Consultants Give from the Heart on Valentine's Day
by Anonymous
Consultant David Newman knew he wanted to give back. And he had a lot of friends. So to celebrate Valentine's Day, he co-founded Consultants for Love Day as a day for consultants, trainers, coaches, and other business experts from across the Delaware Valley – and the country – to donate time and expertise to their favorite non-profit organization.
The first annual Consultants for Love Day (which is slated for the Friday closest to Valentine's Day) will be Friday, February 13, 2004. Newman conceived the idea to make high-level consulting, training, and business resources available to the leadership and teams that run non-profit organizations. In the spirit of generative giving (not to mention speed-dating), Consultants for Love helps organizations attract the consulting resources they need to overcome their immediate challenges and get unstuck – and that might take a variety of forms such as a 1-hour coaching session with an executive director, or a half-day workshop, or a full day of onsite technology help.
Newman says, "Often, non-profit organizations cannot afford the type of consulting services that they need the most. Yet their work is vitally important to so many. Consultants for Love Day is really a day to serve those who serve. It's a celebration of the art of consulting married to the purpose of creating a better now."
Consultants for Love has no staff and operates with no budget. Newman jokes, "That's just so we can really relate to our target market." As a grass-roots effort, there is no centralized clearing-house or connection mechanism between consultants and non-profits. Consultants from as far away as San Francisco and Detroit made a few phone calls to their favorite local organizations and arranged their own Consultants for Love project to happen on (or near) the actual day. Once completed, Newman's team will post the donor's name, the name of the non-profit organization, and a paragraph about their work together on the "Love Stories" page of the website (http://www.consultantsforlove.org).
Newman hopes that for many consultants who donate a 1-time workshop or mini-consulting assignment, the intrinsic rewards of "serving those who serve" might encourage the beginning of a semi-regular relationship or even an ongoing series of projects. Newman tells consultants, "the scope, size, nature, and duration of what you'd like to get involved in (and with which organization) is totally up to you."
In addition to being a cheerleader for the cause, Newman walks the walk. As a marketing and innovation consultant, he has done pro-bono work for a variety of Philadelphia-area organizations such as Career Wardrobe, Transitional Work Corporation, Inroads Philadelphia, and MCC Warwick House.
What better day than Valentine's Day to start thinking about work as a labor of love?
Contact: David Newman
(610) 527-5325
david@360phila.com
This article courtesy of http://www.valentinecentral.com.
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