One of the recommendations in the recently published brief by Francie Ostrower,  BOARDS OF MIDSIZE NONPROFITS: THEIR NEEDS AND CHALLENGES  was to "Institutionalize a procedure for the board to regularly monitor its own performance."   Going on to say  "in order to identify and correct weaknesses in their performance, boards must regularly examine that performance and find find ways to train board members and implement changes as needed", the publication is one of many stressing the importance of board self-assessment. 

While the literature on this topic is growing and a number of board assessment forms are available, many boards do not engage in the self-assessment process.  Why?  Probably for a number of reasons ranging from:

• they don't know they are supposed to,
• they think they are doing fine, so why bother,
• they are so busy dealing with one crisis after another that there isn't time to devote to this endeavor,
• they have talked about it but no one has taken the initiative to make it happen.

For unaware board members, let this post be a wake up call that self-assessment should be on your board's yearly agenda.  Having said that, what is it you want to evaluate - the overall performance of the board or how well individual board members meet their governance responsibilities?  Hopefully, both.  So where do you start?
It might be easiest to start with how well individual board members fulfill their duties.  This presupposes that board members have job descriptions, and have participated in board orientation and training so they are clear about what it is they are supposed to be doing in terms of their governance role. 

INDIVIDUAL BOARD MEMBER SELF-ASSESSMENT
As a proponent of Steven Covey's "habits", I also recommend beginning with the end in mind.  What is it that you want to know? I would not presume to tell you what to ask but rather offer some ideas for consideration.  Questions that might be asked of individual board members could center around attendance, understanding of their responsibilities, whether or not an annual contribution has been made, their understanding of the organization's finances, their involvement with special events, willingness to serve as an officer  or committee chair, how frequently they recommend potential candidates for the board or secure volunteer, in-kind or material donations for the organization and their satisfaction with how meetings are run.  Open ended questions -  in terms of what support they need to be more effective,  personal goals they hope to accomplish for the organization through their board service or skills they feel they bring to the organization - can provide a treasure trove of information.


If you have a Board Development Committee they would have responsibility for researching or developing and/or adapting questionnnaires, distributing the questionnaires and summarizing the responses which are then presented to the board for discussion. Or, if you are working with a non-profit consultant they would develop/adapt/distribute/summarize questionnaire responses and facilitate a discussion of results at a board meeting.  


How well individual board members fulfill their responsibilities plays a major role in how well the board works together as a collective body. If you are not ready for a full board assessment, begin with the individual board assessment. Maybe you will find that a majority of board members think your meetings are too long and boring or too short and not substantive, or that very few board members really understand the financial statements or that several board members have specific untapped skills.  Additionally, the discussion following the assessment provides an excellent forum for board members to better understand one another's perceptions and concerns.  Further, the survey results can help identify topics for further board training to help improve performance and add value to the organization, while gaining assurance from what is being done well.


In this time of heightened concern about governance, it makes sense to assess how well your board is doing.  Next week's post will focus on assessing the entire board and will include suggestions on how to gauge performance along a number of dimensions.   If your organization follows the practice of having an annual board "work plan" outlining specific activities the board will undertake in its areas of responsibility, then you are well positioned to carry out a board assessment because your benchmarks for performance will already be in place. If not, well there's a little more work you'll have to do. 

Until next time,
Pat