New survey tool to build better boards

Posted on 14 Nov 2024

By Matthew Schulz, journalist, Institute of Community Directors Australia

A national board assessment service is joining forces with the Institute of Community Directors Australia (ICDA) to launch an affordable new tool to help NFPs benchmark their governance.

Board Surveys – part of the Insync group – this week released a tailored survey and benchmarking report for small not-for-profits.

Adele Stowe-Lindner, executive director, ICDA

The Entry Level Board Survey – as the name suggests – is designed to be an easy introduction to quality benchmarking and is tailored to the needs of Australian not-for-profits.

The survey assesses boards in 14 measurement categories. Crucial to the design is that the survey and benchmarking report is mapped against ICDA’s training and resources, making it easy for boards to find the information they need to lift their game in particular areas.

ICDA executive director Adele Stowe-Lindner said the survey tool provided an easy and affordable board assessment for clubs, associations, and not-for-profits, including committees and other governance bodies.

The benchmarking tool allows organisations to rank themselves against hundreds of similar organisations, including charities, health services, education providers and social sector organisations.

“This agreement is a game changer for the governance and effectiveness of Australian boards."

Adele Stowe-Lindner, executive director, ICDA

Benchmark Screenshot — Benchmarked scores show how well board members perform against comparable organisations.

Stowe-Lindner said the arrangement fitted neatly with ICDA’s mission to boost leadership confidence and increase knowledge and skills across the sector.

“This agreement is a game changer for the governance and effectiveness of Australian boards,” she said.

The Institute has negotiated a 10% discount on the $499 fee, which includes the survey and a 10-page benchmarking report.

Board Surveys executive chair Nicholas Barnett described the joint venture as a perfect fit to provide boards with “clear guidance about what needs to be improved”.

“ICDA has much the same vision and purpose as us, to improve the governance and effectiveness of the many hundreds of thousands of small community and NFP boards in Australia and the world,” Barnett said.

He said the survey tool had been honed by years of testing on much larger organisations and was a simplified version of other Insync products, including Board Benchmarking.

He believed the release of an affordable board assessment tool for smaller not-for-profits was a “world first”, and said the tool’s “world class” pedigree had been established by a careful assessment by Deakin University experts.

“We are not aware of another board survey in the world that has been through such a rigorous validation process,” Barnett said.

Barnett said the Entry Level Board Survey tool was as little as 5% of the price of similar products, and avoided the errors and privacy issues that tended to afflict in-house board surveys.

Users include RSPCA Victoria, whose chair, Bernie Delaney, described the resource as “a very practical and useable board review”.

Another not-for-profit using the system is Green Collect, whose chair, John Altman, said the benchmark report had been “extremely beneficial in helping improve our effectiveness as a group”. His board was able to make significant improvements after the initial assessment, he said.

Barnett said Board Surveys planned to use de-identified metrics from the surveys to glean new insights about effective boards from the ICDA cohort.