START ON YOUR OWN
Questions Worth Asking
Three sets of questions you can work through on your own, free to use, with nothing to sign up for. None of them score you and none of them grade your board. They take what you already know and sort it into the one or two things worth doing next.
BOARD WORK
Ten Questions For You
For one director, on your own.
Five minutes.
You do not need anyone’s permission to take this one. It asks about your own work as a director, not about your board. Directors often use it to work out whether to raise the longer board version at the next meeting.
BOARD WORK
Twenty Questions For Your Board
For the whole board, together.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty questions about how your board actually works, in four groups. It fits as an agenda item and it works better as the first half hour of a retreat. At the end it shows you which group to start with.
BOARD WORK
Your Nominations Timeline
For a Board recruiting new Directors.
Put in your annual meeting date, and see every step counted back, including the dates Ontario’s law sets.
It takes about two minutes, and everything stays on your device.
EXTERNAL AND PRESENCE
Who Knows You Before You Need Them
For an executive director or a senior team. Fifteen minutes.
About the relationships outside your organization’s walls: funders, the three levels of government, and the communities you work with. It ends with three things you could do this quarter, and a plan that turns a whole year of relationship building into under two hours.
ADVISORY
The Conversation You Keep Putting Off
For an executive director or a board member.
Three taps, and we’ll give you the words to start that conversation. You’ll get a first line to open with, what to say after it, and how to slow things down if it gets heated. Nothing you share leaves your device.
How People Use These
- One director takes the ten questions, then brings the board version to the next meeting as a suggestion rather than as a criticism.
- A chair puts the twenty questions on the agenda as a twenty-minute item. Saying out loud at the start that nobody is being marked changes how honestly people answer.
- An executive director works through the third one before a funder meeting, or while a community consultation is still being planned rather than after it has gone sideways.
- Print your result and bring it. Having something in your hand makes the conversation easier to start.
Nothing you answer is saved, sent, or seen by us. There is no account and no email box, and your answers are never sent anywhere. The cookie notice you saw on arrival is about the site itself, not about anything you type here. Refresh the page and it starts over. That is deliberate, so a chair can answer honestly about her board without wondering where the answers go.
These questions are for reflection and planning. They are not legal, financial, or employment advice, and they do not replace advice from your own lawyer or accountant about a specific situation.
A Fuller Board Self-Assessment Is On The Way
These three sets are yours to use today. This fall we’re adding a fuller board self-assessment, where the board and the executive director each answer, so you can see where you’re aligned and where there’s room for more conversation. Not many people know this one is coming yet, and if you found your way here, you’re one of them. We open it to a small group first, so add yourself to the select list and we’ll reach out when ready to share.
Not Sure What To Do With What You Found?
Most people are not, and that is fine. The first conversation is thirty minutes, free, and useful whether or not we end up working together.