What to Expect: Your First 90 Days Working with an Inclusion Consultant
Top TLDR:
The first 90 days working with an inclusion consultant move through three phases: honest assessment of where the organization currently stands, tailored strategy and training built around what the assessment reveals, and early implementation that creates visible change while laying the groundwork for sustained progress. Knowing what to expect removes the uncertainty that keeps organizations from starting. Schedule a free consultation with Kintsugi Consulting, LLC in Greenville, SC to see what this process looks like for your organization.
One of the most common reasons organizations delay hiring an inclusion consultant is not budget or timeline. It's uncertainty. They don't know what the process actually involves, what will be asked of them, what will change, and how quickly. That uncertainty — the not-knowing — can make the investment feel riskier than it is.
This page removes that uncertainty. Here's an honest, practical breakdown of what the first 90 days of working with an inclusion consultant typically look like — what happens in each phase, what the organization contributes, and what changes.
Every engagement is different because every organization is different. Kintsugi Consulting, LLC builds each engagement around the specific context, goals, and community of the organization it's working with — there is no standard package applied uniformly. But the general arc of a well-structured consulting engagement follows a recognizable pattern, and understanding that pattern makes the first conversation easier.
Before Day One: The Free Consultation
Every engagement with Kintsugi Consulting, LLC begins with a free consultation — a real conversation, not a sales call.
The purpose of this conversation is mutual: for the consultant to understand the organization's context, current challenges, and goals, and for the organization to understand what working together would actually involve. This is where the scope of an engagement begins to take shape.
What you'll likely discuss: what prompted the organization to seek outside expertise, what you already know about where your inclusion gaps are, what your timeline and budget parameters look like, and what a successful outcome would mean for your team.
What you'll learn: a realistic picture of what an engagement could cover, what would be asked of your organization, and whether this is the right fit. A good inclusion consultant will tell you honestly if they're not the right resource for what you need.
The consultation is also where questions get answered — about the consultant's background, approach, and areas of expertise. Rachel Kaplan, MPH brings 15 years of experience in disability advocacy, program development, and accessible communications, alongside her own lived experience with invisible disability. Understanding who you're working with matters before the work begins.
Days 1–30: Assessment and Discovery
The first phase of a consulting engagement is listening and learning. Before any recommendations are made, a good inclusion consultant spends meaningful time understanding the organization — its history, its community, its current practices, and where the gaps actually live.
This phase typically involves a combination of document review, stakeholder conversations, and direct observation. Depending on the scope of the engagement, that might include:
Reviewing existing policies and materials. HR policies, accommodation processes, employee handbooks, communications materials, website content, training curricula, program documentation — all of these tell the consultant something about how the organization currently approaches inclusion and where the disconnects are.
Conversations with key stakeholders. Leadership, staff, HR, program managers, and where appropriate, people with lived disability experience within or connected to the organization. What people say in these conversations — and what they're reluctant to say — reveals the gap between official policy and actual culture.
Assessing digital and physical accessibility. If accessible communications and environments are part of the scope, this phase includes a review of the organization's digital content for accessibility standards and any relevant evaluation of physical spaces.
Identifying priorities. Not every gap can or should be addressed in a single engagement. Part of the assessment phase is understanding which issues are most urgent, which will have the greatest impact, and which the organization has the current capacity to actually address.
By the end of the first thirty days, both the consultant and the organization should have a shared, clear picture of what the work is — where the gaps are, why they exist, and what closing them requires.
Days 31–60: Strategy, Training, and Early Action
The second phase is where assessment becomes action. With a clear picture of the organization's inclusion landscape, the work shifts to building the strategy and delivering the training that will move things forward.
Developing the roadmap. Based on the assessment, the consultant and the organization agree on a prioritized plan: what will be addressed in the immediate term, what needs to be built over time, and what success looks like at each stage. This is not a generic template — it's built around what the assessment actually revealed.
