measure progress, specific timelines for implementation, or ‘‘refresher’’ programs to keep everyone on track.

End-of-Campaign Debriefings Earlier I discussed two basic models for using fundraising consultants during a major campaign. In the first model, the consultant provides advice, guidance, and other assistance to staff and volunteers who carry out the campaign. In the second model—the campaign management service—the consultant or consultants function as staff to directly run the campaign. In the consulting model, staff and board members should be aware of most of the information, techniques, contacts, progress, roadblocks, and successes of the campaign because they are directly involved. Even in this model, wrapping up the consulting relationship at the end of a hopefully successful campaign should include a debriefing session or a series of debriefing sessions with development and senior staff, relevant board and campaign committees, and other volunteers. Possible topics for debriefings can include:

How the campaign was planned

A review of the overall steps taken during the campaign by the consultant, volunteer campaign leadership, board members, and staff and why these steps were important

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A review of the roles and responsibilities of the consultant, the board, board committees, staff, and other volunteers during the campaign

A review of the overall timing of the campaign and its phases and how closely it did or did not follow the timeline developed

How campaign leadership was selected and the effectiveness of this group or groups

What materials were developed for the campaign and how they were used, including those that proved necessary or useful and those that did not

How prospects were identified, how strategies were developed, and how they were cultivated and asked to support the campaign

What role major and lead gifts played in the success of the campaign

What roles other types of gifts (smaller gifts, corporate gifts, foundation grants, and special gifts) played in the campaign

What some roadblocks to the campaign were and how these were resolved, if they were resolved

How successfully gifts and pledges were handled internally by the organization

How successful the donor and volunteer recognition programs were

How successful campaign-related events were and how these were integrated with other organization events

Whether the marketing and public relations aspects of the campaign were successful and what the longer-term benefits to the organization were

Whether gift policies and procedures were followed during the campaign and whether they need any modification for the future

How successfully the campaign was integrated with other fundraising efforts

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How campaign donors will be integrated into other fundraising by the organization, such as the annual appeal

What the major issues or problems related to the campaign were

What any major failures of the campaign were

What other lessons can be learned and applied to any future campaigns by the organization

How the organization can ensure that the lessons of this campaign experience will be carried forward and not lost

Carrying out this exercise can help your organization better prepare for its next campaign, but also help everyone involved understand what happened during this campaign and why it was successful—or not successful. It also helps ensure that the experience of the consultant during the campaign is not lost and is understood by your organization. The issue of what is left behind for your organization becomes much more critical when your organization is using the campaign management model of consulting. In this case much of the campaign activity was channeled through the consultant/campaign manager, so staff, board members, and other volunteers may not always have been involved in many aspects of the campaign. The campaign manager may have been making direct contacts with prospects and donors, or carried out other activities related to the campaign. While most campaign management consultants make every effort to keep the organization fully informed of what is happening, some of the details, such as personal interactions with prospects and other areas less likely to be recorded may not always be conveyed to the organization. Therefore, structuring the exit process with the campaign manager/consultant and covering the topics listed earlier for wrapping up with any campaign consultant can help ensure much of this information will be conveyed to your organization. No matter what the type of service your organization received from a consultant, it is still best to have an exit interview with him or her even if some of the steps suggested above cannot happen. If the relationship and

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outcomes have been successful, the consultant should be asked if he or she would be available and interested in any future work with the organization. The consultant may ask to be kept informed of progress and (see earlier discussion) to be placed on your organization’s e-mail or mail list. Consultants may occasionally want to meet with you or speak by phone about your organization’s progress, even after they are no longer working with your organization. I’ve often met with people from past clients just to catch up and keep in touch with what is happening at each one. They may sometimes seek my informal advice, suggestions, and ideas and I am glad to offer these at no cost to them. Of course, if I feel that an organization is starting to take advantage of my time and advice, I will talk to them about setting up a more formal arrangement. But most people seem to keep their calls and contacts reasonable.

Summary Wrapping up the consulting relationship should always be carried out in a manner that enables your organization to reach closure and ensure that the information and experiences are not lost but will build the foundation for success. If the consultant is not proactive about creating a closeout process with your organization, your organization should take the steps to having a wrap-up session with him or her. As described in this chapter, it is best to structure this session so that there is maximum transfer of information and observations from the consultant to your organization.

