It might seem that the nonprofit board of directors should be solely in control of how it evaluates its own effectiveness as a board. If one subscribes to the idea that the board is ultimately the highest level of authority in the organization and is, using the terminology I have chosen for this series of articles, the “boss,” then it would make sense that the CEO should have nothing to do with this process. As was the case in previous articles, however, and consistent with the overall theme of this series, this aspect of governance should also involve the CEO, not just as someone who can provide some input into individual and group evaluation but as someone who can help direct and coordinate the process itself on behalf of the board. This kind of “reciprocal governance” is to be expected in an organization which considers every participant in the organization a stakeholder and a critical factor in the ability of the organization to achieve its mission.

Assuming that the CEO is not a voting member of the board, a subject I have weighed in on previously, the role the CEO plays in this regard must be carefully delineated. I am suggesting that the CEO should do more than just provide clerical or technical support for a process which is conducted by the board. I am not, however, proposing a role for the CEO which supersedes his or her authority by directing the board in self-assessment efforts. I am especially not suggesting that the CEO conduct board evaluations as if the CEO had some level of authority in this regard over the board. In the spirit of mutuality and in every case seeking the greatest good for the whole organization, the CEO and the board have a shared interest in making sure the board is functioning effectively, is aware of areas of its work that are not optimal, and is taking steps to improve its performance as part of an ongoing process.

This may all seem rather obvious. However, I can tell you from my own experience that it is the exception and not the rule that nonprofit boards attend to their performance through some kind of evaluation process. Many nonprofit boards never take time to either formally or informally consider how they are doing as a board and if there are areas in which they could improve. The usual results of such neglect are deeply entrenched ways of doing things, patterns and systems of behavior that over time become very difficult to change, and a culture of arrogance that suggests the board is above being evaluated. More often, however, I have seen boards that just aren’t aware of the need for evaluation, which lack the knowledge and resources to conduct such an evaluation, lack the leadership and commitment to improvement, or have not been educated and led by their CEO into a greater understanding of their role and how it can be strengthened.

I have also observed in some cases that when boards are not functioning effectively, they tend to reduce the problem to the attributes of its members. I have been called by potential clients, usually frustrated CEOs, complaining about the composition and performance of their boards. These CEOs will say things like:

• If only my board members were more engaged;
• If only we could recruit more business leaders to the board;
• If only we could get so and so off the board;
• If only we had a more effective chairperson.
• If only our board members contributed more.
• If only so and so wouldn’t monopolize every discussion.
• If only board members would quit pestering the staff.
• If only…..

Blaming board ineffectiveness on individuals who you’d either like to be on or off your board ignores the real essence of the problem, namely, that the board does not hold itself accountable for meeting the duties and expectations of board membership. When board assessment is absent, there is lack of awareness of how they perform as a board, and there can be no effective plan for improvement.

And yet, in a dynamic and rapidly changing world, boards need to be more mindful than ever of how they are functioning in service to the organization and how they might do better. Unexpected downturns in the economy, leadership scandals, loss of donors, employee misconduct, pandemics, and myriad other social and environmental changes can create challenges that threaten the ability of the organization to carry out its mission. In highly uncertain times nonprofit boards must have the ability to function with a high level of integrity and professionalism in order to make difficult decisions. Building a board that can operate in such an environment can only occur when the board has an accurate understanding of its strengths and its limitations and works to become better.

Such board capability requires not only understanding of and commitment to the mission of the organization, but also the broad duties that inhere to all nonprofit boards. Responsibilities that specifically attach to the unique aspects of the organization they serve must be accompanied by accountability on the part of the board as a whole and on each of its directors. And, most important, opportunities to intentionally change should flow out of an evaluation process which examines every aspect of the board’s operation, including board structure, methods of meeting, board membership, duties of directors and officers, meeting agendas and priorities, management relationships, policy development and planning, models of governance, and interpersonal relationships with staff and among themselves.

