Consultancy - designed for your organization

ARC has an experience of over 9 years in offering consultancy in community fundraising. Untill now, over 60 organizations (local and national, from varoius fields) have entered in the consultancy process that contributed to:

- the diversificaton of fundraising methods
- the growth of team's training and involving in fundraising
- planning the fundraising process
- growth of amounts raised from the community

The pattern of consultancy approved by ARC is the one in which the consultant and the client are involved in the process of finding the “issue”, and the solutions as well. The purpose of this pattern is to grow the capacity of learning and acting of the client so that in the future he might be able to develop learning processes in the organization and community fundraising actions. 

The processes of consultancy differ as intensity and complexity depending on the objectives aimed:

The process of consultancy has 3 levels:

Operational level – based especially on offering techical assistance on implementing a fundraising method or growing the efficiency of a method already applied by the organization.
Examples:

• 2 day processes for evaluation and preparation for community fundraising event
• 2 day processes for preparation of a direct mailing campaign
• 2 day processes for preparation of wage-doantions campaigns
• 2 day processes for developing on-line communication to sustain the efforts for community fundraising

Planning level – based on building and revision of community fundraising plan.

5 day minimum processes extended over a year that aims to build a realistic plan that should be implemented by organization, starting from the methods already applied, from the financing sources, from the budget and available resources.
The executive director, the fundraiser, persons from the team involved in fundrasing (programme coordinator, PR, etc) attends the meetings

Strategic level - ARC can help you to revise the strategy or to prepare a new strategy that is suitable for your current needs.
It is the most complex level, that takes a general look at the organization. The process of consultancy aims to connect and integrate fundraising with the other departments from organization (financial, communication, human resources, programmes); ensures that you follow the objectives and that you have planned activities that delivers the best return on investment; insists on research in the external enviroment of fundraising.
The consultancy process at strategic level takes approximately 5 days in 2 or 3 meetings at which participate the executive director and members of the board of organization.

What brings ARC in the process:

• The team of consultants – knows the field and it can help you find practical solutions.
• The overview vision – we ask difficult questions and we facilitate the process through which the staff and board figures the strategies of the organization, we propose new ideas or stimulate yours. Consultants work in team, give time to know you, the organization and the context in which you work and comes with long-term solutions
• Abilities and experience – the team of consultants looks at the current plans, takes you through a process of strategic planning, facilitates a process of change.
• We facilitate the implementation – we belive that is necessary that the strategy to blend with the daily operations and integrated in the working mode with your clients. The plans are very often left behind. We can make you take the step from a dynamic strategy to implementation.

How do we work?

Our consultants work especailly with the board members, executive directors and with the fundraising coordinator, but in the proces it may be involved other members of the staff with responsabilities in fundraising or developing the organization.
Each consultancy programme is different, but includes:

• The initial meeting to establish the goal and the wished results. The session include main beneficiaries of the process. Information are gathered by feedback, interviews and reports.
• The feedback meeting with the main beneficiary pf the process, discussing the feedback and setting weaknesess and strenghts
• Developing an action plan on fixed objectives
• The consultancy may have various forms. Besides face-to-face meetings, the communication take place through email and telephone.
• Evaluation in the process of consultancy to see the progress
• Finishing the process – establihsing the improvement with the consultant and structuring an action plan to ensure the development, with the support of the consultant

The consultancy is successful only if the organization have the necessary determination, energy and motivation to change or improve the practice. Because of this, the most important thing for us is to choose the partners that have these qualities and want to invest in the process.

The programme of consultancy generally takes a moderate fee. We know that not all the organizations we want to colaborate with afford this consultancy fee, it is always adjusted to the power to pay the organization.

For more information about the consultancy programme and how can it be helpful to your organization please contact Roxana Sofica.