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12

Conclusions

Some Final Thoughts This book has been my attempt to put down in writing my personal journey in the nonprofit sector, and especially my consulting experiences. Just as with my first book on corporate and foundation fundraising where I drew on my experiences as a foundation officer, I have tried, after 25 years as a consultant, to give you and your organization an insider’s view of what can make for a successful consulting relationship and outcomes. Everything in this book is based on my professional and personal experiences and those of some of my colleagues. Anyone who has been a fundraising consultant for a while will probably identify with at least some of my points and stories. And any organization that has used fundraising consultants—good, bad, or so-so—will hopefully be able to learn something new from this book. In one sense, this is an extended op-ed piece. I want organizations to be successful, and I want organizations and consultants to have strong relationships with successful outcomes. This book is really me talking to you and telling you what I think and what I’ve learned. I have seen over and over that the best consultants who work in a true partnership with an organization can help it move forward more rapidly than it might have otherwise. Organizations—or consultants—that go into the relationship only part-way will likely not be successful. It takes a real commitment by both parties to at least increase the chances of successful outcomes. And, despite what some may say, it takes an experienced 191

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consultant with the right combination of skills and attitudes to make a difference. Unfortunately, there are ‘‘consultants’’ in the nonprofit sector who, as some have told me themselves, are ‘‘. . . just doing this while I’m between jobs.’’ Is this the kind of commitment your organization is looking for? Sometimes even people in organizations that hire fundraising consultants don’t treat the profession too seriously. I was once interviewing a senior executive who served on the board of a client organization, and at the end of the interview he said: ‘‘Do you mind if I ask you a question? What do you want to really do as a career?’’ The implication was fairly clear to me—he saw what I was doing as somehow interim to ‘‘real work.’’ My answer was, ‘‘This is my career—it’s what I do, what I like to do, and what I want to do as long as I can be and am successful.’’ Despite the occasional jokes about consultants, fundraising consulting is an honorable and necessary profession. Some of the negative views of fundraising professionals undoubtedly impact fundraising consultants. If a person has a negative view of fundraisers, he or she will probably have an even more negative view of fundraising consultants. So be it. We’ll continue to be out there working closely with our partner organizations to help them be successful.

Who Gets the Credit? One interesting aspect of consulting for me is crediting success when a fundraising consultant is involved with an organization. While often the success is the result of both the organization’s hard work and the work of the consultant, organizations are usually credited with the success. A longtime understanding among consultants is caught in the phrase ‘‘If the organization is successful, it’s their credit, and if things go wrong, it’s the consultant’s fault!’’ I’m sure many development and fundraising staff can identify with that feeling, too. But, in reality, most nonprofit consultants are happy when the organization is successful and don’t mind if all the credit is theirs. It helps keep us humble, but in the back of our minds we know that we, too, had a role in that success. A few fundraising

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consultants will unfortunately take all the credit for the success of an organization. ‘‘I raised over $1 million for them’’ is the kind of brag I’ve heard from a few colleagues. This completely ignores the fact that donors were not likely to give because the consultant was a nice and clever person; they gave because they believe in the mission and vision of the organization and how it helps those it serves. Consulting and the consulting relationship are complex. Consulting, like fundraising, is not a science but an art. There are some basic principles that I’ve discussed in this book, but at the heart of things consulting and fundraising involve compelling causes and relationship building with a strategic emphasis and outcome-centered action.

The Best Fundraising Consultant To conclude, I occasionally get asked, ‘‘What makes for a good—or the best—consultant?’’ I would answer with the following characteristics for the good—or best—fundraising consultant:

People centered

Able to relate to a wide range of people, from corporate CEOs and community leaders to staff at all levels and those served by client organizations

Ethical, open, and honest in all that is done

Extensive experience in the nonprofit sector, including experience actually raising money as a staff member

Strategic—always keeps focused on the desired outcomes

Process oriented—understands the value of the process may be almost as important as the results

Knowledgeable of the nonprofit sector and the fundraising field, including major trends and issues

Has a broad-based understanding of the total spectrum of development and fundraising and knows how to integrate these elements in ways that will benefit client organizations

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Recognizes that, while organizations share common characteristics, each also has its own unique culture and style

Strives to understand and interact with each client’s organizational culture and style