The Maine Association of Nonprofits has perfectly summed up the critical importance of regular self-assessments for boards by saying that “A strong, vibrant board of directors is a clear indicator of a healthy organization. Yet even the best organizations need a periodic check-up to ensure that they cannot just survive but will really thrive in today’s environment. To check your board’s vital signs, or to put in place practices and strategies for a healthy and energized board, the best place to start is with a board self-assessment.”(1) 

In this article, I will try to navigate the waters that lie between the CEO’s executive authority and the board’s governance responsibility in an attempt to demonstrate how mutual respect and shared commitment to the mission can be operationalized to evaluate and improve the board’s effectiveness. This aspect of reciprocal governance should be of shared interest to both the CEO and the board because both have a duty to work toward fulfillment of the organization’s mission in the most effective and efficient manner possible. In the same way that such reciprocal governance works to evaluate the performance of the CEO, it should pervade the shared desire to have the board perform as best it can in the performance of its duties. When both the CEO and the board are collaboratively engaged in helping each other improve their performance, both benefit and the organization is better served.

In order to tackle this challenge, I will consider a number of ways in which boards can and should evaluate themselves and how the CEO can lead and support these efforts to ensure consistent and effective evaluation processes. The most obvious and most common is for boards to conduct an annual performance evaluation. There are many resources available to conduct such assessments. BoardSource (2)  is a common source for formalized processes of group and individual director performance evaluation. Generating an asset map of board members’ backgrounds and abilities is a must to make sure the needed skills are represented on the board. Another type of evaluation is conducted when directors are up for reelection to a subsequent term and an evaluation process is employed to evaluate their board service during their current term. Some boards provide an opportunity for every board member to conduct a self-evaluation every year and to offer feedback to the board. Those boards which take their performance seriously may also use various evaluation techniques such as a plus/delta discussion at the end of each board meeting to identify things they did well and things that could be improved.

Clarity around board member expectations must be the starting point for any kind of board evaluation. I will share my experience with respect to how such expectations can be generated and operationalized. Finally, the results of any kind of evaluation must be translated into some kind of board development plan that addresses perceived areas of weakness and builds upon its strengths. I will argue that in all of these, the CEO can and should take a collaborative leadership role in order to help the board be accountable for its effectiveness.

Board Member Expectations

The starting point for any board evaluation effort must be the duties and expectations which undergird the board’s functioning. In one respect, the articulation of these duties and expectations can be considered the board’s job description and should be formally adopted as board policy and included in the board’s operations and policy manual. If the board doesn’t have an operations and policy manual, it should develop one. In my experience, most bylaws typically provide neither sufficient detail nor adequate procedures and timelines for how such duties and expectations are developed, reviewed and evaluated. It is very difficult to ask, “How are we doing?” when there is no set of expectations that define “what we are doing.” Once such expectations are defined, a process for evaluating the board and its individual members can be developed.

Which are the common duties and expectations for nonprofit boards and their directors? Some of these are legal and fiduciary and are actually spelled out in state statutes governing nonprofit corporations. Others have been cited in professional literature as best practice. Still others may be unique to the circumstances of the organization itself. I have written about some of these in my previous article, “Why Do I Need A Board, Anyway?” For purposes of this article, however, let me distinguish between the duties and responsibilities of the board as a board, and the responsibilities and behavioral expectations of individual directors. The former include such things as hiring and evaluating the CEO, making sure the organization is financially sustainable, aligning strategic goals and capacity, building the board effectively, serving as the legal agent of the organization, promoting accountability and engagement between staff and board, and providing appropriate oversight of the organization’s mission and operations.

The expectations for individual board members include such behaviors as preparation for meetings, regular attendance and active participation, philanthropic support, observing established protocols for communication with staff and the public, keeping board matters confidential, advocating for the organization’s clients when asked and guided, participating in board training and development activities, and in general, contributing to the overall effectiveness of the board.