For organizations working with Kintsugi Consulting, LLC's services, this is where the full range of tailored offerings becomes relevant. Depending on priorities, the roadmap might include:
Training on disability awareness and the range of disability experiences
Guidance on person-first versus identity-first language and why the distinction matters
Education on making social media and digital content accessible
Consultation on accessible document and presentation design
Review and revision of accommodation processes or hiring practices
Training on the history and context that shapes disability advocacy
Delivering initial training. Training in this phase is targeted at the specific knowledge gaps the assessment revealed — not a generic awareness session delivered to everyone regardless of relevance. The audience, format, length, and content are determined by what will actually move the needle for this organization.
Early implementation. Alongside strategy development and training, this phase typically includes some immediate, concrete improvements — documents updated for accessibility, language in job postings revised, accommodation processes clarified. Early wins matter. They demonstrate that the work is moving, build organizational momentum, and give staff something concrete to point to.
Days 61–90: Implementation, Adjustment, and Building Forward
The third phase consolidates what's been built and begins the transition from external support to internal capacity.
Reviewing what's working. By day sixty or seventy, there's usually enough implementation underway to evaluate what's resonating and what needs adjustment. Not every strategy lands exactly as planned — and a good inclusion consultant builds in the flexibility to respond to what's actually happening rather than staying rigidly attached to an original plan.
Building internal capacity. The goal of good inclusion consulting is not to create indefinite dependency on the consultant. It's to build internal knowledge, processes, and ownership that the organization can sustain. In this phase, the consultant works to embed what's been learned into the organization's ongoing practices — training internal champions, documenting processes so they outlast any single staff member, and building the accountability structures that keep inclusion work moving after the formal engagement ends.
Identifying what comes next. A 90-day engagement addresses priorities, not everything. By the end of this phase, the organization and the consultant have a clear picture of what's been accomplished, what still needs attention, and whether ongoing or periodic consultation would add value. Some organizations continue working with Kintsugi Consulting, LLC on a longer-term basis. Others have built enough internal infrastructure to carry the work forward independently.
What the Organization Contributes
An inclusion consultant does not do this work to an organization. They do it with one. What the organization brings to the process matters as much as what the consultant provides.
Leadership engagement is non-negotiable. Inclusion work that isn't visibly supported by organizational leadership will not take root — staff take their cues from the top, and an engagement that leadership treats as peripheral will be treated as peripheral by everyone else.
Honest participation is essential. The assessment phase only works if people are willing to tell the truth about what's actually happening. Organizations that try to present a polished face rather than an accurate one will receive strategy that doesn't fit their real situation.
Realistic expectations help. Ninety days of consulting builds a strong foundation and creates early visible change. It does not transform organizational culture. Cultural change takes time, sustained effort, and ongoing accountability — and organizations that understand that going in are better positioned to maintain momentum after the initial engagement ends.
What This Process Is Not
It's worth being direct about what a 90-day engagement with an inclusion consultant is not.
It is not a one-time training event. A single training session, no matter how well designed, does not change organizational culture. The consulting process described here is built around assessment, tailored strategy, and sustained implementation — not a workshop that people attend and then return to unchanged.
It is not a compliance audit. Regulatory compliance is a component of some engagements, but the goal is genuine inclusion — not the minimum required to avoid a complaint.
It is not a judgment of the organization's people. The gaps this process identifies are almost never the result of bad intentions. They're the result of systems and practices that weren't designed with the full community in mind. The work is about changing the systems, not blaming the people operating within them.
Ready to Begin?
The first step is the simplest one: a conversation.
Kintsugi Consulting, LLC offers a free initial consultation for organizations ready to understand what disability inclusion work could look like for them. Whether you're based in Greenville, SC or anywhere in the country, Rachel Kaplan is available for both virtual and in-person engagements tailored to your organization's specific needs, community, and goals.
Schedule your free consultation and take the first step toward building something more inclusive — for your employees, your clients, and the community you're here to serve.
Bottom TLDR:
The first 90 days working with an inclusion consultant move through three phases: assessment and discovery, tailored strategy and training, and early implementation that builds toward sustained change. The organization contributes honest participation and leadership engagement; the consultant contributes specialized expertise, external perspective, and a plan built around what the assessment actually reveals. Schedule a free consultation with Kintsugi Consulting, LLC — serving Greenville, SC and organizations nationwide — to understand what this process looks like for your organization.