What Does It Actually Take to Hire a Consultant Well?

Most nonprofit leaders have hired a consultant at some point. Some of those engagements went exactly as hoped. Others produced a plan that sat on a shelf, a relationship that felt transactional, or an invoice that was hard to justify to the board. The difference between those two outcomes usually isn't about finding the right consultant. It's about whether the organization was ready to hire one in the first place.

That gap is what Mindfully Hiring a Consultant was built to address.

The full workshop is a 90-minute interactive session designed for Executive Directors, nonprofit staff, and board members who are getting ready to bring outside expertise into their organization. It covers root cause analysis, how to write a statement of work that actually reflects what you need, how to manage expectations on both sides of the relationship, and how to plan for implementation so the work continues after the engagement ends. Participants leave with templates, worksheets, and a framework they can use immediately.

The 20-minute mini-session is a sample of what the full session covers. It's a good starting point if you're in the early stages of thinking about a consulting engagement and want to go in with a clearer sense of what to look for and what to ask.

The workshop is available as a virtual session and can be scheduled for your team, board, or peer learning group. If you're interested in bringing it to your organization or network, reach out at ellie@browncatalystconsulting.com and we can talk through what makes sense.