Chat Topic 10/20: Pricing for Community Benefit Consultants
If you think the topic of pricing is sticky for consultants in general, try being a consultant to Community Benefit Organizations!
In the business world, clients might ask you to reduce your fee, but would they even consider asking you to do the work for free? And yet Community Benefit Consultants face that situation all the time!
“Nonprofit” / Community Benefit Consultants also face questions like these: Which is more effective – hourly or project fees or “value-based” pricing? Are client expectations realistic? How much do we do at a discount or pro bono vs. getting paid for the value we provide?
This month’s chat will focus on the various aspects of pricing specifically as it relates to the work of consultants to Community Benefit Organizations.
- What is the thinking behind your pricing strategy?
- How do you explain your pricing approach to clients?
- Have you changed strategies? If so, why?
- If you have changed your pricing strategy, how did you explain that to clients? How did they respond? What was effective in moving clients to your new way or pricing?
- Has the economy affected your pricing strategy? What has changed?
- Is there a pricing strategy you would like to be using but are not using now? What is stopping you from using it? What would need to be in place for you to adopt that strategy?
In preparing for this chat, the following links are informative, creative, and will hopefully get your juices flowing.
A proactive Pro Bono policy: Will Carol Work for Free?
For those who have trouble saying No: The Best Denial Letter of All Time
We look forward to an energizing discussion on Tuesday, October 20th at 1pm US Pacific time!
P.S. There is one last thing – a request we hope everyone will respect: Please DO NOT DISCUSS specific rates (such as, “I charge $100 for X – what do you charge?” ) In the US, such discussion could be construed as an attempt at price-fixing. Some may argue that such discussion would not cross that line, however, we have had attorney after attorney over the years strongly discourage such online discussion.
Bottom line, the specific rates are not nearly as important as the reasoning behind those rates, which will be the most meaningful aspects of this chat.
Many many thanks to Debra Askanase for suggesting this topic and for drafting the sample questions above. We look forward to having @AskDebra sharing her wisdom during this chat!
Thanks also to @RuthAnnHarnisch for the link to the Denial letter!
This post has 2 comments
October 22nd, 2009
Hildy,
The small community of non-profit lawyers who rep npos exclusively face many of these same issues.
Regarding pro-bono requests,if all your clients are deserving NPOs, how do you think your paying NPO client would feel about you doing another similarly situated npo’s work for free?
We once had a great paying client discover that we donated substantial probono services to a similarly situated npo and they let us know exactly how they felt about it. Not pretty. We now have a strict office policy that sets budgetary and other guidelines.
Mostly, we do work for small groups with no realistic legal budget where we think the community impact will be high. For example, I set up Protecting Arizona’s Family Coalition and Pafco Advocacy, a related (c)(3) and (c)(4). The (c)(3) teaches NPOs how to participate in the political system. The (c)(4) actively lobbies on behalf of health and human services at the AZ legislature.
That, to me, was the ideal pro-bono project.
First, it was unsexy enough to be unlikely to attract funding to afford the sophisticated legal advice they needed. Second, the project united disparate social services agencies around common interests, blocking billions in proposed budget cuts.
That is what I look for. No realistic budget and a way to leverage my work for the greatest overall community impact.
October 24th, 2009
I find it easy to respond to the pro-bono question and graciously say no. I justify this by telling the client that for the last three years I have been the interim Executive Director for a nonprofit who helps children living in poverty who were born with sickle cell disease. End of discussion.