To scale a nonprofit consulting business without burning out, first decide what kind of business you want to build. Then choose how you'll serve people: by doing it for them, doing it with them, or teaching them to do it themselves. Each choice changes what you can charge and how many buyers you need. Here's how to choose, what to watch out for, and what I learned when I tried to scale with a course.
Decide what kind of business you want to build
When you're fully booked, the obvious move is to take on more clients, but your hours run out fast, and that's how burnout starts. Some consultants want to build a firm, with a team of employees or contractors delivering services to clients. Fractional fundraising and bookkeeping agencies for nonprofits are good examples. Others want a lifestyle business, built around the income and life they want instead of growth for its own sake. A lifestyle business can be one-on-one consulting, group programs, digital products, or a mix. Both are good goals, and they take very different paths. Scaling can sound exciting, so get clear on what you want before you add anything to your plate. For the five parts every consulting business needs, read the 5-step framework to build a nonprofit consulting business.
Choose how you'll serve your clients
The less of your time an offer includes, the less people pay for it, and the more buyers you need.
Do it for them. Consulting projects, retainers, and fractional roles. You can charge the most, because you're delivering the results yourself. To grow beyond your own hours, you add people, which means hiring, managing, and selling more projects. Be honest about whether that's how you want to spend your days.
Do it with them. Group programs and communities, like a cohort that trains executive directors or workshops that help small organizations set up fundraising best practices. Each person pays less because they share your time, so you need more of them.
Teach them to do it themselves. Courses and guides people use on their own. They take the least of your time once they're built, but they have the lowest prices, so you need the most buyers.
Whatever you choose, price it so the number of buyers you can realistically reach adds up to the income you want. For help setting prices, read how to price nonprofit consulting services.
Be careful with the passive income promise
Online, you'll see people claiming seven or eight figures from working two days a week, with leads and sales coming in while they sleep from low-priced online courses. In my experience, that advice doesn't fit most nonprofit consultants.
Your market is smaller. A $27 course on getting your first Instagram followers can sell to millions of people. A program for nonprofit communications directors sells to a much smaller group. Low prices only make sense when you can sell a lot.
Low prices attract different buyers. In my experience, people who are willing to invest more tend to be more committed and easier to serve. People looking for the cheapest option often expect the most help.
Passive income still takes effort. Selling a course takes steady traffic, a funnel that turns visitors into buyers, and a strong offer, and you need many buyers to replace consulting income.
What happened when I tried to scale with a course
Once I was fully booked with consulting clients, I knew I didn't want to build an agency. So I looked for something I could sell to many people without adding delivery time, and I launched a self-paced course called DonorFlow Academy for $497. It taught nonprofits how to build their first individual giving program. I was tired of seeing organizations treat grants as the answer to all their fundraising problems. Grants are competitive, and nonprofits need more than one source of funding.
I sold a few, all to past clients. Each sale brought in about $500 once, while my consulting retainers brought in thousands of dollars every month. To replace that income, I would have needed to sell far more courses, and that takes an audience I didn't have yet. The lesson I took: make sure there are enough buyers, and that the math makes sense, before you build.
About the author
Catalina "Cat" Parker is the founder of Relatable Nonprofit. She has a master's in nonprofit management from Columbia, her business has generated nearly $1 million in revenue, and 100+ nonprofit professionals have joined her Mentorship program. Read her story.
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