How we can help

Many organisations in the Public, Private and Voluntary Sectors occasionally need external advice and support. Porter Brown Solutions offer a tailored service to suit your specific needs. We will discuss with you what you want to get out of the consultancy and agree a way forward with you to achieve it. You retain ownership of the project at all times, but we will always be honest with you with regard to what we consider to be realistic and will explore various ways to approach an issue.

Our specialisms include:

• Applications for grants from national and regional funding bodies such as the European Union, Lottery Funds and charities – we will advise on eligibility, suitability and possible pit-falls. We will try to find a fund that is appropriate to your project rather than changing your project to fit funding criteria. We will advise on long-term compliance and accountability issues.
• Independent project evaluation – we have extensive experience of evaluation, which includes major regeneration programmes and small-scale, bespoke projects. We will ensure that we cover all statutory evaluation requirements, which may be required. However, our main concern with regard to evaluation is to establish the real impact of a project – how has it benefited the people it was intended to help? We aim to ensure that best practice is maintained to help you to identify, maintain and develop successful activity in the future.
• Strategy development – many organisations and partnerships require a strong strategic framework within which to develop and deliver their day-to-day operations. You will have the vision, the aims and the ideas, but we can help you to refine them, and to provide the external challenge to ensure that your strategy is robust, defensible and deliverable.
• Consultation exercises – we have conducted a number of consultation exercises. These have ranged from consultations among members of partnerships to ensure “buy-in” to policies; public consultations to gather the opinions of local communities; and very focussed exercises to develop or test the value of specific actions.
• Market research - we have also managed visitor research exercises to test markets and to develop new brands. This is an area of growing importance in rural areas where direct sales, shortened supply chains, joint marketing and community businesses are changing the face of the local economy.
• Events and Exhibition management – we have experience in managing major multi-day events both as one offs and as part of larger programmes in places such as the NEC.
• Project management – we have been involved with capital projects at various levels, from putting together the finance to the actual management of the contracts and personnel to make sure they come in on time and within budget.
• Business and project plans – As with strategies, the development of your business or project plan can be greatly aided by advice on what should be included and the presentation. We will help you focus on what you want to achieve and suggest ways in which to market, measure and demonstrate the success of your plan.
• Facilitation of Workshops/Focus Groups – Focus groups are ways to capture opinion and to engage people in the development of ideas, actions and products. We offer facilitated workshops to help organisations explore and agree new ways of working, next steps or future developments. Taking people away from their work is an expensive exercise. Using external facilitation to manage the process, ensuring that people make the most of the event, makes the most effective use of your investment.
• Ideas Generation activities linked to any of the above – our team has a very broad background of experience in many organisations and in many sectors. Organisations with valid but not yet fully developed ideas to innovate, to train, to restructure or just wanting to find a clearer image of themselves can benefit from a “blue sky” session to help clarify and define new corporate aims and objectives.