Believes in the causes served by clients

Highly organized and efficient with time use and task prioritizing

Knows that not everything will go ‘‘by the book’’

Flexible and able to respond to changing situations, unexpected events, and both positive and negative results of actions taken

Committed to the field of fundraising and to consulting, as evidenced by the consultant’s professional involvements and volunteer activities

Knowledgeable or willing to rapidly learn the uniqueness of the community or communities in which the client operates

Realizes that consulting involves teaching, learning, and doing, not just giving advice

Has a good sense of humor

Can write clearly and succinctly

Can quickly build confidence in his or her abilities and skills

Willing to take blame when blame is due to the consultant’s actions or recommendations

Knows that failure may not be an option, but it happens

Knows that there are many paths to enlightenment and to fundraising success

Knows that persistence and patience are irreplaceable virtues

Knows that disagreement and lack of consensus can be creative

Willing to play many roles in each consulting relationship

Can listen effectively as well as present effectively

Knows that adults learn differently from children

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Realizes that, as a consultant, the credit for success may go elsewhere

Knows there are always skeptics about consultants out there

Understands budgets and financial statements and can interpret them to others

Uses technology effectively

Cares

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uthor’s comments: I admit to reading outside the field of fundraising and nonprofit management. There are many good books on fundraising, nonprofit management, and related areas, ranging from technique-oriented works to more general and philosophical volumes. But there are also many books that, on first look, might seem totally unrelated to the fields of nonprofit work and fundraising. And yet, when you read them, you begin to see that they are related and they provide new insights and ideas as well as challenge your thinking about what you do and how you do it. Below is a short list of books directly related to both fundraising and nonprofit management and books that, I believe, can challenge you to think differently about your work. Fundraising Basics: A Complete Guide, 2nd edition, by Barbara L. Ciconte, CFRE, and Jeanne Jacob, CAE, CFRE (Jones and Bartlett, Publishers, 2005) This comprehensive book is an excellent resource, both for the person who is embarking on fundraising as a profession and for the more seasoned professional who wants to fill in some gaps in his or her knowledge base. Often used as a textbook, it covers all of the major areas of fundraising and provides many examples of materials, forms, and policies and procedures vital to the profession. A third edition is due out shortly. I highly recommend this book.

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Ethical Fundraising: A Guide for Nonprofit Boards and Fundraisers (AFP Fund Development Series), by Janice Gow Pettey, CFRE (John Wiley & Sons, 2008) This book effectively focuses on the many ethical challenges fundraisers often face and, through case study examples, highlights different possible responses within an ethical framework. This is an excellent resource that will challenge your thinking about both your everyday work and your career. The Fundraising Feasibility Study: It’s Not About the Money (AFP Fund Development Series) by Martin L. Novom, CFRE, Ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 2007) In my book I often discussed feasibility studies and capital campaign studies from the standpoint of using consultants. This book takes an in-depth look at these types of studies from beginning to end—and beyond. A must-read if your organization is ever considering carrying out a study; it will take you through every step and also show you that studies, as the title says, are much more than about the money. Fundraising Fundamentals: A Guide to Annual Giving for Professionals and Volunteers, 2nd edition (AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series), by James M. Greenfield (John Wiley & Sons, 2002) This book focuses on an area that is often taken for granted—the annual giving campaign. The author explores annual campaigns with more depth and understanding than is done almost anywhere else, and gives an unusual and highly useful number of specifics and comparisons of various fundraising techniques. Nonprofit Essentials: The Development Plan, by Linda Lysakowski, ACFRE (John Wiley & Sons, 2007) This is a practical, step-by-step guide to creating a development plan, getting buy-in from leadership, and using the plan as a

