Board Governance Consulting for New England Organizations

We start with a structured look at how your board works today, including who serves on it, how committees function, and how meetings run. Board members complete a confidential self-assessment, we interview the chair and the CEO, and we review your bylaws and governing documents. You get a short written report with the gaps ranked by what to fix first.

For nonprofits, the review also checks the governance policies the IRS asks about on Form 990, Part VI, such as a written conflict of interest policy, a whistleblower policy, and a document retention policy.

Most boards know their CEO needs an annual review. Far fewer have a fair way to run one.

We build the evaluation process with your board. Goals get agreed at the start of the year. Board members give structured input, and where it helps, so do the CEO’s direct reports through a 360 evaluation. Then we facilitate the conversation where the board delivers the results. We’ve run CEO evaluations for credit union boards and other organizations across the region.

If your board also sets the CEO’s pay, we can bring regional compensation data into the same conversation. Form 990 asks nonprofits whether the CEO’s pay was approved by independent board members using comparability data, with the decision documented at the time. An outside pay benchmark covers the comparability piece.

An annual retreat gives your board room to think past the monthly or quarterly meeting. A retreat goes best when the chair can join the discussion while someone else runs the agenda and makes sure all members are heard. We plan the day with your chair and CEO, facilitate it, and send a written summary that gives every decision an owner and a date.

Friction between a board and its CEO usually starts with an unclear line between governing and managing. The board drifts into day-to-day operations, or the CEO makes a decision the board expected to weigh in on. We help both sides agree on where the line sits and put it in writing.

New members often spend their first year figuring out how the board operates. We build an onboarding framework you can reuse with every incoming member. It can include an orientation session, a board handbook, and a pairing with an experienced member.

Bylaws tend to get written once and forgotten until someone needs them. We review your bylaws, committee structure, and term limits against how your board runs today, then recommend changes for your legal counsel to finalize.