Consultants -- Getting Consultants, Doing Consulting
© Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC.
To develop your consulting skills, consider the Consultants Development Institute
Many of the articles in this Library topic were adpated from Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development and Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development with Nonprofits
Sections of This Topic Include:
Understanding Consultants and Consulting
Doing Consulting (professionalism, field of Organization Development)
Hiring Consultants
Requests for Proposals, Proposals and Contracts
Additional Information for Nonprofits
To Develop Your Consulting Skills
General Resources
Understanding Consultants and Consulting
The
Definition of Consultant
Internal Compared to External Consultants
Consultant as Equilateralist
Not-For-Profit Consulting
You would also benefit from reading the following section on Professionalism for consultants, so you can set some standard of performance when selecting and working with consultants. Also review the materials in the section about Request for Proposals, Proposals and Contracts.
Doing Consulting
Professionalism
Understanding
Yourself as an Instrument of Change
Principles for Effective Consulting
Confessions of an Ex-Consultant
In Search of Suckers
Types
of Clients (to answer critical question: "who is current
client?")
Defining Success Between Consultants and Clients
Ethical Consulting
Boundaries for Consultants
Multicultural Consulting
Minimize Consulting Liabilities and Risk
When to Bail from a Consulting Project
Consulting Process
Collaborative Consulting (one-page depiction)
Consulting Process: A"Bare Bones" Outline
Consulting to Accomplish Significant Change in Organizations
If you are consulting to accomplish significant change in organizations,
then you can get a great deal of guidance by reviewing materials
from the field of Organization Development.
Organization Developmental Development and Change
Hiring Consultants
Basic Considerations
All
About Using Consultants
Consideration
in Choosing Between A Generalist and A Specialist
Generalist
or Specialist -- Whom Do I Consult?
Sample Checklist for Hiring Consultants
Defining Success With Consultants
Do
More Than Fix My Company
Potential Issues When Hiring Consultants
Landmines
Ahead -- Avoiding 12 Common Pitfalls of Hiring Consultants
Are
They Worth Their Hefty Fees
Hiring consultants with poor screening invites
lousy work
Note that the concerns of the IRS regarding "independent
contractor status vs. employee status" also exist as concerns
in Canada with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.
Independent Contractors - Human Resources - 06/10/98
Court TV's Legal Cafe: Freelancers and Temps (Background)
Requests for Proposal, Proposals and Contracts
Request for Proposal
How
to Write an RFP
Sample
Request for Proposal
All
About Using Consultants (includes sample proposal, plan and contract)
More sample requests for proposal (scroll down
to Request for Proposal (RFP)
Proposal
Sample Proposal Form
sample
proposal (scroll down the page)
anatomy
of a proposal
sample
proposals
Contracts
Sample
Agreement for Services (much of what goes in a proposal is also
in the agreement)
tips on writing contracts with consultants
Sample Consulting Agreement
sample agreement
Additional Information for Nonprofits
See the American Philanthropy Review's " ;Consultants Registry Online" (http://philanthropy-review.com/consultants) which lists a large number of nonprofit consultants and how to contact them. (Information in this topic is relevant to for-profits, too.)
"Consulting with Nonprofits: A Practitioner's Guide" written by Carol A. Lukas, published by Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. Call 1-800-274-6024.
"Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development with Nonprofits" written by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC.
About.com provides a list of major consultancies for nonprofits.
To Develop Your Consulting Skills
There are many resources from which consultants can start and market a consulting business. However, there are very few programs in which consultants can further develop their skills to solve problems or achieve goals in the clients' organizations. Consider the following resource, the
Consultants Development Institute
General Resources
The Directory of Management Consultants -- Online
http://www.idealist.org/is_cons/helpcons.html
http://www.ontap.org/
http://www.hfpg.org/cdb/how_consult.htm
For the Category of Organization Development:
Related Library Topics
Recommended Books
Managing Organizational Change
Managing Organizational Change
Field
Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development
- by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Provides complete, step-by-step guidelines to identify complex issues in for-profit or government organizations and successfully resolve each of them. This book is also helpful to organizations that are doing fine now, but want to evolve to the next level of performance. This is one of the truly comprehensive, yet practical, books about this complex subject! Includes online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library's topic about guiding change are adapted from this comprehensive book.
Field
Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development With Nonprofits
- by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Provides complete, step-by-step guidelines to identify complex issues in nonprofit organizations and successfully resolve each of them. This book is also helpful to organizations that are doing fine now, but want to evolve to the next level of performance. This is one of the truly comprehensive, yet practical, books about this complex subject! Includes online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library's topic about guiding change are adapted from this comprehensive book.
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Growing Your Organization
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Also See
Capacity Building (Nonprofit) -- Recommended Books
