Hiring a consultant

Where to start

Before looking anywhere else, contact the OCE Communications Division or the Office of Equity. Both teams maintain relationships with trusted consultants with experience in Bay Area government engagement. Starting there saves time, prevents mismatches, and ensures consistency with how the county approaches this work.

The real cost

Consultants bring process design skills, facilitation capacity, and the ability to run engagement activities that staff can't always sustain alongside regular workloads. But there's a real trade-off: consultants who aren't already embedded in Marin's communities must build trust from scratch. A consultant effective in general but unfamiliar with West Marin or government in general will need significant onboarding before they're ready to engage that community. Build that time into the budget and timeline from day one.

What staff still owns

Hiring a consultant doesn't transfer ownership. Staff remain responsible for internal alignment before engagement begins, for the Influence Statement, for keeping leadership informed throughout, and for closing the loop after the process ends. The consultant facilitates. The county is still accountable to the community.

What to look for

• Community experience over general credentials. Ask specifically about their work with communities like ours. A track record with Bay Area local government is a meaningful differentiator.
• Process design versus public relations. Know which one you need. For most county projects, it's the former.
• Impartiality. If the community perceives the consultant as the county's advocate, the engagement will produce diminished results regardless of how well the process is designed.
• Willingness to build capacity. The best consultants transfer knowledge while they work, not dependency. Look for someone who treats county staff as partners.