How to Structure Your Board's Executive Evaluation Process

In Part 1 of this series, Why Executive Evaluation Is a Nonprofit Board’s Responsibility, we explored why evaluating the chief executive is an essential part of the board’s role and why even committed boards can struggle to follow through.

Putting that responsibility into practice requires preparation. Without agreed expectations, board members may arrive at the review with thoughtful observations but very different ideas about what the leader was expected to accomplish. The chief executive, meanwhile, may be unsure how those observations will shape the assessment.

Part 2 explains how to establish a clear review process, from assigning responsibilities and setting an annual timeline to defining meaningful goals and gathering relevant feedback. That preparation gives the board and chief executive a shared foundation for discussing performance, development, and the support needed to advance the organization’s mission.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Clarify Roles and Responsibilities

2. Determine How the Full Board Will Participate

3. Establish the Annual Performance Review Timeline

4. Tailor the Six Core Leadership Competencies

5. Set Measurable Goals That Advance Strategic Priorities

6. Gather Feedback From People Who Can Meaningfully Contribute

7. Address Bias Throughout the Process

8. Prepare For a Useful Review Conversation

9. Strengthen Your Board's Approach to Executive Leadership

Clarify Roles and Responsibilities

The board should begin by identifying a committee to coordinate the review, taking into account the organization’s structure, bylaws, and governance practices. The executive committee may be a practical choice when its members work closely with the chief executive and understand the context surrounding the leader’s decisions. Other organizations may assign the work to a governance, human resources, talent, or dedicated performance management committee.

Before the review cycle begins, assign responsibility for four areas:

• Coordinate the process: Set the timeline, communicate expectations, and track deadlines.
• Gather feedback: Collect input from the agreed sources using consistent questions.
• Prepare the written assessment: Review the evidence, summarize findings, and draft the evaluation.
• Lead the review conversation: Identify who will discuss the assessment with the chief executive and whether other committee members will attend.

The board chair’s role should be explicit within these assignments. The chair may lead the process from beginning to end or share responsibilities with other members, depending on the board’s structure and capacity. What matters most is that the chief executive and everyone involved know who is responsible for each stage and where to direct questions.

Determine How the Full Board Will Participate

Although a committee may organize the review, the full board retains responsibility for overseeing and supporting the chief executive. Establish how members will contribute to the evaluation and which decisions require full board approval under the organization’s bylaws and governance practices.

Before the review begins, agree on:

• Annual goals: How the full board will consider and approve the goals established with the chief executive.
• Performance feedback: When members will be invited to share observations and how their input will inform the assessment.
• Review findings: How the committee will bring its assessment and recommendations to the board for discussion or approval, as appropriate.
• Compensation decisions: Whether the full board or an authorized committee will approve any resulting compensation changes.

Documenting these decisions and approval procedures helps preserve continuity when board membership changes and gives members a shared understanding of how they will carry out their oversight responsibilities. It also makes it easier to explain the process to the chief executive, who should understand how the evaluation will be developed and which decisions require broader board involvement.

Establish the Annual Performance Review Timeline

A predictable review cycle gives the board and chief executive opportunities to address performance while there is still time to influence it. Without those conversations, the annual meeting can become an exercise in reconstructing the year, with recent events receiving more attention than earlier contributions or challenges.

Adapt the following sequence to the organization’s fiscal year and governance practices. For example, an evaluation timeline may include:

1. Before the review period: Confirm responsibilities, revisit the executive’s role and leadership competencies, and select feedback sources. Clarify how performance will inform compensation decisions and who must approve them.
2. At the beginning of the period: Agree on measurable annual goals, complete the board’s approval process, and establish a schedule for check-ins.
3. Throughout the year: Discuss progress, changing circumstances, resource needs, and any support the chief executive requires.
4. Before the formal review: Gather relevant feedback and prepare the written assessment.
5. At the formal review: Discuss performance, the context surrounding results, and priorities for development. Use the findings to inform compensation recommendations through the agreed process.
6. Before the next cycle begins: Complete required approvals and establish goals and priorities for the coming period, allowing enough time for any compensation decisions to take effect as intended.

Quarterly or midyear check-ins require time, but they create space for a more productive conversation than a year-end assessment alone can provide. If a major funding source disappears or an unexpected leadership vacancy changes the executive’s workload, the board and chief executive can discuss what those developments mean for the original goals. Any agreed changes should be documented so the final assessment reflects the expectations under which the leader was actually working.

Tailor the Six Core Leadership Competencies

A chief executive’s responsibilities extend beyond any single year’s priorities. The board needs a way to evaluate the ongoing work of leading the organization alongside the specific goals established for the review period.

Drawing on BoardSource’s framework, Edgility Talent Partners recommends the six competency areas below as a starting point for that discussion. They describe the executive's responsibilities, while annual goals specify what the leader is expected to accomplish in those areas over a particular period.

• Strategic planning: Setting the organization’s vision, establishing priorities, and leading their execution.
• Fundraising: Securing financial support and cultivating relationships that sustain the organization’s work.
• Culture building and internal administration: Managing staff, supporting team morale, and maintaining effective internal operations.
• Board relations: Building a productive working relationship and maintaining clear communication with the board.
• Communications and public relations: Overseeing external communications, partnerships, and government relationships where relevant.
• Financial stewardship: Maintaining financial health and responsibly managing organizational resources. The chief executive remains accountable even when a chief financial officer oversees financial operations.

These areas should be tailored to the executive’s job description and the organization’s mission, values, and structure. Fundraising expectations, for example, may look different for a leader who personally cultivates major donors than for one whose primary responsibility is supporting a development team. The review should reflect those distinctions rather than treating a broad competency label as a complete definition of success.

