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In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, consultants have played an important role in keeping many organizations with a social impact operational and providing free services in return. Jack Casey, the founder and CEO of the global network Impact Consulting, spoke to Consultancy.uk about how the organization is helping to provide the necessary expertise for charitable causes around the world and to bring vital experiences to the next generation of global consultants.

In the chaotic economic environment of the coronavirus pandemic, nonprofits and socially impacted organizations have been pressured to provide greater numbers of services while grappling with the funding on which their work depends. At the same time, prospective consultants have dried up their usual opportunities to enter the industry through internships thanks to last year’s lockdown restrictions.

Impact Consulting is a global network that deals with both of these problems. The network consists of aspiring and professional consultants and supports organizations with a social impact free of charge. The demand for these two services was so great that the organization had to quickly find new ways to meet the needs of consultants and clients.

In an interview with Consultancy.uk, founder and CEO Jack Casey said: “Firstly: [we aimed] To support socially motivated organizations that have faced unprecedented challenges due to Covid-19, while giving students and professionals with a keen interest in counseling the opportunity to gain practical experience that has been difficult to come by. In order to expand and improve our network, we have developed an online platform within a few months, on which budding and professional consultants can view our upcoming projects and join the projects that are most important to them, access training from industry experts and network with our global community can grow to over 2,500 consultants from over 90 countries. “

Casey holds an MSc in International Management from CEMS and the University of Sydney and is a seasoned business consultant who has worked in the government, telecommunications, fast moving consumer goods and retail sectors with an emphasis on business strategy and operations. His background is reflected in Impact Consulting, as it provides both consulting services and a means for entry-level professionals to learn key skills for consulting work.

“Via our online platform,” continues Casey, “we offer our consultants comprehensive e-learning consulting skills training that they can complete before their project and that has been developed by industry experts with experience such as McKinsey, BCG and Bain. This training covers a variety of topics such as problem solving, Excel modeling, and even writing slides. We have also brought several industry experts to our platform who can give our consultants instant feedback if they need help with their project. In this way, consultants can direct news professionals with questions to our platform and talk to them on the phone at any time during their project. “

Effective projects

All of the projects Impact Consulting has worked on have been carried out with organizations that contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including groups dealing with topics as diverse as deforestation, gender inequality, poverty and climate change. Typically these focus on business strategy, operations, marketing, transformation and fundraising – and include cases like helping an educational institution in Kenya expand into new African countries and developing a fundraising strategy for an NGO to fight deforestation in the Amazon and supporting a Norwegian start-up on its mission to reduce plastic waste and rural poverty in India.

At the same time, not only aspiring consultants have come together at Impact Consulting. It has also benefited from a wealth of experience with a number of seasoned consultants who have so far joined its projects. According to Casey, “some of them [arrive] with more than 20 years of experience “, inspired by the opportunity to invest a few hours a week to use their skills to lead projects for social causes and to develop the next generation of consultants and expand their professional network. Casey says clients have found that this diversity of experiences is one of the key differentiators of Impact Consulting.

He concluded: “For us, having a large presence of experts and professional advisors on our projects has a major impact on the quality of our projects. Not only has this given our clients great value in having an experienced professional support them free of charge, but it has also given our younger students a fantastic learning opportunity by giving them the opportunity to work with more experienced professionals on a project. In addition, the international diversity of our project teams has helped us to offer our customers a number of innovative perspectives and ideas that they have so far valued. “