Working with, not on: The role of consulting in community-led development

For the past eight years, Nous has regularly travelled to a remote Aboriginal community in Far North Queensland. Our relationship with the community stretches back much further, spanning more than a decade. Each time we return, we're welcomed warmly. Partly because we're now known and trusted, and partly because we keep showing up. We remain outsiders, of course, but perhaps we've become regular and reliable outsiders.

Over that time, we've worked alongside community leaders and agencies on everything from funding opportunities and strategic priorities to practical questions about implementation and evaluation. We'd like to think our contribution has been valuable. People continue to seek our advice, test ideas with us, and draw us into important conversations. But we have never felt entirely comfortable taking that as proof of value: being welcomed into a community and being useful to a community are not necessarily the same thing.

It's entirely reasonable for leaders to ask what they're getting from professional advisers and whether that benefit warrants the investment required. Community resources are finite. Every dollar spent on external support is a dollar that can't be spent somewhere else. Reflecting on that tension over the years has led us back to a larger question: What role should professional services firms play in community-led development, and what must change for them to genuinely earn their place?

One thing we've observed repeatedly, both in communities and across the not-for-profit sector more broadly, is that organisations rarely lack ideas, commitment, or ambition. More often, they are being asked to do an extraordinary number of things beyond their original, established remit.

Over the years, we've sat through discussions about reporting requirements, funding guidelines, evaluation frameworks, and governance arrangements. Important conversations, certainly. But not the conversations that brought people into community work. Nobody starts a community organisation because they're passionate about procurement processes or investment proposals. But success in those areas can determine whether communities secure the resources needed to pursue their priorities.

That's where we think specialist support can have a role. Not because consultants know communities better than communities know themselves. They don't. Rather, professional advisers can help organisations navigate increasingly complex institutional systems and translate community priorities into forms that governments, funders and partners recognise and support. Done well, the work strengthens community leadership. It doesn't, shouldn’t, and in any case could never, replace it.

One lesson we've gradually learned is that the value of professional support is rarely found in the deliverable itself. Most leaders can recall a report that generated considerable activity during a project and very little afterwards. A degree of scepticism towards external advisers is healthy. For us, the more useful test is whether an engagement helps an organisation achieve something that would otherwise be harder, slower, or less likely to happen.

That might be securing funding, strengthening evidence, navigating a difficult strategic decision or building confidence during a period of change. The report matters far less than what follows it. An evaluation is valuable because it informs better decisions. A business case is valuable because it unlocks resources. A strategy is valuable because it helps align effort around what matters most.

Ultimately, the question is not whether a consultant produced a good piece of work. It is whether the organisation is better placed to pursue its purpose because of it.

Another observation from our work has been the extent of change community organisations must navigate. Leaders move on. Government stakeholders change roles. Funding programs are redesigned. Organisational priorities evolve. None of this is unusual, but it does create a constant risk that hard-won knowledge and relationships are lost.

This is where long-term partnerships can be valuable. Sometimes the most useful thing an adviser can bring is context. It's remembering why a decision was made three years ago, understanding the history behind a partnership, or helping new leaders pick up a conversation without starting from scratch.

That continuity should never become dependence. Good partnerships leave organisations stronger and more capable than before. But we have come to appreciate the role trusted external partners can play in helping communities and organisations maintain momentum when everything around them is changing.

If specialist support can help community organisations move further or faster, access to that support matters. Yet the organisations that could benefit most are often the least able to afford it.

Nous' Community Partnership Scheme (CPS) is one way we have sought to put these principles into practice. It provides subsidised consulting support to community organisations, social enterprises and not-for-profits pursuing positive social, cultural, economic and environmental outcomes. Since the scheme's establishment, we have partnered with more than 120 organisations, helping them strengthen evidence about programs supporting Indigenous students, develop strategies to amplify conservation impact, and create digital tools for communities affected by bushfires. In each case, the organisation brought deep expertise in its mission and community. We contributed specialist capabilities that helped advance it.

We still don't have a neat way of measuring the value we create in the communities where we work. Some of it is visible in funding secured, initiatives implemented or partnerships strengthened. Some of it is harder to quantify. What we have become clearer about, however, is the standard against which professional services should be judged.

Community organisations should not engage consultants because consultants are clever, persuasive or produce polished reports. They should engage them when doing so helps create greater impact for the communities they serve.

For leaders of community organisations, NGOs and not-for-profits, that ultimately becomes a question of stewardship. There will be times when the right answer is to build capability internally. There will be times when existing partners and local expertise are more than sufficient. And there will be times when external support can help an organisation move further or faster than it otherwise could. Seeking that support is not a retreat from community leadership. Sometimes it is one of the ways that leadership is exercised.

Communities should lead their own futures. Our experience has simply convinced us that they deserve access to every capability, resource and partner that can help them do so.

Get in touch to discuss how the right external support can strengthen your organisation’s impact while keeping community leadership at the centre.

Connect with Chris Brown on LinkedIn.