A few years ago the Chicago chapter of the American Lung Association left the national organization to form its own independent entity: the Respiratory Health Association of Chicago. At the time it was an unusual move.

Yet in recent weeks we have seen two more major affiliates of well-known national nonprofits leave the fold. Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, in Northern California, is now Golden Gate Community Health, and KCET, the PBS affiliate in Los Angeles, recently announced its intention to leave the PBS family in January 2011.

Each of these situations is unique and involves a combination of differing perspectives, financial tensions and interpersonal conflicts, but I wonder if economic pressures are increasingly going to drive large affiliates of national organizations to leave behind their household brand name in favor of independence.

KCET will lose access to crucial PBS programs such as Sesame Street, while the two health organizations named above will continue to offer the same service but without the benefit of instant name recognition.

Given the demands of participation in a national organization (financial, programmatic, quality review, brand usage and the like) we may see additional large affiliates deciding they can do better on their own.

In the short run that may be true, but it remains to be seen whether they can replace the instant name recognition and credibility of their former national partners with local support. And of course there is always the possibility – indeed the likelihood – that the national organization will establish a new franchise in the same area, providing a high profile competitor who will build on the previous organization’s name recognition, now abandoned.

Stay tuned.

Consultants fix things, ranging from financial management systems to strategies to boards to staff relationships. That is why we get hired, right?

That may be what clients want to hire us for. But it doesn’t really work out that way. Just as a psychotherapist does not “fix” the unhappy patient, the consultant does not “fix” the dysfunctional nonprofit.

Excuse the therapy analogy but I have been married to a therapist for 32 years and we often see parallels in our work.

In each profession, the process of making things better is complex.

First we need to form a trusting relationship with our client by accepting them where they are and being non-judgmental.

Second, we have to get to know their world, their problems and triumphs, their values and history. Only then can we move forward together to solve problems. The client has perhaps worked deeply and for a long time in one organization, which is one context and one reality. The consultant works in a more limited way in many different contexts and realities.

For this reason the consultant may have insights into the problems the client faces that have just never occurred to the client before because this is the only context in which they have experienced this particular problem.

By sharing the learning journey, the consultant helps the client to fix their own problem, along the way building a new skill set that they can put to good use in the future. In a really good engagement the consultant also learns something new, so that the learning journey is truly shared.