XCOM-650 - Social Impact Consulting

Course Description

The fully online program combines asynchronous instruction with six live bi-weekly online class cohort meetings via Zoom that are one-hour in length to facilitate cohort networking and discussions with special guests. Each module is two weeks in length within the 12-week program. 

1. Orientation: You will be introduced to the certificate and begin to establish relationships with your instructor and your classmates to build a learning community. Walk through an overview of the program and identify resources, schedule, activities, and assessments. Details of what you will learn and what is expected from you are provided. The orientation module will also help you to develop the skills required to navigate the learning environment and be successful in this program.

2. Module 1: Fundamentals of Social Impact Consulting: Consulting in, and on behalf of, the social impact sector is not only hard work but it takes a set of integrated skills and a nuance mindset. Analyze the key ways in which this type of consulting is unique in order to become a consultant with purpose.

3. Module 2: Navigating the Lifecycle of a Client Engagement: If the purpose of consulting is to identify and then solve a client’s challenge or activate an opportunity, then the process of consulting is what actually take place between those milestones. Learn more about the dynamic lifecycle of a client engagement and how to navigate the complexities encountered while working in the social impact sector.

4. Module 3: Overcoming Resistance and Navigating Implicit and Explicit Power Dynamics to Earn Your Client’s Trust: Trust is an essential ingredient in effective social impact consulting and resistance, as well as power dynamics often lurk below the surface of client engagements too. Understand how to navigate these forces while consulting with your human client in order to achieve impact.

5. Module 4: Business Development: Effective social impact consultants not only are helping their clients advance important missions, but also are savvy business leaders. Learn and evaluate business development approaches to advance your consulting.

6. Module 5: Special Topics in Social Impact Consulting: Social Impact consulting brings with it many considerations that are unique: including to the sector, an orientation towards social justice, your personal vision, and ever evolving technologies. Consider a variety of special topics as you strengthen your own unique approach.

7. Module 6: Capstone: Synthesize your knowledge across the Certificate in Social Impact Consulting through the creation of a unique capstone project that will strengthen your practice and ability to create change as a trusted advisor in the future.
    

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of the program, you’ll be able to:

• Differentiate how and why consulting in the social impact sector is different than within other sectors
• Navigate the lifecycle of a client engagement while analyzing the complexities of uncovering the client’s problem or opportunity
• Establish trust with a human client through your personal values and strengths, amidst the dynamics of resistance and power dynamics uniquely at play within social impact organizations
• Evaluate business development approaches to advance your consulting
• Assess how emerging trends in social impact consulting apply to your own work
• Create a personal action plan, through a specialized capstone project, to become a more effective social impact consultant and changemaker

Applies Towards the Following Certificates

• Certificate in Social Impact Consulting : Required