Can We All Become Nonprofit Consultants?

Consultants comprise an ever-growing share of nonprofit work. Why and what are the long-term implications of a growing share of consultants in the nonprofit sector? And if it’s a steady growing number, why couldn’t we all just become consultants?

Although that last question may sound tongue-in-cheek, it’s a real inquiry. First, though, we should discuss why it’s happening.

When the Work Stopped Working

One reason there are so many nonprofit consultants now is the sector’s failure to meet modern, post-COVID-19 workplace standards. For decades, nonprofit employers have not kept up with employees’ expectations, creating what I call a “crisis of incongruence,” where the sector’s stated values—equity, community, and meaningful work—clash with the reality of its practices. The consequences of this incongruence include ethical compromises, burnout, high staff turnover, and a disconnection from the very missions that once drew us in.

One reason there are so many nonprofit consultants now is the sector’s failure to meet modern, post-COVID-19 workplace standards.

The pandemic didn’t just change how we work but what we are willing to consider acceptable. For nonprofit practitioners, it triggered a departure from traditional in-house roles to freelance, consulting, and fractional work. This wave was made stronger by tailwinds from the global Great Resignation, a moment when mid-career employees (those typically considered anchors of stability) walked away in unprecedented numbers. These weren’t the predictable exits of early-career restlessness or late-stage retirement. These departures were fueled by a growing disillusionment with a lack of job satisfaction, overwork, and inadequate compensation.

The sector’s workforce is now voting with their feet. A 2023 survey by Prosal revealed that nearly one-third of nonprofit consultants had been in their roles for less than two years, confirming a recent shift from in-house to external employment.

Additionally, the Social Impact Staff Retention survey, which I co-led with Evan Wildstein, found that 74 percent of respondents were considering a new role in 2023, a figure that remained steady at 72 percent in 2024. The leading factor encouraging retention? Flexible working conditions.

The message of this trend is clear: People want freedom to work differently, to focus on their strengths instead of drowning in bureaucracy or misaligned priorities—and this was particularly pronounced for people of color.

The 2023 report Thrive As They Lead, published by the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, highlights that nearly 90 percent of Black women nonprofit leaders experienced burnout. Beyond burnout, systemic inequities like less access to advancement and higher scrutiny push many to leave traditional roles for the sustainability of consulting. In the report, one respondent vividly recalled routine questioning of her leadership in the workplace:

I think that while we come to the table, and we’re qualified for the job, we’re often second-guessed. It’s always, ‘Does she really know what she’s doing?’ When I was younger, this used to damage my confidence. However, as I have gotten older and more established, I was strong enough to say, “Either you trust that I know what I’m doing or you don’t.”

While consulting may promise autonomy, better pay, or project control, for many, it is less a leap of ambition and more an act of self-preservation.

Denise, a grant writer interviewed for this article, described her move to consulting as a lifeline: “Consulting offered a way to continue my work without the unyielding demands of an organizational setting.”

For her, in-house work had become unbearable. “The feeling was overwhelming,” she explained, pointing to the relentless pressure of knowing her fundraising efforts determined whether her colleagues earned reasonable wages. That pressure, she said, cast a “dark cloud that hung over my head every day.”

Her shift wasn’t a professional upgrade. It was survival.

What We Gain and What We Lose

Consultants can bring fresh perspectives, objectivity, and entrepreneurial energy. As Vu Le so aptly named it, there is a real outsider efficacy bias—or a tendency for organizations to value external voices over internal ones, even when the same ideas have been proposed internally. This bias can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it allows consultants to drive change and innovation that might otherwise be stalled by internal resistance or inertia. On the other hand, it can undermine the expertise and insights of in-house staff, perpetuating a cycle where internal voices are overlooked without outside validation.

Consultants can also bring specialized skills lacking internally. For instance, niche roles that are not core work activities, like SEO optimization, leadership coaching, and capital campaign management, can benefit greatly from an external touch. Additionally, fractional leadership roles, such as interim CFOs, can provide a level of expertise without the full financial commitment. In a sector facing real budget constraints, this can be a lifesaver.

