I love this Denali, and totally think this qualifies for a victory lap!

I’ve been thinking a lot about my own pacing through the workbook and modules.  My original plan was to take my time and only move from one lesson to another when I felt ready (i.e., when I had figured out the things I needed to do as next steps). But, I’m finding that everyone else seems to be moving at a faster pace and because I value the community and office hours, I’ve started to look at lessons in “view only mode” with no expectation that I ready to do the thinking and the work. Instead I’m trying to get “in the know” about what other folks are already thinking about and working on to have context for the community-level conversations and then I’ll do the work myself at my own pace. This also seems like a win to me – to have multiple and competing priorities and to figure out a way to make things work for both priority areas.

Hey Dyrk. I also did a quick review of your site, focusing mostly on the images. I should disclose that I don’t feel this is a strength of mine, and won’t be the least bit offended if you toss this entire response!

Overall, I thought the images you chose conveyed tranquility and peace and those seemed like they would align with what you hope to achieve with clients through the sessions you offer. While you look for a new photographer, I wonder if a quick fix on the home page is to match the size of your headshot image to the size of the photo above it?

Under Firm Foundations, I liked the way that the images you chose played off of one another. The one possible exception was the last one that has more green in it than blue. If you stick with this color palette and the overall vibe, it will be fun to work with your photographer to think through how to bring that to your new photos too. I think your picture is great – to me, you seem kind, and both professional and relaxed (I think it’s the tie/jeans combo).  Maybe it is the gray background that given the insurance vibe (if there is one)?

The color palette of the photo on the Important pages is noticeably different, and that seems intentional and meaningful to me and so that felt like a cool choice.

Hope some of this helps!

Okay folks. Dave’s advice was fast but my sleuthing was faster and I crowdsourced some info to share. I also watched the pricing modules before posting this and since we were encouraged to scope out others’ prices, I’m moving forward with sharing what I learned with the assumption that none of us are going to be in a position to be accused of price-fixing any time soon.

I reached out to some of my networks yesterday to ask those who work independently and who own small shops to share how they price things. I got a flurry of interest and immediate responses. Our community needs this kind of information and transparency – I’m not sure how to reconcile that with the price-fixing stuff, but everyone who shared with me also agreed to let me share with others…and so here ya go:

Hourly rates

I have been using an hourly billing rate of $150/hour which I have learned is too low and would like to go to a flat rate model for some upcoming projects.

We bill at $125/hr for Senior Researcher and $150/hr for PI/Owner. This includes fringe and indirects. This DOES NOT include travel/per diem.

My rate is $128.13 this year [as a company owner] and goes up by 2.5% per year. It’s worked out well so far.

I charge $150/hour for my time [as a company owner], plus fringe (8%) and a 10% indirect rate. My rates for staff are much lower, and I’m in the process of raising those.

My university clients find hourly rates the easiest to put into their internal accounting and contract approval systems. In NSF budget narratives, I think hourly consulting rates simply work well for PIs.

As someone who has only been in business as an independent evaluator for five years, I have set my fees at $60/hour, based on what I know that some local university-based colleagues with much more experience have charged. I should also note that I don’t come from an evaluation or a strong social science methods background, so I have thought that my fees should reflect my learning on the job so to speak. I need to take some time this year to review this rate to understand if it serves me well going forward before I sign any more contracts.

• I do let PIs know that my fees start at $4000 for any evaluation work that requires a written report of any kind and that this would be for the bare minimum; most evaluation work will cost more than that. I’ve done that to help jump start conversations about how much this is going to cost by stating a basement floor in terms of fees. It helps them because if they know of someone who will do the work for less, we can part ways early on in a friendly manner. I think this is particularly helpful for smaller proposals; PIs of larger budget proposals understand that this will cost money!
• Budgeting is hard, and I would like to move toward a flat rate per deliverable budgeting. But I need to figure out what those numbers should look like systematically; this much for a logic model, this much for a strategic plan with this kind of scope etc.

