Consultant, Advisory Services (TF)

Taproot Foundation; New York (NY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

Taproot Foundation in New York City seeks a Taproot Consultant to advise on pro bono strategy and capacity building, managing client relationships and delivering high-impact projects.

You will lead engagements across strategy advisement, program delivery, and field building, partnering with corporate clients, foundations, nonprofits, and skilled volunteers. Travel approx 10–15% and immediate start; compensation commensurate with experience.

Qualifications

• You are passionate about client services, field building, and nonprofit capacity building.
• You can design, develop, and implement highly strategic programs and communicate their value to diverse stakeholders.
• You are a strong project manager, relationship builder, and detail-oriented across many moving parts.

Responsibilities

• Service Delivery: Manage a portfolio of 6–9 engagements ensuring on-time, in-scope, high-quality delivery.
• Lead internal project teams to support engagements, coaching teammates on performance.

Skills

Client services

Field building

Capacity building

Strategic thinking

Project management

Relationship management

Entrepreneurial mindset

Job description

As trusted advisors and expert pro bono practitioners, Taproot’s Advisory Services team enables and delivers the highest quality pro bono service to social good organizations, and in doing sosetsthestandard of excellence for the field by demonstrating, innovatingonand sharing pro bono best practices.

The Advisory Services team provides:

• Pro Bono Strategy & Advisement: We design and develop pro bono programs that maximize the impact potential of our clients, including companies, foundationsand other institutions.
• Pro Bono Program Delivery: We implement pro bono programs that connect social good organizations and skilled volunteers by leveraging our extensive pro bono expertise
• Pro Bono Field Building: We develop tools and resources that enable pro bono users and practitioners to provide high quality pro bono services and share them with the field through convenings or thought leadership

THE CONSULTANT ROLE

As a Taproot Consultant, you are a pro bono subject matter expert who is equally adept at advising companies and other clients about their pro bono strategies as you are at advising nonprofits about their capacity-building needs. As an experienced relationship manager, a structured thinker, and a perpetual innovator, you take a consultative approach to your work, always finding creative ways to meet your clients’ needs while maximizing the impact of the pro bono services you are helping to facilitate.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Service Delivery

• You manage a portfolio of 6-9 engagements, ensuring that work is completed on time, in scope, and at the highest level of quality. Your portfolio includes strategy and advisement work, program implementation, and field building projects, and could include engaging a range of stakeholders, including corporate clients, foundation funders, or strategic partners in addition to social change organizations and volunteers.
• You lead internal project teams to support your portfolio of engagements, as needed, helping to ensure teammates are effectively utilized and coached on their performance.

Field Building

• You lead the development of resources that help build the field of pro bono. Resources could include tools, presentations, or original research that equip pro bono practitioners and users with best practices and insights. Resource development requires partnering with Partnerships and Marketing & Communications and may include co-developing content with third party organizations and partners.
• You attend, present at, and/or host community engagement events that build and educate key networks in our four cities, including corporate pro bono practitioners, social good organizations, and skilled volunteers.

Practice Management and Strategy

• You help guide and inform the strategic direction of Taproot’s Advisory Services team by participating in strategic planning and implementation and contributing to the performance measurement and management of the Advisory Services team. This includes tracking and evaluating trends in our performance data and helping to make decisions and initiate new projects that improve our team infrastructure and approach.
• You contribute to the extensive pro bono knowledge base that Taproot has built by sharing key learnings, best practices, and innovations with the rest of the Taproot team. This could include collaborating with other Taproot teams and departments to develop or execute on a shared strategy or initiative.
• You support business development for the Advisory Services team, as needed, helping to cultivate and manage key client and funder relationships. This includes serving as the lead relationship manager for key stakeholders, helping to develop strategies to build and develop partnerships, drafting proposals and scopes of work, and contributing to new business pitches to clients or funders.

REQUIREMENTS

Experience and Competencies

• You are passionate about – and have demonstrated experience in – client services, field building, and nonprofit capacity building. You understand the impact pro bono service can have in making positive social change, and you thrive in a fast-paced work environment that demands a high-standard of excellence.
• You are a strategic builder and communicator. You’ve worked with corporate and/or nonprofit leaders on a day-to-day basis. You can design, develop, and implement highly strategic programs. You understand and can persuasively communicate the value that pro bono can offer to our various stakeholders. You are a dynamic presenter and facilitator with a strong presence.
• You are fanatical at project management, relationships, and the details. There are lots of moving parts to this work, and the team has to work effectively across a diverse set of stakeholders – from corporate executives, to nonprofit leaders and skilled volunteers, to internal stakeholders at Taproot. You know how to deliver excellent services effortlessly to all of these different groups.
• You are always looking for the next challenge, are charged up by an entrepreneurial opportunity, and take ambiguity in stride. You don’t get fazed by emails from stakeholders to ask for help at the last minute, or doing something out of the ordinary to make a partner happy. In fact, you’re all for it. You may have worked in a startup or small firm.
• You are naturally curious, creative, and want to build something. You love ideas, talking to people and building a deep understanding of their area of expertise – from HR professionals to data scientists, you want to understand the work they do. You’re excited by the challenge of figuring out how you can build programs that are maximized for impact.
• You have an exceptional track record of successful client and relationship management in a service industry. You have 5+ years of professional experience of which at least 2 years of experience are in a relevant consulting or professional services function.

This full-time exempt position will require moderate travel required (~10-15%). The start for this role is immediate. Compensation and benefits are competitive for the sector and commensurate with experience.