Making Consulting Count: Lessons from the Field
Many civil society organisations struggle to know when and how to work with consultants, especially if it's their first time working with consultants.
The most successful consulting relationships start long before a project begins, with clear thinking about the challenge you want to solve through your collaboration.
Getting value from consultants means moving beyond a transactional relationship to build a genuine partnership.
Even with limited budgets, good consulting support is possible if you're clear about your priorities.
A strong client-consultant partnership can turn unexpected insights and project pivots into an opportunity to co-create and strengthen the project outcome.
In both personal and professional settings, partnerships built on mutual respect, clear communication, and inclusive co-creation can mean the difference between a project that falters and one that soars. Partnerships are at the heart of our work at Firetail. They shape every project and enable our clients to do transformative work for society.
Over nearly 20 years, Firetail has collaborated with organisations across the social sector—from grassroots charities to global philanthropic institutions—on challenges ranging from strategy development to programme evaluation. Through this, one insight stands out: the success of consulting projects is not primarily driven by the amount of technical expertise or financial resources committed to solving the problem. It does not necessarily hinge upon the organisation’s size, mission, or sector longevity.
Success depends on the strength of the client-consultant partnership.
So, how do you nurture this kind of partnership? Whether you’ve worked with consultants before or are considering it for the first time, we wanted to share some of the lessons we’ve learned with you. We hope you find them helpful as you consider your next consulting engagement.
We’ve seen from our experience that organisations that foster the strongest client-consultant relationships stand to benefit the most from the partnership—and, by and large, they do one or more of the following:
They set preconditions for success during the internal project inception phase.
They venture beyond a transactional relationship to develop a genuine partnership with their consultants.
They create space for exploration, allowing unexpected insights and pivots to emerge which ultimately enrich project process and outcomes.
Before you dive into the reflections below, please know this list is by no means exhaustive; we are always learning and incorporating new ideas and experiences into how we approach our work with clients. We would love to hear about how these observations resonate with you and what we might be missing.
And please forgive us if — in our eagerness to share what we’ve learned — we’ve veered into advice column territory. We want to open the door to some constructive (pre)engagement conversations and sincerely hope you will stop by to engage with these ideas further.
1. Setting the Preconditions for Success
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin
The foundation of a successful partnership is often laid before a consultant is even brought on board, before the Request For Proposals (RFP) is issued, or project requirements are published. Decisions made during the internal project scoping phase can either set the stage for success or create friction down the line.
As organisational circumstances allow, we’ve found clients benefit greatly from starting internal discussions early enough to consider what kind of support they’ll need. Some key questions to ask during this initial conversation can help to put much needed definition around the work: What problem are we trying to solve? What will this project seek to achieve? What are the desired outcomes? What will success look like—for us, our Trustees, our partners, and the communities we serve?
Often, defining the problem is half the battle. The process can be frustrating and messy—especially if the problem is something you’ve been struggling with alone for a while. There can be a temptation to rush toward a specific product for a solution (e.g., “What we really need is a new strategy / ToC / impact evaluation / etc.”).
We’ve found that conversations with a consultant at this early stage can be really useful in helping to define the problem— that is, starting from a challenge that needs to be solved, not from a predetermined solution. The most valuable consulting relationships often begin with a conversation about a complex, undefined problem—good consultants can help you frame the challenge and identify the right approach to tackle it.
Once the problem is known and the general boundaries of the project are defined, addressing project logistics and resources helps build a strong foundation for the steps ahead (the RFP development process can be a great forcing mechanism to do this).
Where to begin? It is helpful to assign a dedicated project lead who has both the capacity and the enthusiasm for the role. This person will act as the bridge between the organisation and the consulting team, ensuring alignment and momentum throughout the project. In the short term, the project lead can help gather and finalise project requirements, enabling clear communication and quicker alignment with potential consultants.
Timelines and budgets also deserve careful consideration. Overly optimistic timelines that fail to account for holidays, stakeholder availability, or inevitable setbacks can derail progress. We’ve found it a prudent tactic to build buffer time into the project timeline and keep expectations realistic—unexpected challenges are a given.
Speaking of project timelines: the most robust ones account for the internal team’s availability to engage with the consultant and the work at hand. Will key staff be on holiday or otherwise unavailable at times? Will the “busy time of the year” coincide with the final phases of a major project deliverable? If so, it might be wise to build in some additional days—or additional resources—to create some fudge factor.
Similarly, budgetary issues, if not carefully considered, can have a limiting effect on the project’s success. Budget constraints are a reality for most civil society organisations. The question we often hear is: "Can we get value from consultants when we don't have much money?"
This is where being honest about priorities becomes critical. A smaller budget doesn't mean you can't work with consultants effectively—but it does mean that you have to be realistic about scope and crystal clear about what matters most. In practice, this means:
Focusing on the most pressing strategic questions, not trying to solve everything at once.