Board assessment, both collectively and individually, is an area in which the CEO can provide leadership. Most nonprofit boards do not have the same kind of access to best practice information that the full-time professionals led by the CEO have. In those cases in which the board does not have clearly defined responsibilities and expectations, the CEO can propose to offer board education and training on best practice, can suggest generative discussions when working with the board chair to formulate meeting agendas, and can provide documentation in the form of reports, white papers, and examples to the board’s governance or executive committees which describe best practices. In my experience, when the CEO and his or her board are equally committed to growth and improvement, there is little need to delimit boundaries of authority or build walls to protect autonomy. When the “boss” is a collaborative coalition consisting the CEO and his or her board, then executive activity on the part of the CEO which helps the board achieve its desired outcomes is expected and welcomed. This is the essence of leadership. In this context, I still love John Maxwell’s definition of leadership: “Influencing others to achieve mutually agreed upon goals.” (3) 

Once duties, responsibilities and expectations have been developed and adopted by the board, additional work could be done to reinforce them and to more deeply embed them into the board’s operating culture. For example, I could envision a series of discussions by the board with the CEO around its duties and expectations and how they can be integrated with the CEO’s responsibilities. Presentations by knowledgeable professionals on nonprofit governance might be engaged to further expand on best practice in nonprofit governance. Discussions could be used to collaboratively create a description of the “ideal board,” perhaps using techniques like appreciative inquiry in which the group would entertain possibilities and creatively brainstorm what would have to occur to achieve that kind of board. Questions driving the discussion would be something like, “What kind of board do we need in order to achieve our strategic dreams for the organization?” “What would the ideal board meeting look and feel like?” “How would we know if we were actually functioning at the highest level?” “How would this board ideally work with the CEO and staff?”

Annual Board Effectiveness Assessment

The most common form of board performance evaluation is through the use of an annual formal process, usually conducted as part of a board planning retreat. This may involve senior leaders, utilize a consultant, employ the use of formal evaluation tools or other resources that provide board members with the opportunity to discuss their work together, and develop plans and goals for improvement.

There are many excellent tools to conduct such a board retreat. For one such retreat, I used a consultant from BoardSource who built a full-day workshop around the results from their board assessment tool. Built around BoardSource’s Ten Responsibilities of the Nonprofit Board, board members responded to the online assessment survey. The workshop identified those areas in which the board’s perception of its performance either met, exceeded or fell short of industry benchmarks. The key deliverable from the retreat was a set of priorities and action plans for addressing those lower performing areas.

At another weekend retreat, I engaged a consultant from the Mennonite Health Services Consulting Corps to engage both the corporate and foundation boards in an analysis of best practices to identify ways the two boards could better work together for the common good. Breakout groups comprised of directors from both boards brainstormed ideas for how to create greater consistency and compatibility between the boards. Because our two boards met quarterly on the same weekends and presentations around finances and strategic issues were made to both boards, we had built-in opportunities for collaborative board development work. In my case, in consultation with both board chairs, I took the lead to plan and develop those growth opportunities in response to the increasing unease I was sensing from both boards about the inter-board relationship. I don’t believe the respective boards would have had the capability on their own to bring them together around a shared concern. I was able to address the challenges facing our two boards – not by providing direct training or leadership, but by using an external knowledge expert to help expose the attitudes and behaviors that were behind most of the disharmony.

Already mentioned in previous articles, Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (4) provides an easy assessment tool that can diagnose a board’s ability to trust, tolerate conflict, build commitment, hold each other accountable, and stay focused on results.  If have found his work to be impactful when working with leadership teams in nonprofit organizations, but can see how the results from such an assessment could provide great content for a board retreat. The biggest take away for my executive team when we took it was the importance of open, honest vulnerability as essential to building trust among ourselves. The same has been applicable to every board I have consulted with.

Board Composition and Assets

Boards that are serious about improving their effectiveness are also aware that they are only as good as those who comprise the board. Therefore, understanding the asset needs of the board is a necessary first step to building an outstanding board. This concern is the reverse side of the “If only…” issue described earlier. Instead of waiting for unhealthy conditions to arise and then blaming the limitations of board members, this proactive effort actually seeks to evaluate the gifts, abilities and backgrounds of current board members and seeks to identify areas of need in order to improve the quality of the board’s effectiveness by adding directors who have the needed skills and abilities. For example, if a board is facing imminent expansion through acquisition, it might make sense to make sure individuals with business, merger, or corporate law experience would be on the board. If the strategic vision calls for significant expansion of fundraising efforts, expertise in development work might be valuable. And of course, organizations that are serious about making a greater impact in their field of service will always be looking for individuals with political or financial influence.

