Does the consultancy model need an overhaul? These agencies think so

As a consultant with an extensive period of work spanning 25 years in the development space, communications specialist Deborah Walter is used to looking for the next contract while working on the current one. But in the past few years, she has noticed one big trend related to the job search.

“There seems to be a lack of understanding and under-valuing of consultants’ time, energy, and creative intellectual property,” South Africa-based Walter, who co-runs social change agency Community Media for Development Productions on the side, told Devex.

In the past, she’s been asked to develop a hypothetical communications strategy framework along with press releases, social media posts, and talking points for interviews plus proposed campaign brand ideas and initial mock-ups and videos for potential work with several organizations, which, as a busy wife and mother, Walter brands “unreasonable.”