Consultants can be invaluable partners for nonprofits, providing expertise and recommendations to help your organization achieve key goals. However, consultant relationships can also go off the rails if you’re not careful. Here are three common cases of consultant relationships gone wrong and tips to prevent them.
Case 1: The information isn’t supporting your argument. You hired a consultant to analyze your fundraising data and they found that your metrics aren’t as strong as you had reported to leadership. Now what? To prevent this, set clear expectations upfront about what constitutes “final” data and analytics. Don’t report anything to leadership until you have reviewed the final report with your consultant. Work with your consultant on crafting the message and data presentation. Have them co-present the findings with you to leadership to ensure the information is conveyed accurately.
Case 2: Deadlines have been missed. Now what? Whether due to issues on your end or the consultant’s end, missed deadlines put the project timeline in jeopardy. To avoid this, build in buffer time for unforeseen issues. Have a backup contact on your team in case your primary contact is out. Communicate openly with your consultant at the first sign of problems to come up with a solution to get the project back on track. Renegotiate deadlines or the scope of work if needed. Focus on flexibility and finding a mutually agreeable solution.
Case 3: The dashboards look great but the data is a mess. You hired a consultant to build data visualizations but they can’t get the data they need from your systems. To prevent bad data from undermining an otherwise successful project, bring your IT and data experts into the process early on. Make sure the consultant understands your data architecture and systems before promising certain deliverables. Be transparent about any data issues to set the right expectations. If data problems become insurmountable, don’t be afraid to press pause on the project until data issues have been resolved.
By openly communicating with your consultant, setting clear expectations, bringing the right experts to the table, and building in flexibility, you can forge a trusting partnership and avoid relationships gone awry. With the right safeguards in place, consultants can be incredibly valuable partners in helping your nonprofit achieve its most important goals.
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