One of the important factors for a successful not for profit (NFP) organisation is board effectiveness. It is  well-known that the NFP board should be at least as functional and effective as those in private sectors and you should regularly make sure if its members are keeping up to the standard. Board evaluation needs to fully assess the work and the functioning of the board, which will help you find out what is working and not working, what needs to be improved and what – to be kept this way.

When starting a NFP board evaluation, there are a number of questions to be answered in advanced. Most importantly – what exactly will be evaluated? You may want to focus on the skills and qualifications of the members, on the current strengths and weaknesses of the board, on its diversity, ethics, overall operation, etc. The answer to this question is tightly related to the objectives of the process – before the evaluation takes place, you will have to state its purpose – to improve the efficiency of the board, to diversify it, to fill skill gaps etc.

Another important question with NFP board evaluation is who will be evaluated and who will evaluate. You may want to have the board evaluated as a whole, or you may want to focus on certain members responsible for certain operations. As for the evaluator, you will have to decide whether it will be an internal or an external party who will carry out the process. If you decide to keep the evaluation internal, this may be less challenging for the board and may cost less. On the other hand, external party may provide more objective and transparent evaluation with valuable insight in terms of different evaluation techniques.

Speaking of techniques, there are several that can be used to evaluate the NFP board. Usually, they are classified as ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’, the former being able to appropriately represent numbers and figures, while the latter can give insight in the quality of the process – what is being done, how and why, etc.

Once you have evaluated your board, you will need to find out how to take the most out of the results. New board members, team-building programs and workshops, improvement of the communication – once you get the results, you will know exactly what your board needs. Just remember – carry out evaluations regularly, this will keep your board functional and effective.