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guide for a successful fundraising program. This book is a great source for anyone in fundraising, but also for board members and other staff of your organization. The Law of Fundraising, 4th edition, by Bruce R. Hopkins (John Wiley & Sons, due out 2009) I only briefly mentioned laws affecting the consulting relationship and fundraising in my book. Unfortunately, many board members and staffs of nonprofit organizations have little understanding of the many state, federal, and possibly even local laws that affect fundraising. Bruce Hopkins is the leading expert on this area and can explain, in plain English, what these laws are and how they will affect your organization. This is an expensive book, but very inexpensive compared to the consequences of not knowing and following the laws. Bruce has a number of books out related to nonprofit and fundraising law. The fourth edition will be the updated version of the earlier edition and undoubtedly will contain the latest information available on the law. Giving Well, Doing Good: Readings for Thoughtful Philanthropists, by Amy Kass (Indiana University Press, 2007) Amy Kass, drawing on resources from across history and from many cultures, ably brings together diverse readings about the philosophy and practice of philanthropy. This book, and her earlier work, The Perfect Gift: The Philanthropic Imagination in Poetry and Prose, will stimulate your own thinking, give you a deeper understanding of why what you do has always been important in all societies, and serve as an excellent resource for discussions with board members, staff, and others. The Complete Guide to Fundraising Management, 3rd edition (AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series), with CD, by Stanley Weinstein (John Wiley & Sons, due out 2009) I have not read the earlier edition, but, as with several of the other books mentioned here, I know the author and have seen him

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present some of his ideas and concepts. This book will undoubtedly successfully bridge the gap between theory and practice and serve as the ‘‘how to’’ reference you will use again and again. See also his book Capital Campaigns from the Ground Up: How Nonprofits Can Have the Buildings of Their Dreams (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) as a perfect resource for planning and carrying out a capital campaign. Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last, 2nd edition, by Simone Joyaux, ACFRE (Jones and Bartlett, 2001) This book, like much of Simone’s work and her workshops that push participants to deeper understandings of what they do and why, will challenge your thinking about fundraising and your organization. Taking a much broader view of fundraising, Simone casts it into the context of organizational development and shows how effective management techniques and ideas can be drawn from many experts beyond nonprofits and applied. Corporate and Foundation Fund Raising: A Complete Guide from the Inside, by Eugene Scanlan, CFRE (Jones and Bartlett, 1997) Okay, this is my earlier book. Yes, it’s old and parts of it are out of date, but I still think the basic concepts hold up well. And my guess is that it’s still the only book written by someone who has sat on both sides of the table as a foundation program officer and as a fundraiser. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown & Company, 2002) I mentioned this book in the context of the ‘‘six degrees of separation’’ principle discussed in one of my chapters. To me, this is a ‘‘must read’’ for anyone in fundraising. I’m constantly

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surprised at how few fundraisers have read this book or, in some cases, have even heard of it. The book has been criticized as ‘‘pop psychology,’’ but if you don’t find a few new ideas in it, I’ll be surprised. Try some of his ideas out, and see if they work for you. In some ways it summarizes much of what fundraisers already instinctively know about human relations and how things happen, but there it is in print! The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Random House, 2007) Now we’re really going beyond fundraising, aren’t we? Or are we? Taleb is an economist, investment expert, and controversial philosopher of the unexpected. This book goes against everything you may have believed about planning and basically says that the ‘‘expert’’ forecasters in many fields have it all wrong because they really don’t know what they’re doing. Sometimes serious, and sometimes putting you on, Taleb shows how the unexpected events can change everything. But he also shows how being prepared for the unexpected can help you, even when things happen that aren’t part of the plan. Sometimes dense and sometimes fun, this book will push your thinking. I liked it so much I developed a presentation based on it. Any Biography of General George S. Patton One of my hobbies is to read military history. But it’s not really a hobby because I find much that applies to fundraising in stories of battles and military leaders. Why? Military history can give us examples and lessons in management under extreme circumstances. It can also show us how things can go wrong quickly, as well as the value of creative solutions and good information. General Patton was an extreme example of a person who may have exemplified the best and worst of management, often at the same time. I don’t think I’m stretching things when I read some of his quotes:

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‘‘If a man has done his best, what else is there?’’ ‘‘Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.’’ ‘‘Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.’’ ‘‘There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.’’

