Self-Assessment of Boards is among the key leadership habits that top-performing boards of nonprofits employ to ensure the long-term success of their governance. It requires the board to take a break from day-to-day business and candidly examine its effectiveness. This allows the board to proactively take on areas that could otherwise be major sources of frustration and friction.

There are many ways to conduct a self-assessment for your board including interviews and surveys to facilitated discussions. The best approach will depend on the size of your board, the resources you have available and how much depth you’d like to add to the assessment.

Once you decide on the method, be sure to clearly define the goals you intend to achieve by the process. Do you want to improve accountability, improve governance, or align governance with the goals of your organization? Once you have decided you can choose an evaluation tool.

Some tools allow you to compare your results with other health facilities and hospitals while others focus on your organization’s governance policies. It’s important to make sure that the tools you select are unbiased and don’t make a distinction between directors. This will create a space where honest feedback can be offered.

A lot of boards employ a peer-review process, which asks directors to review each one another. It can be a useful and effective exercise, however, it’s important that the process remains confidential. It can be difficult for some directors to critique someone else’s decision if they worry that it will come back on them. In this situation it’s best to have the facilitator review all of the comments and determine which insights are relevant to communicate to the board.

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