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Conducting an Assessment of the Chief Executive with BoardSource

This resource will act as a guide for nonprofit boards that are planning to utilize BoardSource’s Assessment of the Chief Executive. Below you will find important steps that can guide you through a smooth and easy evaluation process.

1. Check the Current Policies and Practices in Place on Your Board

Do you have a written policy around formally evaluating your chief executive? If the answer is no, consider exploring whether this is an opportunity to incorporate such an evaluation as a yearly responsibility of the board.

2. Build Support for the Process

From our experience, boards that planned and discussed an upcoming evaluation were successful in achieving higher participation rates compared to those who did not. It is also important to explore and share the intent behind conducting an evaluation. We encourage your board to take time before engaging in the evaluation process to discuss what the board is hoping to achieve.

3. Gather and Compile the Necessary Materials and Information

Having this information ready to go will make things easier to get things going and allow you to be prepared for any questions and discussions that might come from your board members or chief executive.

Our team will need the following to initiate the survey for your organization:

  • Your chief executive’s annual performance goals
  • The date you plan to present the results to your full board or executive committee
  • Contact information for the person chosen to represent your board throughout this process
  • List of participants (including email address and role ex. Board member, CEO/Executive Director, staff, etc,)

It might be helpful for your own internal discussions to have on hand:

  • Your chief executive’s job description
  • The mission and vision of your organization
  • Past evaluation results for comparison

4. Engage with BoardSource

Purchasing our tool a la carte or considering joining BoardSource as a Board Support program member to redeem your complimentary tool can get you started. Once the intake form is submitted, it will prompt our team that it’s time to set things up (either as a complimentary redemption described above or through the link provided after purchasing the tool a la carte). You will receive an email one week from the form submission date with your project’s details.

5. Response Collection

The day the survey opens, your board and chief executive will receive an invitation via email with their own personal survey link. We recommend keeping the survey open for 2 weeks to allow time for folks to participate. Our team will set-up automatic reminder emails to go out while the survey is ongoing, but we highly encourage your organization’s representative to reach out as well to give folks an extra nudge. While the survey is open, our team will be available at [email protected] to help with any questions and troubleshoot issues that may arise.

6. Compile Results

Throughout the process our team will provide regular updates regarding the status of participation and are flexible to extending the deadline as long as we are able to meet any timeline restrictions you might have. Closure of the survey is decided by factoring participation levels against any timeline restrictions and must be approved by the individual representing your organization throughout this project. One week from the official closure date the results will be sent in PDF format via email to the individual acting as the organization’s representative.

7. Using Your Survey Results

You’ve got your results; now what? We recommend reviewing this list of prompting questions (also included at the end of your report) for your board to develop a board action plan.

Additional resources to consider:

  • Performance Goals for the Chief Executive
  • Board Retreat How-To (members only)
  • If your organization needs deeper support in analyzing the results or help leading a retreat to review the data, we recommend engaging a governance consultant. Before you get started, be sure to review the FAQs on engaging a consultant. You can filter our consultant directory by areas of expertise, including consultants who are BoardSource Board Self-Assessment Certified Facilitators

101 Resource | Last updated: May 9, 2025