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Alford & Associates/the Alford Group, XVII, XIX, XXI, 46 Association Foundation Group (AFG), 84 Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), V–VII, XV, XVII, XXII, 78, 84, 85, 94,103 Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), 94 Code of Ethics and Professional Practice, 62, 109, 111, 203 Donor Bill of Rights, 204 Fund development series, V–VI Publishing Advisory Committee, VI–VII Campaign committee, 36 Campaign materials, 36. See also Working with your consultant: written materials

Campaign phases, 36 Campaign planning study. See Consultants: services Campaign policies, 36. See also Working with your consultant: written materials Campaign prospects, 36–37 Campaign schedule, 37 Capital campaigns, 35. See also Consultants: services Case for support (case statement/ case prospectus), 7, 122, 159–160 Chicago Community Trust, the, XVII, XIX, XXI Comprehensive campaigns. See Capital campaigns Consultants Best, 193–195 Expenses, 63–65 Travel expenses and savings, 63–64, 65 205

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Consultants (Continued ) Fee structures, 53, 60–61. See also Consultants: proposal for services Alternative arrangements, 61–63 Percentage of dollars raised, 62–63 Focus, 22 Information collection about Colleagues in professional associations, 103 Consultant;s web site, 91–99 Consultant;s work/products, 99–100 Informal contacts, 103 Online search engines, 104 Reference checks Importance of, 100 Questions to ask, 102 Selection by consultant, 100–101 Request for proposal response, 89 Using other sources, 90–91 Interviews with. See Interviews: consultant prospects Issues to address, 22 Planning, 22 Proposal for services Analyzing, 112–114 Confidentiality, 115 Delivery of services, 121 Fee and expense structures, 116–119. See also

Consultants: fee structures Legal or ethical disclosure, 123–124 Materials, reviewing and editing, 121–123 Objectives, 108–109 Product/outcome definition, 124–125 Registration and contract filing issues, 123. See also State registration: contracts Revising and negotiating, 125–126 Sample outline, 109–111 Solicitor registration, 124. See also Solicitors, State registration Timelines, 120 Who does what, 114–115 Selection. See Selection of consultant or firm Services Advice for enhancing fundraising, 53 Campaign management or on-site campaign management, 34 Capital or major campaign, 36–37. See also Capital campaigns Development audit or assessment, 27–31

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Donor/philanthropic climate assessment, 37–41 Enhancing fundraising skills/ training, 47–50 Facilitation, 50–52 Feasibility study or campaign planning study, 31–34 Differences, 34 Fundraising/new sources, 41–43 Major donor prospects, 43–47 Planning/strategy development, 50 Service recommendations, 26 Sources for finding Internet, 87 Organization, 79–81 Other organizations, 81 Professional organizations, 84–85 Professional organizations of consultants, 85–86 Workshops, seminars, conferences, 81–84 Variety and styles, XXIII Working with. See Working with your consultant Consulting field, growth of, XXII Consulting, successful, XXIV Contracts Attorney review, 143–144 Contents if prepared by consultant, 142–143 Contract preparation alternatives, 140–142

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(see also Organizations–Decision to hire) Report presentation steps, 12 Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), 84, 94, 103 Development assessment. See Consultants: services Development audit. See Consultants: services Donor/philanthropic climate assessment. See Consultants: services Feasibility study. See Consultants: services Fees. See Consultants: fee structures Focus groups/group interviews Areas covered, 40 Participants, 40 Foundation Center, 175 Foundations and corporations, 41–43 Fundraising planning Giving Institute/Giving USA Foundation Annual Survey of State Laws, XXVIII Giving USA, 49, 85, 135 Members, 85–86

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Interviews Campaign planning study, 34 Confidentiality, 39. See also Consultants: proposal for services Consultant prospects, interviews with Alternate interview methods, 137 Focus/post-proposal interviews, 135–137 Focus/pre-proposal interviews, 127–135 Donor/philanthropic climate assessment, 38–39 Feasibility study, 32–33 In-person, 119 Interview questionnaire. See Working with your consultant: written materials Phone, 63, 119 Procedures, 157–158 Laws and consulting, XXV–XXVIII, 123, 124, 141 National Society of Fundraising Executives (NSFRE), XXI. See also Association of Fundraising Professionals

On-site campaign management, 8–9, 34–35. See also Consultants: services Questions about, 9–11 Organization Commitment to consulting, 11–12, 14 Consensus building, 57, 59 Costs of consulting, 15–16, 6566 Decision to hire, 16–18, 19 Disputes, internal, 3–6 Expectations of, 13–14 Follow through, 12 Fundraising issues, 1, 26 Knowing your organization, 55–57 Money for, 1, 6–8, 66–68 Needs, identification of, 2, 57–58 Presenting problem, 25 Problems of, 2–3 Products/outcomes desired, 59–60 Recommendations, 12, 15–16, 32 Reference checking, 19–22. See also Consultants: information collection Questions, 20–21 Registration. See State registration Sources for payment, 66–69 Threats, 12–13

