About Us

Kirkmillan Consulting

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About Kirkmillan

Kirkmillan Consulting was established in 2015, and had its origins in providing coaching and mentoring services to the charity and not for profit sectors. This created an opportunity for the founding Director, Beverley Francis, to offer her considerable skills and experience to the sector, drawing on her strengths in strategic development and organisational development in particular.

Kirkmillan actively supports organisations in a range of ways, with an approach that is tailored to your unique circumstances and provides the right things at the right time to enable you, and your organisation to achieve the change or improvement that it needs. In 2018, Kirkmillan added interim management support to the range of services provided. Beverley Francis is delighted to be a mentor for the ACOSVO mentoring network, and also to have been appointed to the ACOSVO Interim Chief Executive Service.

Kirkmillan is currently working with a range of Boards and management teams in the third sector, helping them shape strategies that respond to the changing and complex environment that is typical for the sector. We are also actively supporting Chief Executives and their senior teams to examine and strengthen their performance.

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Our Philosophy

We understand that there are a number of people offering services to the charity and not for profit sectors, but we like to think we are a bit different. We fundamentally believe that all people and organisations are capable of doing what they need, and just need the time, and the right support, at the right time to enable them to move forward.

We know it's easy for an external party to come into your organisation to tell you what's wrong, but at Kirkmillan, we will support you in building the solution too, and make sure we leave you and your organisation with the confidence, capacity and capability to be able to take things forward for yourself. We consider it a privilege to be invited into the lives of individuals, teams and organisations, often in challenging times. We prefer to be a trusted partner that is with you for as long as you need.

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Pro Bono Work

We have a commitment to continue to undertake pro bono work as part of our portfolio. Beverley Francis is part of the ACOSVO mentor network and remains committed to making a difference to small organisations in particular who would ordinarily be unable to access costly consultants and expertise.

Beverley Francis, Managing Director

Managing Director (Beverley Francis)

Beverley is a mature and resilient leader with extensive public and third sector experience, and has strengths in building both strategic and operational capacity as well as in leadership development, fundraising, and mentoring.

Initially embarking on a career in social housing, Beverley brought this professional experience into government in 1998. With experience of many and varied demanding posts in high profile areas of government policy, she has also built an impressive range of leadership capabilities around strategic thinking, change management and new approaches to delivering services embracing asset-based work and improvement methodology.

Beverley lives in Dunblane with her husband and 2 children, she is a keen runner and active in a range of charities as a Trustee and a volunteer.

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Beverley's Key Skills and Achievements

Beverley has developed sharp political acuity, drawn from a degree in politics and extensive experience working with Ministers in both the UK and Scottish Governments. As a Director of a housing association and a trustee, she has developed significant capacity to support Boards to strengthen governance and accountability. At Rural Stirling Housing Association, she turned around a poorly performing organisation into one that has gained a positive reputation. As an ACOSVO mentor, she has supported many Chief Executives in the third sector, and has facilitated staff, team and organisational development through one to one coaching and away days.

Beverley has extensive experience of leading organisational change and managing projects to improve performance, most notably, leading the New Opportunities Fund, as it undertook a merger to form the Big Lottery. Her experience of developing grant making regimes in government and at the New Opportunities Fund places her in a strong position to support the third sector and others to navigate the grants and trusts landscape, with a particular expertise in project evaluation.

With a range of policy portfolios including, housing, employability, substance misuse, and race equality, she has an aptitude for making the connections and creating the opportunity to have impact. This was particularly the case in her leadership of the Scottish response to the UK welfare reform agenda where she brought together a range of statutory and third sector players to create a coalition to mitigate the impact in Scotland. She led work with the drug and alcohol sector in Scotland to reshape how it delivers services, against the backdrop of a new policy.

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Our Associates

Kirkmillan also has access to and works with a range of associates who can be invited to form part of a team to help you. This might include training, policy development, finance and human resource support. Kirkmillan is based in central Scotland but can offer services on a nationwide basis.

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Strategic Planning

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Interim Management

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Recruitment

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Organisational Reviews

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Re-structuring Support

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Job Evaluations

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Grant Applications

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Options Appraisal

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Away Days & Team Building

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Operational Planning

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Organisation Turnarounds

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Stakeholder Management

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Mentoring & Coaching

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Career Planning

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Governance Reviews

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Leadership & Team Development