Richard Male & Associates (RMA) on the Role of the Consultant

A consultant's number one job is solving a problem. Most organizations bring in a consultant when there is an issue around fundraising, board development, strategic thinking and planning, internal conflict, lack of visibility and credibility, weak financial systems, etc. The consultant's role is to help identify exactly what the problem is and to prescribe strategies to solve the problem.

A consultant can help move the organization when it gets "stuck" and can't seem to see the forest through the trees. People that work for the organization are sometimes too close to the problems and get immobilized. Bringing in an objective person frequently clears the vision.  Recently we worked with a large children's group that was having significant internal problems with the key staff and board of directors.  Each party was blaming the other without understanding the mutual roles and responsibilities they had in moving the organization forward.

A consultant can bring in fresh experiences and new skills. You want to hire a consultant that has helped a wide variety of organizations with a wide variety of issues.

A consultant has little or no emotional attachment to your old ways of doing business. A good consultant should not have a lot of history or loyalty to your organization. S/he should be detached from the personalities and people and should focus on a prescriptive analysis and creative solutions to the issues s/he is trying to solve.

A consultant should have a wide range of experiences and resources to draw upon. Successful consultants should have a minimum of 10 years' experience working with a wide range of non-profits. The senior consultants we use at RMA have a minimum of 20 years experience. A strong consultant should be able to draw on resources and experiences in ways that an employee cannot.

A consultant must challenge the organization and push the agency, but do it in a "safe" manner. The consultant should be able to ask the hard and tough questions and recommend the "best practices" or "gold standards." Obviously, the consultant needs to be in the field long enough to know what these standards and best practices are.

A consultant will produce timely, strategic and effective documents when requested including strategic plans, resource development plans, job descriptions, delineation of roles and responsibilities, etc. 

A consultant should have the ability to unify and weave together the organizational mosaic for success. The consultant should have a good understanding of psychology and interpersonal relationships to be able to help the organization's staff and board bridge differences and conflicts so that everyone can understand and act on a common vision. 

A consultant needs to have the ability to understand the long-term strategy.  A lot of organizations operate at a "tactical" rather than a strategic level. Tactics are generally unrelated to the overall strategic direction of the organization.

A consultant helps bring about practical -- not theoretical -- solutions. It is important to have a vision and to "soar with the eagles" so to speak, but "mucking around with the pigeons" is also critical to the execution of tasks.

Richard Males & Associates (RMA) is an international nonprofit consulting firm. Their Web site is http://www.richardmale.com/. This article has been reproduced from the organization's e-newsletter.