Board Self-Assessment (BSA)
The BSA lays the foundation for setting board development priorities and motivating board members — individually and collectively — to strengthen the full board’s governance performance and practices.
By establishing a common understanding of board roles and responsibilities and measuring your board’s performance against these recognized roles and responsibilities, your board can focus on what’s critical for success.
BoardSource’s easy, online assessment process takes the hassle out of conducting and participating in an assessment. You can rely on our years of experience facilitating online assessments. We value confidentiality and recognize that arms-length administration provides your board with the opportunity to speak openly and candidly about all aspects of board operations.
Whether you’re conducting an assessment to validate that your board is in step with recommended practices or to tackle an issue, you’ll find that the perspectives of your board members will provide valuable insight on where to focus your energy for the good of the organization.
Our comprehensive tool covers board practices and policies
in these areas of board responsibility:
The People
Board Composition
Board Structure
Board Meetings
The Culture
Leadership Culture & Dynamics
The Work
Mission, Vision, & Strategic Direction
Funding & Public Image
Program Oversight
Financial Oversight
Chief Executive Supervision & Oversight
The Impact
Perceptions of the Board’s Impact on Organizational Performance
The report also benchmarks your board’s responses against other nonprofit organizations that have answered the same questions, which may be helpful as you consider your board’s performance relative to your peers across the country.*
BoardSource recommends that boards assess their overall performance every two years and build tangible board development plans based on what they learn. BoardSource’s BSA is included as part of our membership programs for nonprofit organizations, or as a stand-alone resource.
*Due to this benchmarking service, were are unfortunately unable to make any customizations to survey questions.
$0 – $549 Board Support Program Members | $749 Individual Members | $975 Nonmembers
Purchase AssessmentMembers, Redeem Your Complimentary Assessment
Learn more about the Process & Timeline, after you purchase the assessment. All assessments are valid for one year after the date of purchase.
Are you a foundation, school, or association? BoardSource offers additional board-self assessment tools for foundations, schools, and associations.
The survey gave us a focus and helped the board label behavior. Everyone has an idea on what good board behavior means- having one source of truth leveled the playing field and reduced the noise.
Joan Kwiatkowski, PACE
Additional Supports
Many organizations find it helpful to complete the Board Self-Assessment and then use one of our additional tools to set a course for strengthened performance through focused board development. Consider purchasing a DECK and working with a consultant to dive deeper into your assessment results.
Board Self-Assessment (BSA) DECK
A PowerPoint presentation featuring highlights of your BSA results and basic benchmark data to be used when presenting your results to the full board.
What’s a DECK? It’s a deck of 15-20 PowerPoint slides featuring highlights from your assessment results and basic comparison scores benchmarking your assessment scores against other nonprofit boards that have used our BSA tool. The slide deck is a great tool to use when presenting your assessment results to the full board. Use it to start a meaningful and thoughtful conversation about how to strengthen performance.
$399 Board Support Program Members | $499 Individual Members | $599 Nonmembers
BoardSource is unable to prepare a DECK unless you have completed and closed a BSA within the past 120 days.
Please allow 3-5 business days from purchase for the delivery of DECK (via email).