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Proposal for Services. See Consultants: Proposal for services Readings, additional, 197–202 References. See Organization: reference checking Reports Findings, 32–33 Shelved, 11 Request for proposal (RFP), 55, 89 Unwritten consensus RFP, 72–76 Written external RFP, 71–72 Written internal RFP, 72 Advantages, 73 Content, 73–76 Selection of consultant or firm Group process, importance of, 139–140 Solicitors, XXV, XXVI, 8 State registration Consultant, XXV Consulting services, XXVII Contracts, XXV–XXVI Enforcement, XXVII Information, sources of, XXVI–XXVIII. See also Giving USA Institute Organization, XXV States, several, XXV, XXVII State regulations. See Laws Strategic planning Lack of, 7, 51, 59

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Outcomes, 59 Session facilitation, 50–51. See also Consultants: services Surveys Donor/philanthropic assessment, 39 Tipping Point, The, 176 Training. See Consultants: services Working with your consultant Creative resources, 166–167 Credit, 192–193 Debriefings, 186–189 Events, 167–168 First day and steps, 150–151 Follow-through, 185–186 General advice and counsel, 168–169 General considerations, 169–171 Issues, 176–180 Keeping informed, 171–172 Materials for review, 151– 153 Meetings and conference calls, 173–174 Other skills, 174–176 Partnership characteristics, 146–148 Payment issues. See Working with your consultant: issues Planning and scheduling, 172–173 Primary contact, 151 Procedures defined, 157–158 Program staff, 150 Project focus, 145–146

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Working with your consultant (Continued ) Report and recommendations delivery, 183–184. See also Organization: recommendations Staff trap, 148–150 Timelines and meeting review, 155–157 Unwritten information sharing, 154–155 Working arrangements, 155 Written materials Agendas, 164 Campaign materials, 36, 162–163.

Case. See Case for support Interview questionnaire, 161–162 Letter to prospective interviewees, 160 Meeting materials, 164–165 Prospecting materials, 165. See also Consultants services: major donor prospects Policies and procedures, 163. See also Campaign policies and procedures Training materials, 165 Written materials process, 158–159

Fundraising Consultants: A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations (AFP Fund Development Series)

Fundraising Consultants: A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations (AFP Fund Development Series)

Ethical Fundraising: A Guide for Nonprofit Boards and Fundraisers (AFP Fund Development Series) (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

Nonprofit Essentials: Major Gifts (AFP Fund Development Series) (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

The Fundraising Feasibility Study: It's Not About the Money (AFP Fund Development Series) (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

The Complete Guide to Fundraising Management (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

The Complete Guide to Fundraising Management (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

Nonprofit Essentials: The Development Plan (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Consultants

Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding: Seven Principles to Power Extraordinary Results (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

Effective Donor Relations (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

Jump-Starting the Stalled Fundraising Campaign (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

Fired-Up Fundraising: Turn Board Passion Into Action (AFP Fund Development Series)

Storytelling for Grantseekers: A Guide to Creative Nonprofit Fundraising

Developing Affordable Housing: A Practical Guide for Nonprofit Organizations (Wiley Nonprofit Law, Finance and Management Series)

Careers With Nonprofit Organizations

Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools and Trade Secrets (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

Philanthropy in a Flat World: Inspiration Through Globalization (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

The Law of Fundraising (Nonprofit Law, Finance, & Management Series)

Nonprofit Essentials: Recruiting and Training Fundraising Volunteers

Nonprofit Essentials: Recruiting and Training Fundraising Volunteers

Nonprofit Organizations: Challenges and Collaboration

The Law of Fundraising (Nonprofit Law, Finance, & Management Series)

Preventing Fraud in Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit Organizations: Theory, Management, Policy

Winning Gifts: Make Your Donors Feel Like Winners (Afp Fund Development Series)

Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing: (The AFP Wiley Fund Development Series)

Nonprofit Organizations (Ferguson Career Launcher)

The Nonprofit Leadership Transition and Development Guide: Proven Paths for Leaders and Organizations

Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations (Jossey Bass Nonprofit & Public Management Series)

Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Consultants (J-B O-D (Organizational Development))

Fundraising Consultants: A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations (AFP Fund Development Series)