I believe the CEO is uniquely positioned to lead this aspect of the board development project as an independent and objective participant. If the CEO has accumulated data about the education, professional experience, skills, abilities and giving records of each director, construction of an asset map by the CEO should be expected. Furthermore, it would seem natural for the CEO to survey current members to solicit additional information without having to involve other board members. Identification and placement of assets on a matrix to be reviewed by the board allows opportunity for group confirmation and refinement. Finally, preparing an asset map and comparing it to strategic needs will help identify the gaps in board composition that need to be filled in order to improve board functioning. In my experience, most nonprofit boards, meeting only three or four times per year, cannot manage such an annual process, nor can they counted on to identify individuals with the requisite skills to fill the gaps. Here is where the CEO can play an important and necessary executive role.

Incumbent Assessment

Another common form of assessment occurs when directors are coming to the end of a term and are eligible for reelection as an incumbent to a successive term. Most boards allow for directors to serve for two, three or four-year terms and then permit reelection to one or more additional terms. The most common term lengths seem to be three years with the possibility for election to a second three-year term. In my organization, we allowed for four consecutive three-year terms for a possible total of twelve years. This was too long, in my estimation, but the board was not willing to alter this policy. Consequently, it became much more important for the board to exercise some form of incumbent evaluation in order to prevent board members from serving past their limits of effectiveness. Managing the evaluation and interview process by the CEO on behalf of the board ensures timeliness in the election process and the development of sufficient data for the board’s nominating or governance committees to recommend or not recommend the director for reelection.

The incumbent assessment process should include input from other board members as well as the CEO and senior staff. What that assessment should look like will depend somewhat on the expectations for board members, as well as the size and complexity of the organization, but at minimum it should review the board’s list of expectations and provide a way to obtain feedback on them. If the board chooses to use a more general and objective format, there are numerous examples of such inventories that can be obtained from state and national nonprofit associations. (5) In addition to objective survey data, I also recommend that a personal interview be conducted by the nominating committee, governance committee or executive committee, depending on which committee has been tasked with the responsibility. Such an interview should review the objective data, review again the expectations, and solicit from the incumbent his or her self-assessment of their performance. If there are any identified opportunities for improvement, they should be discussed and the incumbent given the chance to respond and to share their thoughts on how they might better meet expectations. At the end of the day, the board committee making the recommendation must weigh the data and make a decision based on the needs of the board.

It could be argued that if the CEO and board did their jobs well of recruiting and electing the right people to the board in the first place, such a rigorous incumbent evaluation process would be unnecessary. It is unrealistic, however, to assume that every rock star board member will remain a rock star throughout their two, three or four terms of service. Circumstances and board needs change. Individuals and their professional and personal lives change. The skill needs of the board can be dramatically altered as the strategic vision and direction of the organization changes.

I recall a couple of rare instances on my board in which directors were asked to withdraw their request for nomination to a successive term. In one case, the director developed serious health issues and slept through most board meetings. In another case, the director’s personal philosophy of care for the individuals we served did not align with the philosophy of the organization. In another case, the director was the lone voice of dissent around how to handle a major financial issue and created disruption in meetings. Still another had the unacceptable habit of offending others over religious differences. In such cases, the CEO and his or her board chairman should tactfully and respectfully inform the incumbent that they are not going to be nominated for another term and to explain why.

Individual Director Assessment

In addition to conducting incumbent assessments, some boards provide an annual opportunity for each board member to reflect on their contributions of the past year and to develop a growth plan for improvement. This may seem a bit excessive, but I have seen examples of its effectiveness when administered as part of a larger board assessment process. For example, in one of the most widely used tools for nonprofit boards, BoardSource developed an online assessment tool that not only looks at overall board performance, but allows individual board members to evaluate their own performance.  Other organizations use other methods, but the bottom line is that in true Gestalt fashion, the whole (i.e., the board) is greater than the sum of its parts (i.e., individual directors). Each board member has an effect on every other board member, and the functioning of the whole as a coalition of individuals effects each individual who is part of it. Such a dynamic understanding of the interdependence and connectedness of directors to each other and to the whole is supported by regular individual assessment. Some organizational theorists like Robert Quinn (5)  even suggest that deep change in the organization is not possible without deep personal change by the participants. Therefore, opportunities for individual director performance evaluation should accompany efforts to assess overall board effectiveness.

