Skip to main content

Guidelines for Community Use of Geos Institute Staff and Independent Consultants

Geos Institute has established the following guidelines for communities that access consulting services of the experts in Climate Ready Communities’ Consulting Network. 

  • A community may use consulting hours that are included with their Annual Support subscription* or that are purchased separately in 5, 10, or 20-hour blocks from the Geos Institute, to pay for Geos Institute staff or independent consultants.
  • Geos Institute will work with the community initially to understand the community’s consulting needs, please contact Geoff Weaver (geoff@geosinstitute.org, 503-781.7888) to begin this process. The appropriate consultant will be identified based on this process. If an independent consultant is deemed the best fit, Geos Institute will first confirm the consultant is available in the timeframe required by the community and then introduce the consultant and the community representative so that they may schedule a call.
  • The minimum time for a consultant call is 45 minutes, and accounting will be done in increments of 15 minutes beyond this hour. 
  • The community will be billed 1.25 x the actual call time to allow the consultant time to generate useful notes, with resulting increments rounded to the nearest 15 minutes. For a 45 minute call, this will result in a 1 hour billable consultation. The maximum billable time for notes written after a call will be 30 minutes, regardless of the length of the actual call. 
  • For document review by the consultant that does not involve a phone call, there will be no additional billable time for note writing. 
  • Consultant preparation before the meeting for up to 10 minutes will not be billable time, but if the community requests greater pre-meeting preparation, the minimum billable increment will be 15 minutes.
  • In the event a community and consultant realize at the start of a consulting call that the client’s interest and the consultant’s expertise are not aligned, the situation will be handled as follows: If the mismatch is identified within the first 5 minutes, there will be no billable time. Beyond this first 5 minutes grace period, the minimum billable increment will be 15 minutes.
  • Geos Institute will administer a feedback form for the community to complete following each consulting session and this form will be shared with the consultant only; it will not be available for public viewing.
  • Geos Institute will provide a secure repository for notes for each consulting session that may be accessed by the community and future consultants (as background for an upcoming call). These notes include an accounting of the community’s remaining consulting hours.

*Consulting hours from Annual Support subscriptions that were provided at no cost to beta testers are only eligible for Geos Institute staff consultants.