Part Two: What to Expect When You Hire a Fundraising Consultant

Let’s Get Real About What You’re Actually Getting

The best consulting partnerships are true game-changers. When everyone’s clear about goals and roles, you can see remarkable growth — in both fundraising and overall revenue.

A strong partnership with a consultant can accelerate your progress faster than you imagined. It all comes down to clarity: understanding what you’re getting, and how to make the most of it.

When expectations are clear, results follow. Most frustrations with consultants don’t come from bad work — they come from mismatched assumptions.

Some organizations picture a consultant stepping in to “do” the fundraising. But that’s not where the real value lies.

A great consultant is your strategic guide and trusted advisor — someone who helps you find clarity, focus your energy, and stay accountable to what matters most.

When you understand that dynamic, you’ll get far more out of the partnership — and see a much stronger return on your investment.

So what does a great consultant actually do — and how can they help you raise more money, faster? Let’s take a look.

What Fundraising Consultants Actually Do: ??Strategy, Focus and ROI

Consultants are strategists, guides, and thought partners. Above all, they help you see the path ahead to grow fundraising revenue. 

Their core roles include:

• Strategic fundraising planning: Helping you clarify vision and priorities, and build the road map to get there
  
• Expert guidance: Drawing from experience across many nonprofit models helps you skip the trial and error
  
• Capacity building: Teaching your team the skills and systems to sustain success long after the engagement ends
  
• Accountability: Keeping your goals and deadlines in view to progress never stalls
  
• Objective perspective: Bringing fresh, unbiased eyes to recurring challenges
  

At Gail Perry Group, our consultants specialize in major gifts, capital campaigns, and strategic fundraising growth. Every engagement strengthens your team’s confidence, alignment, and long-term revenue capacity.

Now that you know what consultants do, let’s clear up another big question — what they don’t do.

What Consultants Don’t Do

Defining the Consultant’s Role 

Great consulting partnerships work because everyone knows where the consultant adds the most value – and where your own team takes the lead.

A consultant’s job is to strengthen your strategy, sharpen your focus, and equip your people for long-term success. Here’s what that looks like in action:

Solicitations:
Your consultant helps you craft the right strategy, message, and approach – so your staff and board feel confident leading donor conversations. You maintain those key relationships, and the consultant supports you behind the scenes every step of the way.

Board Engagement:
Consultants bring energy, structure, and training to help your board step into its best fundraising role. Real culture change takes leadership commitment, and your consultant helps guide that transformation thoughtfully and strategically.

Day-to-Day Management:
Consultants focus on the big picture – your roadmap, systems, and goals. They’re the architects of your success, helping you design a structure that your team can confidently carry out.

Team Motivation:
Your consultant can inspire and coach, but the real momentum comes from within. When your leaders take ownership, that’s when your investment truly pays off.

When everyone understands their role, you build a stronger, more productive partnership — one that drives lasting fundraising growth and maximizes your return on investment.

So how do you create that kind of high-performing collaboration? Let’s talk about what makes it work.

Building a Strong Consulting Partnership

Collaboration Is the Key to Real Fundraising Growth

The best consulting relationships are grounded in trust and open communication. Both sides share ownership of the process and work toward the same goals.

Your consultant brings experience, tested frameworks, and an outside perspective. You bring a deep understanding of your mission, your donors, and your community. Together, you create the clarity and focus to move your fundraising forward with confidence.

A consultant helps you design the strategy — and then coaches you through the most important part: implementing that strategy into action and making change last.

Partnering with Your Consultant.

When you show up as a true partner, your consultant can do their best work. Start by asking thoughtful questions, stay committed to open and honest communication, and be willing to share information that helps guide decisions.

Aligning on Expectations. 

Before you begin, take time to align on expectations, timelines, and deliverables. When both sides define success clearly, the outcomes are stronger – and your return on investment grows.

Be open to coaching and feedback. 

Treat your consultant as a trusted advisor, not an outsider. When you share real data and honest challenges, your consultant can tailor solutions that fit your team and your culture.

When this kind of collaboration takes hold, you’ll feel the difference. Your team gains confidence, your systems grow stronger, and your fundraising produces steady, sustainable revenue growth.

That’s the power of a true consulting partnership — one that builds capacity, strengthens culture, and delivers results that last.

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Bottom Line: Get the Most from Your Consulting Investment

A consultant’s role is to guide and empower, not to do the work for you.

Clear communication, strong accountability, and shared ownership are what drive meaningful results.

Your organization’s commitment, follow-through, and openness to change will determine your ultimate ROI.

The good news? When you partner with the right consultant, you can expect lasting gains- in fundraising capacity, team alignment, and overall confidence.

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Thinking About Hiring a Fundraising Consultant?

Schedule a conversation with the Gail Perry Group.

We’ll show you how our team partners with nonprofits to strengthen fundraising strategy, inspire leadership, and deliver real results.

Talk with our team about how Gail Perry Group helps organizations build clarity, confidence, and momentum through expert fundraising consulting. Click here to schedule a call.

**This article is part two of our 3 part series called Demystifying Consulting. You can find part one Part One: Do You Really Need a Fundraising Consultant? here.