Revisit the framework each year as the role evolves, adding a competency when a significant responsibility is not adequately captured. The aim is a useful description of the job the executive is expected to do.

Set Measurable Goals That Advance Strategic Priorities

Before the review period begins, the board and chief executive should agree on annual goals that advance the organization’s strategic plan. If there is no current plan, establish priorities based on the organization’s mission, financial position, programmatic needs, and current circumstances.

Not every competency needs the same number of goals or equal emphasis every year. An organization preparing for a major fundraising campaign may place greater weight on donor development, while another navigating significant internal change may need to prioritize staff leadership and operations. Discussing those choices helps the executive understand where to focus attention and how the board will weigh competing demands.

Each goal should identify:

• The intended result.
• How progress will be measured.
• The deadline and relevant milestones.

Instead of “raise more money,” specify a fundraising target, establish milestones, and clarify related expectations, such as diversifying the donor base or strengthening relationships with existing supporters. Agreeing on these details upfront gives the board and executive a shared basis for assessing progress, understanding challenges, and determining what needs to change.

The chief executive then translates these organizational goals into expectations for senior leaders, who establish corresponding goals for their teams. This cascading goals approach helps staff understand how their individual responsibilities contribute to the organization’s strategic priorities.

Gather Feedback From People Who Can Meaningfully Contribute

The board sees only part of the chief executive’s work. Staff, direct reports, and external partners may observe aspects of leadership that do not appear in board meetings, but gathering more perspectives is useful only when contributors can speak to the areas being assessed.

Choose feedback sources based on what they have firsthand knowledge of, and explain how their input will be used. A 360-degree feedback process can help organize these perspectives, but it remains one source of evidence within the review. It should inform the board’s judgment alongside agreed goals, documented results, and relevant context.

Gather Board Feedback

A structured survey or individual conversations led by the chair or another designated member can give board members a consistent way to contribute. Ask for specific examples and give respondents an opportunity to indicate when they do not have enough information to assess an area.

A member who works closely with the executive on fundraising may have valuable insight into donor relationships but little visibility into staff management. Recognizing those limits helps the committee distinguish informed observations from impressions formed at a distance.

Gather Staff Feedback

Staff can help the board understand how the executive’s leadership is experienced within the organization, including whether expectations are clear, communication is useful, and managers receive the support they need. Where an existing staff sentiment or climate survey is available, executive-specific questions may provide broader input without requiring a separate survey.

Direct reports can also contribute observations related to their responsibilities. A chief financial officer may offer insight into financial stewardship, while a chief development officer may be positioned to discuss the executive’s role in fundraising and donor relationships. Their perspective should be considered in relation to what they can observe, rather than treated as a judgment on every aspect of the role.

Before requesting feedback, explain the confidentiality arrangements and how responses will be used. Staff need a clear understanding of the process so they can decide how to participate and what information is relevant to share.

Consider External Stakeholder Feedback

Donors, funders, partners, and other constituents may provide useful insight into the executive’s external leadership when they have worked with the leader directly. Gathering that input requires additional coordination and care for the relationships involved, so some boards may choose to do so periodically rather than every year.

Select contributors whose experience relates to the review and consider whether the board has the capacity to interpret their feedback responsibly. A broader process is worthwhile when it adds meaningful evidence, rather than simply increasing the volume of responses.

Use Feedback to Inform the Review

Feedback can confirm a pattern the board has observed or reveal an issue that deserves closer examination. It should not independently determine ratings or turn the review into a referendum on the executive’s popularity.

Consider a hypothetical situation in which staff express frustration after a difficult budget decision while board members view the same decision as necessary for financial stability. The committee needs to understand whether the concern is about the decision itself, how it was communicated, or how the executive managed its consequences. Those distinctions allow the board to examine leadership behavior without assuming that dissatisfaction alone establishes poor performance.

When perspectives conflict, seek examples and explore the context before drawing conclusions. The purpose of gathering input is to strengthen the assessment, including by identifying questions that the available evidence has not yet answered.

Address Bias Throughout the Process

Bias mitigation belongs in the design of the review and in the way the committee interprets what it learns. Consistent questions, clearly defined expectations, and a focus on observable behavior give the board a stronger basis for evaluating performance than general impressions about what a leader should be like.

When reviewing feedback, consider each contributor’s access to the executive and ask whether the comments describe performance or reflect disagreement with a particular decision or priority. Examine conflicting accounts with the same care given to feedback that confirms the committee’s existing views, and avoid allowing the most vocal contributor to define the overall assessment.

This discipline supports a more credible review. It helps the board explain its conclusions, identify where further information is needed, and distinguish a development need from a preference about leadership style.

Prepare for a Useful Review Conversation

By clarifying responsibilities, defining competencies, agreeing on goals, and selecting relevant feedback sources, the board creates the conditions for a more substantive performance conversation. The chief executive can understand how the assessment was developed, and board members can connect their conclusions to expectations established before the review began.

Part 3 explains how to bring that preparation into the assessment itself, including how to use a performance rubric, compare four-point and five-point rating scales, and conduct the review conversation. It also explores how findings can inform compensation decisions and where third-party support may be useful.

Strengthen Your Board’s Approach to Executive Leadership

Performance management, compensation, and succession planning each influence the board’s ability to support effective executive leadership. Considering them together helps members connect the leader’s current performance with the organization’s longer-term needs and make decisions they can explain with confidence.

For practical guidance, download Board Governance for Nonprofits: A Practical Guide to Executive Compensation, Performance Management, and Leadership Succession Planning.

Boards seeking support with designing or strengthening an executive performance review process can also contact Edgility Talent Partners to discuss their needs.