A sound and relevant assessment practice involving individual board members should focus primarily on how well they meet the stated expectations, and not necessarily on how they perform on the commonly recognized board responsibilities. For example, preparation for board meetings is a reasonable expectation that supports effective board meetings. Strategic alignment with resources is a common board duty but isn’t something that an individual board member can directly effect. Participation in board meetings, individual philanthropic support, honoring confidentiality of information, acknowledging a conflict of interest – these are examples of individual responsibilities which should be assessed.

Besides formal, commercially available tools, there are a number of ways in which such individual assessment can be conducted. A simple chart of expectations with space to write personal reflections and growth goals might be sufficient. These might be reviewed by the board chair or the governance committee. In those instances where director performance does not meet board expectations, such an assessment could provide the basis for a candid conversation that might explore fit, ability, interest, commitment, behavior, or any other factor that is impeding the director’s full and effective participation. The ultimate outcome of such a process is for the board member to reflect, provide a self-assessment, get some feedback, and identify areas for improvement.

If an organization has chosen to use such an approach to self-assessment, the CEO is the logical person to make sure this process is executed. First, the CEO is already accountable to the board and isn’t being directly evaluated through this process. Second, the CEO should have knowledge of best practices in this area and can recommend approaches that best serve the board and its directors. Third, the CEO has access to staff and support systems that can manage this process in the administration of surveys, compilation of data, generating reports, and scheduling retreats or review sessions. Finally, the CEO can maintain confidential files on board members that contain their personal information, assessment results, donor records, and growth goals.

Informal Performance Evaluation

Besides the structured, formal process of board and individual performance evaluation, effective boards find ways to informally measure how well they are performing. If the board culture values continuous improvement in how well it functions, then there should be shared interest in finding ways to improve, not just on the big things that are covered in a formalized assessment process, but in the small things that contribute to meeting effectiveness – those things which add to a sense of accomplishment, support the belief that board members have contributed to the attainment of the organization’s mission, and that their attendance and participation matter.

There are many ways boards can conduct informal assessments to check how well they are meeting expectations. I’ll discuss several that I have used and which I have suggested for other boards to consider. One of the easiest is to hold a Plus/Delta discussion for a few minutes at the end of a meeting. On a board or slide two columns are drawn, one with a plus at the top and the other with a delta, these connoting either what went well in today’s meeting or what didn’t go well. Either the board chair or the CEO should facilitate the discussion. Specific examples should be sought. After the positive and negative factors have been identified, the board should brainstorm ways in which some of the delta items could be avoided or turned into pluses in future meetings.

Another way to help board members think about their roles and to focus their energies on organizational and board improvement is to devote time (I suggest up to a third of a meeting) to discuss a generative question. Such questions are aimed at doing two things. First, most board members belong to the board because they believe they have intellectual capital to share and desire to actively participate in discussions. It is ironic that most board agendas consist of hearing and approving reports and minutes, processing through rubber-stamp approval actions, and otherwise require only passive participation by directors. Second, well-constructed generative questions provide the opportunity to go deep into an area of mission, board function, risk, performance, or other critical issue facing the board. After I worked with our board chair to include a block of time in every board meeting agenda for this purpose, it was amazing to me to see how much more intensely board members became involved and how much follow-up discussion took place, often continuing for days following the meeting.

Another technique for conducting an informal assessment is to regularly pause after a decision has been made. For example, following a discussion and vote to expend more than a million dollars to upgrade a day services center, we paused to take a breath and reflect on how we felt about how we handled the issue. Such a pause allowed board members to express thoughts such as “I didn’t feel like we had enough information” or “It bothers me that some of us didn’t contribute anything to the discussion” or “I felt everyone had good comments and I feel good about our decision” and “It would have been helpful to understand why some were opposed instead of just voting ‘no’.” Such pauses don’t have to take more than a few minutes, but they tap into the thoughts and emotions of the moment and can provide some valuable insight into how the board and its individual members function together.

