Governance & board development
Board effectiveness assessment and development for nonprofits
Your board meetings feel procedural rather than strategic — trustees are disengaged, contributions are uneven, and the board is not adding the value it should.
What you'll achieve
A more effective, engaged board that provides genuine strategic oversight, challenge, and support to the leadership team.
How a Nonprofit Builder consultant helps
- Conduct a board effectiveness assessment through surveys and interviews, facilitate a board development session, and produce a tailored improvement plan.
Key deliverables
- Board effectiveness survey and findings report, facilitated development session, individual trustee feedback, board improvement plan, follow-up check-in.
Related projects
More from Governance & board development
Board recruitment & induction support
“You struggle to find trustees with the right skills — and when you do recruit, new board members take far too long to become useful contributors.”See project
Board reporting, data and information
“Your Board feels it does not have the right information to function properly.”See project
Board self-evaluation facilitation
“Your board has never formally evaluated itself — there is no shared understanding of what good looks like and no accountability for improving.”See project
Often paired with
360-degree feedback design & facilitation
“Your leaders get little honest feedback about how they are actually experienced — blind spots go unaddressed and development stays superficial.”See project
Organisational capacity assessment
“You are growing or about to launch a new strategy — but you have no honest picture of whether your systems, structures, and people are ready for it.”See project
From the resource library
Free tools and guides to get started
- 3.4C039
Good Governance: A Health Check
A board self-assessment tied to the Code of Good Governance (3rd edition) in Northern Ireland. It has 92 questions across 5 principles: understanding the board's role, working as a team, control and risk, integrity, and openness and accountability. Boards rate each item not met, part met or fully met, record evidence against suggested prompts and fill in an action table for each principle with actions, owners and dates.
Start hereCurrentTool or templateFree - 3.4C038
Oak Foundation Governance Assessment Tool
A framework for assessing the practices and processes of a grantee's governing body. Oak programme officers use it during due diligence and through the grant to give boards a consistent assessment, to discuss with grantees what an effective board looks like and to track governance over time. It also helps programme officers spot where capacity-building support would help and orients new staff to Oak's view of good governance.
ClassicTool or templateFree
All 13 resources on governance and boards All 7 resources on starting a nonprofit