leading with intentDo you have a realistic idea of what your board would score if it were to undergo a full evaluation? As you probably know already, any weaknesses in the structure, organisation and management of your NFP can lead to troubles and hardship for your organisation, especially today when competition and creativity in the field have never been higher. The good news, however, is that there are organisations looking out for NFPs across Australia, and one of them is BoardSource with their Leading with Intent – a comprehensive scan of the NFP board performance, policies and practices.

So what is Leading with Intent and why is it so important? To start with, it is the only study in Australia that researches the governance of not-for-profit organisations by analysing data directly from the source, surveying chief executives and board chairs. This year, 846 chief executives responded to the request and provided their answers to 81 questions trying to evaluate their board in terms of structure, performance, culture, organisation. From those 846 chief executives, 664 decided to share the contacts of their board chairs, who were approached with an additional 30-question survey, and that resulted in 246 responses providing additional invaluable insight.

The Leading with Intent survey is important for various reasons. For one thing, it allows you to compare your results with those of others nationwide and see if you are headed in the right direction. It also provides main points for consideration – it will guide you in your effort to improve your board and organisation by showing you where you should focus. In January 2015, the average score for the participating boards was a B-, meaning that the situation is not bad, but there is still a lot of room for improvement, which we can see from the key findings below.

Leading with Intent shows that the following board aspects need to change/improve:

  • Diversity: while more people of colour joined boards since 2010, driving the numbers from 16% to 20%, there are still 25% of the boards that remain all White.
  • Performance: A very low number of chief executives believe that their boards can score the highest in terms of fundraising (4%), board composition (4%), community relations (6%), monitor programs (13%).
  • Board composition: 20% of the chief executives are not happy with the members of their boards.
  • Attendance of board meetings: it appears that the number of boards with perfect attendance is decreasing – from 41% in 2012 to 37% in 2014. 

The positive sides, however, are not to be neglected:

  • Financial oversight: the majority of board chairs (93%) and chief executives (86%) are happy with the financial controls in place.
  • Bylaws revision: another high score shows that more than 85% of the boards have revised their bylaws in the last 5 years.
  • Mission: it appears that board chairs and chief executives are happy with their organisations’ mission, with 50% giving an A, and 41% – B.

The Leading with Intent survey is available online and free for anyone to access. We strongly recommend that you give it a read to check your score, discover areas that you need to improve and find out whether you are leading with intent.