But there are tradeoffs.

Over time, consulting can create distance. Internal trust, mentorship, and long-term relationship building—all essential elements of nonprofit culture—start to fray. This coalesces into another challenge: the shakeup of traditional career pathways.

As many positions go unfilled due to high turnover, nonprofits face a diminished pipeline of future leaders. Junior staff, in particular, lose access to mentorship and skill-building opportunities that come from working closely with experienced in-house leaders. This further weakens the sector’s inadequate leadership pipeline. While consultants can fill short-term knowledge gaps, they cannot replace the depth of experience gained within an organization over time. Eventually, this cycle will become unsustainable.

What is more concerning is the long-term trajectory it sets in motion. If this trend continues—if more people exit in-house roles for short-term gigs, project-based work, or consulting contracts—what kind of workforce will remain? Who will hold and evolve organizational memory? And what happens when short-term survival becomes a substitute for long-term vision?

This Is a Signal, But Not a Solution

At the start, I asked if we could all become nonprofit consultants. But allow me to pose another question: Why do so many desire to become consultants in the first place?

The rise of consultants is often interpreted as a reaction to burnout and rigidity. But if you look closer, it resembles something more like the immune system of the sector responding to systemic harm. Consulting is like an inhaler. It helps manage symptoms but does not cure the chronic inflammation or sensitivity beneath the surface.

Consulting doesn’t fix what’s broken. It merely makes it more bearable.

The consultant boom isn’t a market correction. It’s more of a labor revolt. Workers are refusing to be the human infrastructure for a system that asks them to solve societal shortcomings without the necessary support to do the work. However, individual exit strategies, no matter how personally liberating, leave the fundamental power structures intact.

The current systems are not just outdated—they actively drive people away. And yet, there is hope: people are refusing to accept that this is just “how things are.”

Rethinking What Meaningful Work Is

So, what does a path forward look like? It starts with recognizing that the people making these transitions aren’t just individual actors. They’re early adopters experimenting with flexibility, boundary-setting, and values-alignment. Their insights are prototypes for what all nonprofit work could become.

The consultant boom isn’t a market correction. It’s more of a labor revolt.

This prompts a collective push from both in-house teams and external consultants to challenge the root causes of poor organizational health. We need to interrogate the “sacred cows” and design work that aligns with how people actually live, not just how we wish they would—or how traditional workplace hierarchies demand they should. Here are a few places we might begin:

• Lead with abundance and check in on your people

Shifting from scarcity to abundance starts with recognizing the talent and resources already within your reach. How can staff’s roles be revised to fill in the gaps? But also ask, who gets to define what the gaps are? To better understand your colleagues, here are starter questions to help guide these discussions.

• Inventory core skills

Talent development is a key part of organizational strategy. Regularly assess the skills within your team and identify where external support is truly essential. Instead of defaulting to consultants, invest in internal training and capacity-building that foster long-term resilience.

• Offer part-time roles

Much of the popularity of consulting lies in its flexibility. Test an offer of more part-time roles. For those who have side hustles or are taking care of elderly parents, this arrangement allows them to tend to life while staying on staff.

• Test new leadership structures

Traditional hierarchies are often a bottleneck for employee growth and innovation. Collaborative models, co-directorships, or distributed leadership structures could unlock new ways of working and serve as experiments in what shared power could look like. The question isn’t just “how do we energize teams?” but “how do we create structures that prefigure the more just world we’re trying to build?”

Turning Workforce Crisis into Opportunity

Solutions cannot be imposed from outside. They emerge from within systems willing to listen to the signals. And the rise of consultants contains a clue; it tells us that people are not just seeking more flexible work. They want to work in places that feel breathable, safe, and alive with meaning and purpose.

The question, then, isn’t whether we can all become consultants. It’s whether we can build a nonprofit sector where consulting becomes a choice rather than an escape.