Sliding Scale

We are beginning to experiment with alternatives to hourly-based pricing. The experience and knowledge we offer is a greater value than the literal hours of labor worked. And the value is deeper than merely conducting an evaluation or facilitating a session/gathering—we engage you in critical reflection and dialogue, provide various forms of support, and share relevant resources to help transform your practice. For this reason, we are testing a relational, values-based approach to setting consulting costs. In the meantime, we are continuing to list our hourly rates for reference and added two sample relational, value-based consultation budgets.  

Former hourly consulting service rates were $125 to $250 per hour.

Relational, value-based consulting costs

All consulting engagements begin with a Building/Foundational Phase. We design this phase to get to know you and your work at an intentional, slower pace. We use this time to connect and build relationships with you and your colleagues/team/community. This is all in service of building direction and a plan for what comes next in our work. This phase can include document review and one-on-one or small group conversations with key people. This phase will culminate in the development of a plan to guide future consulting activities, including space for feedback and revisions.  After this initial phase, there is an Iterative Implementation Phase. In this latter phase, we carry out the activities identified during the Building/Foundational Phase. 

The length of consulting engagements will vary based on the size of the project, the number of people involved, and other factors. Nevertheless, we have presented a sample budget for a six month and one year engagement for a hypothetical organization with 8-10 key people/team members with a complex set of questions or issues to address. A six month engagement would focus on the Building/Foundational Phase to develop a plan for future consulting activities. A one year engagement would build upon this with an additional six months for an Iterative Implementation Phase.  

We also recognize the emotional labor involved in work that engages with issues of oppression, which is inevitable as a Black-bodied person working with people to process, interrogate, and metabolize white-body supremacy. We also ask you to consider this reality when selecting a rate. 

The three cost estimates below represent the top, middle, and bottom tier costs of the sliding scale for an intensive engagement. We invite everyone interested in working together to a conversation to discuss your needs and budget with more specificity.

“Movement Builder” Tier

If you work outside the NPIC, in global majority movement building and grassroots organizing

Six month:
$12,000

One year:
$24,000

“Internal Disruptor” Tier

If you work with an NPIC organization, collectively working to disrupt historic and institutionalized oppression within your organization.

Six month:
$16,000

One year:
$32,000

“Pay it Forward” Tier

If you work with an NPIC organization, significantly contributing to historic and institutionalized oppression and wealth hoarding—even as you work to disrupt and challenge from within.

Six month:
$20,000

One year:
$40,000

Please read further below to understand how our sliding scale works and how to select a tier.

Overview and Intention for the Sliding Scale

We invite you to self-select a tier that reflects your organizational resources and wealth. We encourage you to consider your organizational location within the nonprofit and philanthropic industrial complex that centers whiteness, neoliberalism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. And we ask you to reflect on the extent to which your organization perpetuates or disrupts the ongoing systemic and institutionalized surplus wealth and capital accumulation among elites.

This sliding scale represents a way to disrupt the traditional, transactional client-consultant relationship that is established and assumed through contracts—a relationship that is very much about competition, extracting labor, and generating profit. We are committed to providing evaluation consulting services to organizations that would otherwise not be able to afford it. In service of this commitment, the highest figure on the scale is our “Pay It Forward” tier, which enables us to provide a discount at the lowest tier for those who need it. This also helps supplement the many hours of grassroots organizing and evaluation field building work that we are directly involved in.

We invite those who have accumulated wealth and various forms of capital to pay more and those who have not to pay less, thus supporting the redistribution of wealth.

This sliding scale is also an attempt to honor and show solidarity with movement building and grassroots organizing work at multiple levels, including organizations that are disruptive of oppressive systems through their organizational practices, such as hiring practices, leadership and staff social identities and lived experiences, and so on.

We invite those who are engaging in this work—and have paid through blood, sweat, and tears—to pay less and those who are not or have not to pay more.

We also recognize the emotional labor involved in work that engages with issues of oppression, which is inevitable as a Black-bodied person working with people to process, interrogate, and metabolize white-body supremacy. We also ask you to consider this reality when selecting a tier. 

Finally, we invite you to have a conversation with us about this sliding scale because we understand that there is more nuance beyond what we can capture here. We also believe that your tier may shift if we develop a long-term partnership because we recognize that responses to these prompts may shift over time.  

How to Choose Your Tier

Pay Less If…

  • You organize/work against wealth hoarding as an organization (e.g., foundation committed to spend down endowment and/or relies on grassroots fundraising rather than an endowment to exist and award grants).
  • Your organization disrupts/challenges the prevalence of white-dominant organizations and institutions (e.g., your leadership and/or staff are all or primarily BIPOC identified/bodied).
  • Your organization disrupts/challenges white saviorism, colonial, and neocolonial practices and structures (e.g., your leadership and staff are all or primarily BIPOC identified/bodied; people making key decisions reflect the communities you work with).
  • Your organization disrupts/challenges heteronormativity, compulsory able-bodiedness, and gender binaries (e.g., job descriptions and hiring processes do not require being abled; any forms you ask people within or outside of your organization to fill out reflect non-binary gender identities).
  • People who do the work of your organization are all or mostly volunteers.
  • You support grassroots organizing and movement building as a funder, and/or you engage in this work as an organization.
  • Your organization helps to ameliorate systemic pay inequities (e.g., there is a minimal gap between your highest- and lowest-paid staff person).

Pay More If…

  • You exist and benefit from wealth hoarding as an organization (e.g., private foundations with large endowment and no plans to spend down and/or that pay out—per federal tax law requirements—only the minimum 5 percent of total assets annually).
  • Your organization contributes to and/or embodies the prevalence of white-dominant/centered organizations and institutions (e.g., your leadership and/or staff are all or primarily white identified/bodied).
  • Your organization feeds into white saviorism, colonial, and neocolonial practices and structures (e.g., your leadership and staff are all or primarily white identified/bodied and primarily serve BIPOC/people of color identified/bodied; people making decisions do not reflect the communities you work with).
  • Your organization practices/reinforces heteronormativity, compulsory able-bodiedness, and gender binaries (e.g., your job descriptions and hiring processes require being abled; your media images only depict gender norms, straight couples and/or abled people).
  • People who do the work of your organization are all paid as staff/workers.
  • Your organization contributes to systemic pay inequities (e.g., there is a large gap between your highest- and lowest-paid staff person).

Please note that this sliding scale was inspired by:

Read Our Preamble To All Contracts