Consultancy in the non-profit sector is rewarding and offers flexibility and opportunities not found in a ‘normal’ job. But it’s also an unpredictable, stressful, and exhausting way to work. How many clients have expected you to be a magician who never sleeps?! As a consultant, do you feel sufficiently supported? If not, it’s time to consider engaging a consultant supervisor.
What is supervision?
Supervision in this context is not about overseeing or managing the quality or quantity of your day-to-day work. Many people who advise and support others are required or encouraged to receive regular supervision. This includes therapists, counsellors, coaches, etc.
The supervision process for these roles has an accountability and safeguarding purpose. But the supervision is more than just a regulations and standards process.
Supervision provides a confidential and safe space for a practitioner to think critically, reflect on their work, identify ongoing learning needs, discuss ethical dilemmas, and consider their own wellbeing and coping strategies.
Freelance consultants need all of this too!
The life of a consultant
As a consultant in the non-profit sector you probably:
- work alone a lot of the time without much moral or practical support;
- make decisions, often under pressure;
- face ethical dilemmas;
- have to be an IT, admin, budgets and communications expert on top of your subject specialism;
- work long hours to meet over-ambitious deadlines;
- mediate disputes, such as between the client organisation and other stakeholders or partners;
- wade through a swamp of bureaucracy, and that’s before you’ve even signed the contract!
How can supervision help you?
Supervision can’t do your consultancy work for you, but it can:
- help you to feel heard in a hectic, noisy environment where consultants are expected to quietly ‘get on with it’;
- support you to prioritise your own wellbeing and self-care despite the pressures of the consultancy assignment;
- give you a safe space to talk confidentially about practical, logistical or ethical issues you may not (yet) be able to raise with clients and stakeholders;
- offer you a sounding board or critical friend for ideas or decisions that you are formulating and are not yet ready to share with your clients;
- help you think through continuous professional development needs and options.
Am I the right consultant supervisor for you?
Supervision should give you a safe space to talk about your consultancy challenges, opportunities and dreams, so you need to choose and feel comfortable with your supervisor.
Here are some of the reasons why I might be the right supervisor for you:
Lived experience as a consultant
I have been a consultant in the education and international development sectors for 24 years. I have experienced the isolation, frustration and damage consultancy work can do to consultants, alongside the excitement and satisfaction we can get from assignments. And I have learned a huge amount about managing consultancy workloads, dealing with the pressures, upwardly managing my clients, and how to fit in my own wellbeing needs.
Experienced consultant mentor and supervisor
I have managed EENET’s teams of consultants for 15 years. I routinely mentor up-and-coming consultants and advise established consultants facing ethical, logistical or wellbeing challenges in their work.
Life-coaching experience
Six years ago I became a qualified Equine Facilitated Learning practitioner (life coaching with horses), and in early 2025 I expanded my practice (WiseHooves) to include nature-led coaching in a 20-acre woodland (WiseWoods). Bringing the natural world into coaching and supervision, whenever this is practically possible, adds calm and focus to our reflections and discussions.
What sectors do I cover?
As a supervisor my role is not to help you directly with subject-specific technical challenges. So although my own consultancy experience is in education and international development, I can supervise consultants from across the non-profit sector.
Can you afford supervision?
I firmly believe that all non-profit sector consultants should have access to independent supervision. This is both for their own wellbeing and professional development and to support sector-wide commitments to innovation and quality. I also know that consultancy income can be unpredictable and fees vary geographically and across different areas of work.
That’s why I offer consultancy supervision on a ‘pay what you can afford’ basis.
To make the service viable for me to offer, I have a suggested sliding scale which equates to 10% of your typical daily fee.
For example:
- If you regularly charge clients £500 GBP per day, the suggested supervision fee is £50 for an hour.
- If your standard daily fee is £250 GBP, supervision would cost £25 per hour.
My minimum fee is £15 GBP per hour.
However, I work with consultants globally and know that £15 GBP may still be unaffordable for some. I have therefore created a ‘pay-it-forward’ system. When a higher-earning consultant pays above £40 for a supervision session, the amount over £40 is transferred to a ‘top-up’ pot to support sessions for consultants who cannot afford the minimum supervision fee.
This is all done on an honesty-based system. You decide the level of fee you can afford, and I won’t ask you for proof of income. However, I do need to earn a living, so the number of sessions I can offer at the lowest rate is capped at a maximum of two per week.
How much supervision should you have?
That is entirely your choice – there is no fixed programme. You might choose to have monthly or even bi-weekly sessions during a challenging project. Or you might want ad hoc support each time you start a new assignment or just whenever a problem arises. Sometimes you might have no work and want to talk through where you go next.
What about confidentiality?
As consultants we sign contracts with our clients which usually have confidentiality clauses. For instance, we are not allowed to share data and outputs, unless the client gives permission.
My consultancy supervision process, like all my coaching services, is totally confidential, as it would be if you were visiting a therapist or medical practitioner. It’s a private wellbeing and personal development-focused conversation between the two of us. I take limited notes, just to help me recall important points from one session to the next. My system ensures no identifiable information is recorded about your clients or projects.
To ensure that my own coaching and supervisory work continues to meet high standards, I have regular supervision too. This process enables me to critically reflect on my work and how to improve, but no identifiable information about my clients is shared with my supervisor.
On what days and times can you book supervision sessions?
I am used to working with consultants and clients around the world, so accommodating different time zones is not a problem. My earliest session slot is usually 6am UK time, and the latest is usually 7pm. I try not to schedule a whole week of 6am sessions though! I can offer sessions any day of the week, although Saturdays and Sundays are quite often filled with equine and nature-led coaching sessions.
Can you have face-to-face supervision?
Supervision is usually done via Zoom or Teams. However, if you live in the Manchester (UK) area, I can offer walk-and-talk supervision sessions at WiseWoods. I currently do not have the facilities to offer indoor, office-based face-to-face supervision, and I am not able to travel to your home or office for the session.
What next – how do we get started?
If you think you might want to arrange some consultancy supervision, or are interested to discuss how it could help you in your work, send me an email or WhatsApp message. We can arrange an initial free 15-minute chat and go from there.