Being explicit about what's in and out of scope from the start.
Structuring the work in phases, with clear decision points.
Ensuring internal teams have capacity to maximise value from consultant time.
We find that the most successful projects are those where organisations have these conversations early. They're willing to discuss trade-offs openly and make tough choices about priorities before work begins.
Pro bono consulting might seem like an attractive alternative when budgets are tight. However, in our experience, these relationships often deliver less value than a smaller, focused piece of paid work. Without proper investment on both sides, the work tends to drift and eventually stall.
Lastly, what has helped us craft the most responsive and bespoke approach to a client challenge is understanding what role we are expected to play in the collaboration. Are we thought partners? Or are we going to be delving into the nitty-gritty of the work as process designers, facilitators, and implementers? Or both? Having clarity on our client’s expectations is key, because these distinct roles lead to different kinds of support to your organisation.
There is a lot to consider, but the upfront effort is worth it. When these preconditions are thoughtfully addressed—whether alone or in early collaboration with consultants— we are able to create a shared framework for success with our clients, ensuring that both sides can focus on the work rather than scrambling to address avoidable obstacles.
2. Venturing Beyond a Transactional Dynamic
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Hellen Keller
At its core, consulting involves a vendor relationship—payment for a service. But what we’ve seen in our work is that the best client-consultant partnerships transcend this transactional dynamic, operating instead on trust, respect, and the spirit of co-creation.
It makes sense. A purely transactional approach can create an unbalanced power dynamic: the client makes requests, and the consultant delivers. While this might work for straightforward, narrowly scoped projects, it often falls short for the kind of ambitious, transformational work most organisations aim to achieve. It certainly falls short of the kind of creative and productive work we engage in with our clients.
So, what does this mean in practice? We’ve found that the difference between a transactional relationship and a genuine partnership often comes down to practical choices about time and attention. The most successful consulting projects treat these as shared resources to be invested carefully.
Here are some practical actions by our clients that make genuine partnership possible:
Building in regular strategic discussions, not just progress updates. The best partnerships create space to explore emerging insights and challenge assumptions, not just track deliverables.
Making decisions together about timing and deadlines. We’ve learned that good work needs time to breathe. A deadline driven by an internal meeting might make sense initially, but can force the consultant to rush critical analysis or skip important steps.
Protecting the thinking time. Project timelines that give consultants space to develop and test ideas properly are crucial. Last-minute requests and compressed timelines rarely lead to good strategic insights.
Through enacting these and other thoughtful measures, we have seen organisations build truly collaborative and deeply rewarding consultant relationships that endure long past the project completion date.
3. Creating Space for Exploration
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” – Charles Darwin
One of the most rewarding aspects of consulting is the opportunity to explore the unknown. In our work with clients, we’ve often uncovered issues that weren’t initially part of the project scope or surfaced challenges the client hadn’t yet identified. We’ve had to revisit our expectations of how the project was supposed to unfold and chart a new path, improvising as we went along.
A strong partnership leaves room for these “aha moments”. We’ve found it important that both parties, client and consultant, are open to feedback and willing to adapt. What does this look like in practice? When unexpected findings emerge in the course of our project delivery, we’ve seen our clients pivot by:
Expanding the scope of work to allow for additional lines of enquiry or other project pivots as necessary.
Reframing project methods and/or outputs to ensure responsiveness to the new insights (e.g., broadening or narrowing stakeholder engagement, reprioritising or resequencing anticipated project phases, etc.).
Planning for follow-up projects that build on what we have learned and give new ideas the resource and capacity needed for proper exploration.
This flexibility requires trust and vulnerability. It asks for comfort in the face of uncertainty, and it demands that organisations take a bit of that proverbial leap into the unknown. In doing so, they help create the conditions for consultants to truly understand the organisation and offer a solution that works for them.
At Firetail, some of our most impactful work has come from projects where the client was willing to go on this journey with us—where exploration was embraced as part of the process and not seen as an obstacle to be avoided.
A Recipe for Success
Based on Firetail’s experience, the best client-consultant partnerships are built on shared purpose, mutual trust, and a commitment to co-creation. By setting clear, thoughtful and practical preconditions for success, venturing boldly beyond transactional dynamics, and leaving room for exploration, organisations we’ve partnered with have unlocked the full potential of our consulting partnerships.
In a world that demands innovation and adaptability, the strength of our relationships with our clients and partners has been the most important factor. As we continue to work alongside inspiring organisations across the social sector, this truth remains at the heart of everything we do.
What has defined your most successful consultant partnerships? What have you learned about your organisation (or yourself) through these types of collaborations? Do you want to tackle an organisational challenge with the help of consultants, but are unsure of how to start?
If you would like to continue the conversation, please get in touch. We would love to hear from you.