Some boards will occasionally use a brief follow-up survey to obtain perceptions around how well the board meeting went and what improvements could be made. This process is made easier with the availability of online survey tools such as SurveyMonkey. On the other hand, such follow up surveys could be perceived as overkill if other informal techniques are already being used. It is also a challenge for some boards to gain unanimous support for such a tool and if response rates are below a reasonable threshold, the data isn’t reliable. Additionally, attempts to evaluate a specific decision days after the event may lose the passion of the moment. Nevertheless, a periodic online survey does communicate the seriousness with which the board thinks about its own performance. The CEO is the logical person to initiate such a process for reasons previously stated.

Boards that seek to function effectively should work collaboratively with their CEO to find and test a variety of assessment tools so the board can assure itself and stakeholders that it is engaged in continuous quality assessment and improvement measures.

Board Development Plan

Every nonprofit board can grow and get better in the performance of its duties. I have talked to this point about how the CEO can help the board identify those areas in which the board is underperforming and for which some type of board development work is appropriate. If board assessment is directly linked to stated board member duties and responsibilities, then education is called for. If weaknesses in understanding the organization’s programs, clients, quality standards or potential risks to the organization are detected, then greater exposure to operations and direct experience with clients might be called for. If challenges are identified in how the board operates in its meetings and committees, then a review of expectations and professional training in best practice in nonprofit governance might be called for. If it is determined that the board as a whole lacks members with needed knowledge or professional expertise, an asset matrix might suggest areas for the CEO and the board’s nominating committee to focus on for recruitment purposes.

In the first instance, a board assessment might reveal some areas of deficit in knowledge and understanding of the fundamental duties and responsibilities of a nonprofit board. These might include a lack of understanding the legal duties of care, loyalty and obedience. The board may not understand its fiduciary responsibility and what that requires of them in terms of understanding and overseeing the financial resources of the organization. Legal requirements around conflicts of interest, self-dealing, and the importance of independence may need to be explained. A periodic review of the basic responsibilities of a nonprofit board could be conducted at an annual board retreat. I tried to never take for granted that every board member understood their basic responsibilities and my experience as a consultant to nonprofit board has confirmed the need for frequently reviewing such requirements.

In addition to legal duties and requirements, every nonprofit board has common responsibilities that must be fulfilled if the board is to effectively serve its governance purpose. Although various professional associations may describe them differently, these responsibilities fall into the following broad categories:

• Set the organization’s mission
• Hire and oversee the work of the CEO
• Conduct strategic planning
• Approve programs and monitor their performance
• Ensure financial sustainability through effective management practice
• Promote public image
• Ensure ethical integrity and accountability
• Assess its own effectiveness.

Several of these (e.g., hiring and supervising the CEO, strategic planning, public image) have been treated in previous articles. If the board, in meeting its responsibility to assess its own effectiveness, determines a deficit exists in understanding or performance in any of these areas, then education and training is required – all of which can be arranged by the CEO in consultation with professional organizations and associations devoted to building nonprofit board competence.

While most of the general board responsibilities are enduring and don’t change, others undergo modification and require additional monitoring to make sure the board is knowledgeable and can act responsibly on the basis of changing data. Risk assessment and mitigation is one such area that requires board attention. In a large and complex organization this can become a fairly significant undertaking which involves input from all areas of the organization. Development of a risk matrix and management process require the board to regularly monitor the status of various types of risk, make sure that resources are sufficient to monitor and mitigate risk, and that staff are appropriately accountable for management of risk mitigation strategies.

Nonprofit charitable organizations are in the people service business. Occasionally it happens that board members are recruited for their financial or legal acumen and have very limited knowledge or exposure to the actual programs and services provided by the organization and the population of clients served through those programs. In my case, as the CEO of a national agency providing services and supports to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the large majority of board members, while sympathetic and supportive of the mission, had little direct knowledge or experience with our clients and services. Consequently, a significant part of board development was taking the board into the field to experience first-hand how services were provided. Because we had programs in 14 states, we held one of our quarterly board meetings in a region away from our central office. We toured facilities, visited homes, had dinner with residents, met with staff and clients, and heard from regional leadership teams. Because we were also invested in international partnerships and supported programs in nine foreign countries, we even held one board meeting in the Dominican Republic to provide direct exposure to how we worked with a partner agency to bring innovation and best practice to second and third world countries. Such an experience was, according to board members, a life-altering experience and renewed for them their commitment to our international partnerships.