Daily rates

I really try NOT to give a quote based on time, but rather based on product or services. That said, some clients require a time allocation. And…I do estimate how much time I think it will take me to complete a service, and I charge $800/day + 18% fringe for my time [as a company owner]. The time of my consultants is based on their experience and education, so I charge anywhere between $500 and $850 for people I work with. As I plan a budget, I think about the tasks and how much time I think it will take and use that as a basis for my budget (or working with a fixed budget, I figure out what I will be able to do within that amount of money).

Flat rate pricing, by project

A colleague of mine (who I just hired as project manager on one of my projects) charges $200 an hour, but she doesn’t bill hourly. She basically identifies tasks and determines how long she thinks it would take her to accomplish it and bills by tasks delivered.

I use project-based pricing because I typically work with clients who have a fixed budget. As a result, I don’t have systems set up to do detailed hourly time tracking and reporting for my clients. It also really would not matter if I told them it would take X hours. Their budget is Y and they’re going to pay Y no matter how much time the actual project takes. So for me it is usually a matter of deciding whether I can do the work well in an amount of time that makes it work for me given their budget.

• A very rough ballpark for me is that a one-off evaluation where I’m just analyzing data they provide me and reporting is usually $1,500 – $2,000. If I am collecting data, it varies a lot depending on the amount and type of data. Some of the projects I’ve accepted in the past 2 years are:
• In-depth Zoom interviews with 400 people, $24,000 (I hired 2 people to help with this project and spent $8,000 on payments to them – I think I vastly under-billed how much this project actually took)
• Two focus groups with 10 people each, $4,000
• Emailed surveys to 150 people, $2,500

Hybrid hourly and flat rate models

I use a weird structure- a hybrid of hourly and flat. Let me explain: I share my hourly rate as $120/hour for evaluation services and $150/hour for facilitation of group workshops. Then I estimate how much time those evaluation services will cost and send a SOW with a flat fee structure based on the deliverables. I’m finding that I underestimate how much time evaluation services cost, and that I’ve not been building in the administrivia stuff that takes up a substantial amount of time, but that is very necessary to do the work. For example- I’ve spent unbilled hours in tech support for implementing a client’s software tool that I knew how to use, but their internal system required a degree of security protocols that had to be installed with tech support. I had no idea/no way of knowing/and didn’t anticipate. Now I ask about tech stuff up front.

Percentage models

A rule of thumb I’ve been given for evaluation services is 10% of the overall budget; or 10% of the yearly budget. This advice came from a couple of folks in the field, many of whom are well known. I’ve started operating on this as my minimum/starting point.

In regards to pricing out a full project: I use percentages, generally. If a project is multi-million, I gauge around 3-5% of total funded, but for smaller awards, I ask for about 10% of total award funded (I rarely ask for more than 10% as for smaller awards, that would eat too much of their budget. Because of this, I don’t like to take on projects that are too small. It’s hard to do anything meaningful with less than $20,000 per year…

I use 10% as a starting place. If there is a strong educational research component for a project then I sometimes drop lower than 10%; I have also scaled up if the evaluation is also playing double-duty as project research.

Hey Mapi. I agree with Kylie – the web site is great. I thought the amount of text you used was just right, and I loved the balance between text, visuals and blank space. In the last office hours, Stephanie mentioned something about describing the work using strong action words instead of “we help” language. I wondered if that would make the strategies stronger in your case too: Think it through, Put it in writing and make it happen, Showcase your work and engage others.

I also liked Kylie’s suggestion for your elevator speech. I’d suggest replacing your first sentence with Kylie’s and then I liked the rest of what you already had. You might be able to simplify it more if you wanted – “I help non-profit organizations and foundations use data and effective storytelling to enhance the impact they have in their communities.”

Thanks for sharing!

Megan – thanks for sharing these. To me, they seem like such great examples of what each of us should be striving toward as we think about how to position our own work.

Congrats Rebecca! Super impressed that you set a 2022 goal and already accomplished it!!