16: The Path to Independent Consulting

Dawn Hanson Smart

My first steps on the path to consulting were in graduate school, where like many students, I took on small contracts. A literature review. Library research. Analysis of a survey. Thesis editing. Some of the work came from other students. Some from professors. Some from nonprofit organizations I’d worked with in the past. I had a fairly strong experiential background already, so felt fairly confident in taking on the work by myself. I had worked in direct service with individuals and families, created resource guides, developed training curricula, facilitated workshops and support groups, and managed the data tracking and reporting for a nonprofit organization. Each of these tasks provided experience that I could use on the consulting projects. I also was efficient, able to provide quick turn around, and with no overhead to speak of, able to minimize the cost for clients. This was a plus, bringing clients back for subsequent projects. I never took on more than one or maybe two small projects and found I liked the diversity of tasks and topics that this provided.

The consulting work also dovetailed nicely with my graduate studies, which included coursework in planning, program evaluation, research, and statistical analysis. I often would use consulting projects as examples in class discussion or in the papers I wrote. I graduated from the University of Washington with a Masters in Science in Health Education. Although I’ve never pursued a career as a health educator, the background provided an excellent foundation in planning, research, and evaluation. I also received a minor in Business Administration, which served me well in terms of managing the business-side of my consulting practice.

When I went to work as assistant director for a small nonprofit after graduating, I had less time for these kinds of projects and there were fewer opportunities given my move to another community. In time, however, contacts with individuals and organizations through my work at a United Way in the Midwest and some of my volunteer work generated the occasional small project. Again, they were short-term contracts, usually lasting no more than a month, such as facilitating a staff or board retreat, conducting focus groups, and writing a nonprofit’s annual report. Although offers for more involved and longer-term projects occasionally came my way, I found it difficult to manage them while holding a full-time job. I stuck with contracts I could handle in a few evenings or on a weekend.

Not only did the work bring in additional income, but it expanded my skill set, giving me the confidence to take on tasks with which I was less familiar. This required some “just in time learning” on occasion, but I found I liked the challenge and enjoyed the ongoing education the projects provided. For example, one project required client observation, which I’d not done before. Another project entailed a two-day retreat, which meant planning for and facilitating a more varied set of group activities than I had previously used. The work also cemented my decision about a planning and evaluation career and confirmed my sense that I was not destined for management or supervisory positions, preferring hands-on work with clients.

A move back West gave me my first chance to try independent consulting. I made arrangements to bring a couple of projects along with me, synthesizing a few boxes of data into a coherent community needs assessment and designing a grantee evaluation approach for my previous employer. Although the content of the work was satisfying, I discovered that toiling alone in my tiny home office (read that as a spare bedroom), was lonely and limiting. Not just no one to talk to, but no colleagues to bounce ideas off or puzzle through a knotty problem. More difficult still was finding new clients in a new community.

It quickly became clear that it would take considerable time to build a sustainable practice, and it would take more time than I had savings. So, back to a full-time planning and evaluation job I went. Having a resume with both employment and consulting experience likely helped me land a job in local government. According to my new employer, the breadth of my experience and the variety of skills gained from consulting gave me a competitive edge over other candidates for the position. It proved to be a fantastic opportunity — mentally stimulating and hugely challenging. Our office was a focal point of human services policy and planning for the region. The level of effort this job required, however, left no time or energy for outside consulting work. It would be another five years before I re-entered that world. But the contacts I made in this position served me well when I went back to consulting.

Another change to a new employer gave me the chance to take the next steps on the consulting path. Although the new position was full-time, it did not require the overtime or level of effort the previous one had demanded. I again had the time, and the mental energy, to take on consulting projects. The contacts I’d made provided the work. I created a marketing packet, basically a nice looking letter and list of past projects to let people know I was available, provide examples of the types of projects I had worked on, and give them a description of the tasks I could help them with. I sent it to individuals I had worked with, and soon had a number of contracts, small pieces of work but enough to keep me busy. But it was back to that sense of isolation when working solo on projects. It became clearer than ever that ‘independent’ consulting was not where I wanted to be or to go in the future. That, and the fact that a good friend had started her own consulting firm.

So for a few years, I took on one project at a time with my friend, allowing me to balance the consulting with the full-time job. As the firm began to count on my knowledge and experience, however, I found myself over-booked and over-worked. Some of the new projects also involved travel out of state, requiring time off from the job and some negotiation with my employer. In the end, my employer and I agreed that I could move to a ¾ - time position, allowing me to maintain the safety net of a salaried position and full benefits while taking on more consulting work. Over the next few years, this shifted to ½ - time employment and ½ - time consulting. There were times when I worked many hours a week to handle this combination, and occasionally, the balance between the job and the consulting was out of whack. It seemed to even out over the course of any given year, so neither my employer nor my friend was displeased, and mostly, this period was fun and generally manageable.