If a board assessment indicates shortcomings or dysfunction in how the board conducts its meetings, committees and other business, then the CEO is positioned to obtain professional outside assistance to provide training in how to run meetings, how to reorganize the governance structure, how to informally measure its performance effectiveness, how to deal with conflict – in short, how to build an effective team. This is one area the CEO cannot and should not function as the knowledge expert. It is truly an example of a prophet being without honor in his own country. Regardless of the camaraderie and mutual respect that may exist between the CEO and his or her board, providing direct training in how to function better as a board places the CEO in an authoritative position over the board. Inevitably, some board member is going to feel as though they are being “schooled” or criticized by the CEO for not functioning effectively. At the same time, the CEO should have knowledge and access to reputable professionals and consultants who can provide board training and promote the use of some of the formal and informal measures I have previously described. For me, the role of the CEO is critical, however, in this regard. To get to the point at which the board accepts the need for education and training in how to be a board requires an honest and constructively critical appraisal by the CEO. After all, it isn’t just in the CEO’s best interest to have a highly effective board to support him or her. It is the interest of the entire organization and its mission that are at stake.

To summarize, then, a board development plan should be based on a regular board effectiveness assessment. It should include the following general categories to make sure that every aspect of knowledge and competence is addressed.

• Understanding legal duties
• Fulfilling board responsibilities
• Growing best practice knowledge of the field
• Supporting individual director improvement
• Improving meeting effectiveness.
• Addressing other diagnosed deficiencies or dysfunctions.

Once a consensus is reached around the priorities for board development, the CEO can take the lead in formalizing these into an overall board development plan. Again, because the board itself meets only periodically and lacks continuous attention to these matters, the CEO is the obvious person to translate broad board development goals into specific training programs, workshops, guest speakers, field trips, etc. and to manage the calendar of such events including speakers, consultants, timing, execution, support and follow-up. All this can be done in consultation with board leadership without exceeding the perceived limits of authority.

Conclusion

I have argued in this article that the nonprofit CEO has a legitimate executive role to play with his or her board of directors in helping them evaluate their effectiveness as a board and to improve their performance. As a critical component of what I have called “reciprocal governance,” such a collaborative effort has the potential to advance the competence and effectiveness of the board for everyone’s benefit. For the CEO, a higher functioning board is more focused on the issues that are of greatest importance to the future of the organization. For the board, assessment and improvement plans reap a greater sense of accomplishment and greater participation by its members. While the CEO is subordinate to the board in one sense, the fact is that few boards can evaluate themselves and commit to improvement without the knowledge, expertise and management resources of the CEO. Finally, partnership toward achieving mutually agreed upon goals is the very essence of effective leadership.

Notes and References

¹ Maine Association of Nonprofits: https://www.nonprofitmaine.org. This organization and many  state associations like it provide a plethora of tools and resources for assessing board performance.

² BoardSource: https://boardsource.org/board-support/membership/board-support-nonprofits/.   This organization has been a national leader for years in the development of tools and resources for boards and CEOs. Its original Ten Responsibilities of the Nonprofit Board was the benchmark for understanding the scope of board duties. Their online assessment tool has     been further refined to focus on the board’s people, culture, work and impact. The four areas include the composition, organization and meetings of the board; the leadership culture on the board; the work including mission, vision, strategic direction, funding, public image, program oversight, financial oversight and CEO oversight; the perceptions of the board’s impact on organizational performance.

³ Maxwell, John.  Numerous books and articles.  John has written so many good books on leadership and provided so many keen insights into its practice, I could not locate the original source of this quote. I wrote it down after reading one of his books, so I know it originates with him, but in unscholarly fashion, I have shamelessly made the attribution without proper citation!

⁴ Lencioni, Patrick. (2002) The Five Dysfuntions of a Team. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

⁵ National Council of Nonprofits.  https://www.councilofnonprofits.org. This website can connect the reader with all the state nonprofit associations and offers many resources for boards that are interested in finding ways to improve their effectiveness. A quick perusal revealed a large number of state associations that have developed their own assessment tools for measuring board effectiveness and resources for boards to intentionally work to improve.

6 Quinn, Robert, (1996). Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA.