Introducing Board Check: How well rounded is your nonprofit board

We’re releasing Board Check, a free tool that helps nonprofits understand how well rounded their board is. Answer a few questions about your directors and get a snapshot of the contributions across your board, with areas worth discussing and practical next steps.

We built it after conversations with executive directors about a familiar challenge: people join a board because they care about the cause, but knowing how to contribute doesn’t always come naturally.

A director may want to help with fundraising but feel uncomfortable asking for donations. Someone may have a strong network but be unsure how to introduce the organization to their contacts. Others may bring valuable experience that hasn’t come up in board discussions.

You often discover these things once you start working together. That’s when you get a clearer sense of your board’s strengths, where directors need support, and which needs aren’t being met.

Acting on that understanding can be difficult. Directors have volunteered their time because they care, and changing the board’s composition can involve awkward conversations. When someone’s term ends, there’s an opportunity to step back before recruiting their replacement. Does the board need someone with the same background, or have its needs changed?

Board Check gives you a starting point for those conversations.

Enter your nonprofit’s website to look for your board members, or enter their names yourself. After confirming the list, answer a few questions about each director’s contributions across six areas:

• Financial oversight
• Fundraising and resources
• Governance
• Mission and program expertise
• Strategy and leadership
• Community relationships

The check also asks about directors’ ties to the community and firsthand experience with the mission, so the picture extends beyond professional backgrounds.

Your results include a contribution map, a score with a transparent breakdown, and suggested questions and next steps. You can use them to prepare for recruitment, discuss where existing directors could use support, or revisit contributions you may have overlooked.

The snapshot reflects your answers. An area that nobody selected among their top two contributions may still be a strength worth confirming. The results give you something concrete to discuss with your directors and build on together.

You don’t need to be concerned about your board to find that useful. Even a strong board can benefit from occasionally checking whether its mix of experience, relationships, and contributions still fits what the organization needs.

Try Board Check for free. No sign-in is required, and you can see your results before choosing whether to receive the report by email.