Evaluate trustees annually, using the Individual Trustee Assessment which is the final assessment in the BoardOnTrack assessments tab.
When
Most boards find it helpful to conduct individual trustee appraisals annually, a few months before the annual meeting when you elect officers and nominate trustees, as this appraisal helps inform whether trustees should be asked to continue or renew their term.
How
Ask each trustee to take the Individual Trustee Assessment. Then, the board chair, chair of the governance committee, and the CEO should meet to examine the results together.
The data collected in this survey can help you:
- Assess areas of individual trustee performance that might need development for your board as a whole. This information can be used to help you hone your governance goals and plan board education activities.
- Frame any conversations that may be necessary with board members who have not been consistently meeting the responsibilities of being a productive board member.
Recommended Action Steps
- Prior to looking at the assessment results, the board chair, Governance Committee chair, and CEO should take the answer key and try to fill it out for how they would rate each trustee.
- Then, you should compare notes with one another. And, compare your ratings with each trustee's self-assessment.
- Finally, the board chair and/or the Governance Committee chair should hold one-on-one meetings with each trustee to commend them on their performance or ask for improved performance, whichever is appropriate.
The CEO should not be put in the position of discussing trustee performance with individual trustees. It is much more effective and appropriate to have these conversations be volunteer-to-volunteer/peer-to-peer conversations.
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