Key Impressions And Notes From Taproot Foundation Orientation In Los Angeles
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These notes are off the top of my head and a bit scattered, so accuracy should be taken with a grain of salt.
Overall I was very impressed by the Taproot Foundation orientation in terms of defining service areas and services modules; processes and templates for scope of work finalization, award grants, service delivery; and position definition and resource planning for pro-bono engagements to nonprofits. Although the prersentaion was only 1.5 hours, one clearly got the impression that things were very well-thought out in terms of how one can scale the delivery of high-quality, pro-bono projects across a diverse customer base while using diverse, skilled resources.
I'll have to review the service areas, but they were approximately in the four areas of HR, marketing communications & copy, strategic planning, and donations-related. Two of the service areas are sponsored by American Express and Wells Fargo.
As for consultant positions, account directors cut across all of the service areas, review client needs, award the service grant, work with the client executive, ensure engagement delivery & quality, and select & interview the project team. Beyond the account director, example roles on the project teams include the project manager and specialists (usually 3), such as brand strategist, marketing manager, and copywriter. Account directors need to have at least 15 years of experience. Consultants can only be assigned to one role it seems, e.g., one can either be a project manager or an account director but not both. That was a little surprising to me given my history with somewhat smaller consulting firms (<500 consultants) and having to wear multiple hats, but the Taproot model makes sense given the need to scale.
Another key aspect about staffing seems to be that there are many more pro-bono consultants than suitable projects. Not only are there more account directors than projects but also account directors need to interview at least 3 Taproot consultants per position on a project, so on average 66% of Taproot consultants will be declined per project staffing interview.
Other stats I recall include that only 1 in 5 make it past the initial screening to be a Taproot consultant.
Geographical staffing in Los Angeles (given road traffic) will be quite challenging compared to other cities it seems. Most projects right now are downtown. (Did I mention that traffic stinks and took me 1 hr and 30 minutes to get to the Taproot location?)
I will attend the training for account directors and will likely provide an update on my thoughts then.
Parting annecdotal thought: The program manager mentioned learning some things about people that you wouldn't learn outside of the nonprofit space. One that touched me was that he related how when homeless people beg for money, the thing they want most is to be looked at and acknowledged as people. The money is secondary.
Edit (7/24/09): Follow-up post here http://managementconsulting.posterous.com/additional-notes-on-taproot-foundation-traini
Additional Edit (7/24/09): My indication that "on average 66% of Taproot consultants will be declined per project staffing interview" may be too low. Three interviews per position (there could be 5-10, say) is the minimum and managed by the resource planning internal systems, so it may be safer to say that "on average at least 2/3 of consultants will be declined per project staffing interview."
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