How to Conduct a Board Self-Assessment

Board Self-Assessment is among the key leadership habits that high-performing nonprofit boards practice to ensure long-term excellence in governance. It requires the board to take a step back from the day-today routine and reflect on its effectiveness. This allows the board to deal with areas that could cause major frustration and tension.

There are a myriad of ways to conduct a self-assessment on your board from surveys and interviews to facilitated discussions. The best approach depends on the size of the board, available resources and the depth you want to take into the assessment.

If you decide to use board meeting software the method ensure that you define the goals of the assessment. For example, do you want to improve governance, match the goals of the organization to governance, or increase accountability? Once this is determined you can then select an evaluation tool.

Some tools let you analyze your results against other hospitals or health systems while others focus only on the governance procedures of your company. It’s important to make sure that the tools you select are impartial and don’t pick out only directors. This will help create a safe environment for honest feedback.

Many boards use a peer-review procedure, which requires directors to rate each other. This can be an extremely valuable and productive process, however it is crucial that the process remains private. Some directors may be hesitant to criticize a member of the board for fear of repercussions. In this instance it’s generally better to have the facilitator go through all the comments and determine which insights are pertinent to share with the board.