Books / Build and Grow Your Nonprofit Consultant Firm
Build and Grow Your Nonprofit Consultant Firm
by Steve Kennedy
From "I could help them" to a firm with clients, rates, contracts and a calendar.
You have spent years inside nonprofits: running development, chairing a board, keeping the books, managing programs. Organizations around you keep asking for help, and you could give it. This book turns that experience into a firm. Over twelve chapters you choose one lane, set up the business in a week, check which services need a license in your state before you sell them, price the work so it pays, find your first three clients among people who already trust you, write a proposal that gets signed, deliver it so the client keeps the result, and plan your first ninety days. One invented consultant, Dana Ferrabee of Dayton, Ohio, goes through every step with real-feeling numbers, and every chapter ends with a worksheet, so by the last page you have a plan of your own rather than an idea.
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Twelve chapters, twelve worksheets
Build · Chapters 1 to 7
- Chapter 1Why nonprofits hire consultants, and why now
- Chapter 2Choose your lane
- Chapter 3Set up the firm
- Chapter 4What needs a license, and what does not
- Chapter 5Price it
- Chapter 6Your first three clients
- Chapter 7Discovery to proposal
Deliver · Chapters 8 and 9
- Chapter 8Deliver the engagement
- Chapter 9Run the firm on one platform
Grow · Chapters 10 to 12
- Chapter 10Grow
- Chapter 11Ethics, confidentiality and data
- Chapter 12The first ninety days
Back of the book
- WorksheetsAll twelve, collected
- GlossaryThe terms, in plain words
- AppendixThe state gate table: fundraising counsel rules in every state and the District of Columbia
A sample: how Chapter 1 begins
Chapter 1: Why nonprofits hire consultants, and why now. The point.
Nonprofits buy help for four reasons, and only four.
They buy a skill they do not have. The treasurer can balance a checkbook but has never reconciled a restricted grant. Nobody on staff has written a foundation proposal. The bylaws were copied from another organization in 2011 and nobody has read them since.
They buy a season they cannot staff. A capital campaign. The first audit. The executive director's maternity leave. A merger. The year the founder retires. The work is real and it ends, and hiring an employee for it would be absurd.
What comes with the book
- Twelve worksheets, one per chapter, collected at the back: your lane, your rate card, your first thirty names, your proposal and your ninety-day calendar.
- A one-page proposal model with seven headings, and the engagement letter it leads to.
- The license gates in plain words: fundraising counsel registration, tax preparation, attest work, legal documents and background checks.
- The state gate table: whether fundraising counsel registers, the fee, the bond and the contract filing rule in every state and the District of Columbia, each read from the state's own pages on November 7, 2026.
- General information, not legal, tax or accounting advice. Confirm every rule with the agency that sets it.
What readers say
Free for signed Consultant Partners
Consultants who join the All In One Nonprofit Consultant Partner Program get this book free. See the program at https://www.allinonenonprofit.com/partners/.
About the author
Steve Kennedy is the founder of All In One Nonprofit. He has served volunteer-run organizations for decades, as a director, as president and as the person everyone called when the tools were too technical. More about Steve
More books
The First 90 Days series, Tips for the Day and the free Giving Tuesday guide: https://www.allinonenonprofit.com/books/
Consulting for businesses too? The small business edition follows the same method for consultants who serve small businesses: https://www.allinoneforprofit.com/books/build-and-grow-small-business-consulting-firm/