How consultants shape nonprofits : shared values, unintended consequences / Leah Margareta Gazzo Reisman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reisman, Leah Margareta Gazzo, author.

Series:

Stanford social innovation review books

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nonprofit organizations--Management.

Nonprofit organizations.

Business consultants.

Physical Description:

pages cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford Business Books, an imprint of Stanford University Press, 2024.

Summary:

"Groundbreaking research illuminates the pivotal, problematic role of consultants in the nonprofit world. The nonprofit sector leans heavily on consultants to guide strategic planning, advise on fundraising strategy, gather data on program effectiveness and more. Despite suspicion from some quarters about the quality and impact of this work, Dr. Leah Reisman's extensive research demonstrates that most consultants work diligently to customize and implement solutions for their nonprofit clients. However there are overlooked costs. How Consultants Shape Nonprofits explores how consultants reinforce problematic status-quo practices and ideas while prioritizing the opinions of people in power (nonprofit funders, leaders, etc.) over those of lower-level staff and communities. Consultants thus leave unaddressed some of the most pernicious structural problems in the nonprofit sector. The book's important conclusions about the problematic role of consultants in the nonprofit world are based on more than a year of ethnographic research and nearly 200 interviews with practitioners. Dr. Reisman concludes with guidance on how consultants, nonprofit leaders, and donors can better collaborate, and overcome traditional "blind spots" in the nonprofit-consultant relationship"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : the work of nonprofit consultants

Oracles, facilitators, and point people : demystifying consultants to nonprofits

No cookie-cutter solutions : consultants' drive to customize for clients

Data as conversation-starters : consultants defer to client knowledge

How to be a nonprofit person in consulting : the perils of caring too much

Best practices as common practices : consultants unintentionally reproduce the status quo

How consultants prioritize the powerful : funder and stakeholder influence

A soft hand and firm advice : perpetuating hierarchies of ideas

Conclusion : staying the course or changing the system.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Other Format:

Online version: Reisman, Leah Margareta Gazzo. How consultants shape nonprofits

ISBN:

9781503635364

1503635368

OCLC:

1425099373