My nonprofit needs expert help from time to time. How do I learn which consultants serving the nonprofit sector are ethical?

An excellent question! Because consultants serving the nonprofit sector usually earn less than they could earn serving the for-profit sector, and are heavily involved in the sector, many people assume they are more ethical than the average consultant.

Unfortunately, there are people in the field who take on work they are not at all qualified to do – maybe they think quality does not matter to nonprofits. Some seek compensation arrangements that are not ethical and sometimes not even legal. Many provide lower quality service to their pro bono or discounted clients than to those that pay full fees; all clients should get the same high quality and professionalism.

How do I know they take on work they are not qualified to do? Because some of them are indiscreet enough to post on public discussion forums, bragging that they got the contract despite having never done that type of work, and seeking free advice, tools and tips from experienced consultants. They should have turned down the work and tried to give some good referrals. It would also be fine to ask a more qualified consultant if they could help with the work and learn for the future. If you are hiring a consultant, lurk on forums such as the Consultants forum at CharityChannel.com, or the Google/Usenet group soc.nonprofit.org. Or ask a question about your project on the appropriate CharityChannel forum (not the Consultants one) and see who gives good answers. Even if you cannot hire that person, it will help you ask the right questions of your local consultants and rate their answers.

In my opinion, part of being an ethical consultant is to belong to at least one relevant professional association where you learn from peers, share knowledge with your peers, and keep up to date on trends, educational opportunities and new resources. Ask your prospective consultant what organizations they belong to, and how they have contributed to their organizations. Good consultant members get asked to write articles, give workshops, speak at events and join committees.

Even better, more and more professional organizations have ethical standards or a codes of ethics or conduct to which all members must subscribe. Check for codes or standards relevant to the type of help you need, and compare their standards to what you see from the prospective consultants. Most such codes work on an honour system; more established ones may also have complaint and discipline processes. As someone who gives ethics advice to Canadian organizations, I belong to the Ethics Practitioners Association of Canada, which requires every member to complete annual sign-off on its code. Probably the most common code followed by consultants to nonprofits is one developed by the Association for Fundraising Professionals, and that body does discipline and even expel members for violations.

Other types of consultants to nonprofits do not have such a universal code to follow. Many follow ones specific to their field but without a focus on nonprofits. For several years now, the Alliance for Nonprofit Management, based in Washington, DC but with international members, has been developing an ethics code for all types of consultants to nonprofits. It is now being beta tested by over 40 consultants, and training will likely begin in 2008. The standards will help consultants know what behaviour is perceived as ethical by experienced peers with some background in ethics, and we hope the ethical standards will result in better consulting services to nonprofits, leading to better services in their communities. I was on the panel for the workshop on the draft standards in Atlanta in July. There was strong interest from organizations that broker consultant work to nonprofits, or manage a consultant pool, in using the standards to train their consultants and to educate their client organizations in what ethical standards to expect. The draft standards are available online only to members so far, but I hope that will change soon.

Another factor in getting ethical consulting help is to treat your consultants ethically, but that is a subject for another column I guess. A quick note for now – putting out Requests for Proposals (RFPs) when you are not definitely planning to hire a consultant, or have less than $10,000 for consulting fees, is not ethical. Far too often, nonprofits use RFPs to get ideas for how to do the work themselves, or to give what is essentially proprietary information on proposed methods and approaches to the person they already planned to hire. Or they just need one-page quotes, but instead ask for more than $2,000 worth of work for a chance at a $4,000 project. Consultants are people too. If you fail to treat us ethically, you are not following the Golden Rule (which has an equivalent in every major religion). Your unethical behaviour might tempt some consultants, especially less experienced ones, to respond in kind.

Do not be afraid to reject or terminate consultants who exhibit unethical behaviour. Ask them to explain, in case you have misunderstood. If the explanation is shady, you can find better help! Referrals and reference checking will help you avoid wasting time with the less ethical consultants. And while long service does not always equate to ethics, people committed to consulting may care more about their reputation as consultants than those who are using the term briefly (they hope) while job-hunting.

Since 1992, Jane Garthson has dedicated her consulting and training business to creating better futures for our communities and organizations through values-based leadership. She is a respected international voice on governance, strategic thinking and ethics. Jane can be reached at jane@garthsonleadership.ca.

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