I pondered the possibility of working full-time for my friend’s firm, but had the perception that a consulting business was an uncertain enterprise. As I was the primary wage-earner in my family at this point, that raised anxieties. I also was cautious about working full-time with her, not wanting to jeopardize our friendship in any way. Over time, and through conversations with my friend, both of these concerns disappeared. The fact that the firm had been in business for 18 years, making a profit for most of them, was important information. And my friend reassured me that we could maintain the friendship as well as do business together. It was an economic downturn, however, that precipitated my eventual move to a full-time consulting position. My employer was facing major budget cutbacks and almost half of my 18-person unit was on the lay-off list. Making the move was easier for me than for many of my peers who did not have a ready-made path to follow. I had built enough credibility and enough of my own client base to make the transition into the consulting firm a smooth one.

It’s been five years since I joined Clegg & Associates. Five fun, prosperous, interesting years, for me and for the firm. We work in health, housing, and human services with nonprofit organizations and their funders. That’s where our hearts are — we feel we’re contributing to the communities we work with, making a difference in people’s lives. I think my circuitous path in independent consulting gives me something unique to offer my clients. My work for different nonprofits, government, and philanthropic organizations gives me a multi-faceted perspective — I’ve been on different sides of the table and understand the agendas, issues, and constraints each group faces. The work was generally the same in these organizations, but the context and culture varied. Working for government can give you a sense of the big picture and what drives public sector planning and policy decisions. The choices they’re faced with. The trade-offs and compromises they make. Working in the philanthropic world lets you see another approach to planning and decision-making, with different philosophical underpinnings and criteria for allocations and project selection. The cultures and value systems across philanthropic organizations are as varied as can be imagined, but all of them strive to fulfill a vision for some greater good. It is this vision that often keeps staff and volunteers engaged and invested in the effort. Working for nonprofits is also about following a vision, but nonprofit work provides a clearer understanding of the realities of the community and the organization’s clients. Working in a nonprofit helps you see what it takes to pull together a program, staff it, implement it, trouble-shoot and problem-solve, and keep the program on budget. Each of these environments gave me a different perspective on the health and human service field, serving me well as a consultant who works in all of these venues.

Looking back I see a number of lessons along my path into consulting. The first is knowing yourself and the type of work for which you’re best suited. My initial sense that the diversity of tasks and topics I would encounter in consulting would be a good fit with my nature was wholly on target. The choice about what to pursue and what to avoid almost always exists. My generally short attention span and my efficient work style make me a good candidate for multiple, short-term projects rather than long-term ones. My early recognition that working alone was not the best venue also helped me seek a situation that gave me the collegiality I wanted and needed. I came to appreciate the benefits of working in a small firm rather than a larger setting. There are five staff in our firm and we generally have between 15 and 20 projects of varying sizes active at any one time. In this kind of firm you perform a variety of functions as it is often the case that “all hands are needed” when we take on large projects. I enjoy that aspect of the work. The small staff size also means there must be real teamwork, something we value and pay close attention to. We need people who can design a project approach, do research, facilitate small group discussions, organize information, and write clearly and succinctly. But mostly we seek people who can work well with others. A small consulting office cannot function without this. The teamwork and versatility required also make a small firm the kind of place where people can grow professionally. We’re always looking for opportunities that allow less experienced staff to take on additional responsibilities with coaching from a more senior member of the team.

A second lesson is the importance of a firm sense of ethics and an awareness of potential problems that may arise if a person is employed and doing consulting “on the side.” When are conflicts of interest an issue if a consulting project comes to you through contacts made through your place of employment? What are the rules and the boundaries related to bringing a consulting task into the office, like taking a client phone call or sending or receiving a fax or email? How do you negotiate when project deadlines conflict with work requirements? I faced all of these, and fortunately, had a good internal compass as well as reasonable and patient employers and wise colleagues to guide me. In some of the places I was employed, personnel handbooks laid out policies or regulations to address my questions about these kinds of issues, but that was not always the case. Talking with my supervisors and colleagues, however, gave me the confidence that I was handling the situation appropriately.

A third lesson is recognizing when things aren’t working. This is particularly important when you are trying to balance employment and consulting. Being clear about my limitations when deciding what projects to take on and which I should avoid because of their size, travel requirements, or short deadlines helped me manage, but that lesson was learned only after some stressful mistakes. There were times when I was overwhelmed and not doing as good a job as I should have in either my consulting or my employed position. My tendency to put down my head and slog through it did not always work. Asking for help, negotiating an extension, and finding ways to be kind to myself did.

The last lesson is to take a risk when you can. With the freedom of consulting work comes some uncertainty. There are times when you can live with that uncertainty and times when it feels too scary for any number of reasons. Acknowledging the reality of your situation will make it easier to distinguish between the two. My reality meant I needed to ease into full-time consulting rather than jump in at the beginning. But now, I can’t imagine any other life.