Board of Directors Support

Provide advice related to board, design, role development, assessment, development and coaching for board members.

While Boards of Directors perform many critical functions for organizations, they are often a neglected entity formed by necessity, but not structured to support optimal functioning of an enterprise. Schoonover Associates offers a range of structured services related to Boards of Directors, helping them fulfill critical capabilities such as:

Strategic Interventions

  • Development of organization mission, vision and values
  • Development of organization strategies, plans, priorities, and programs
  • Approval and oversight of programs
  • Ensuring financial viability and integrity of the organization

External Interventions

  • Development of organization reputation and brand
  • Broadening community relationships and reach

Internal Board Management

  • Managing board talent, structure, charter/policies/practices, including composition and functioning of committees
  • Providing organization governance and decision-making oversight
  • Supporting collaborative teamwork and participation
  • Conducting productive meetings with full participation, documentation of process and recommendations, and reporting outcomes to executive management/stakeholders
  • Providing board member evaluations and development
  • Ensuring the whole board has the range of talents to be effective and that each member has the leadership and specialized competencies needed to contribute

Organization Support and Oversight

  • Evaluating and managing organizational risk
  • Providing advice about strategies and operational issues and opportunities
  • Selecting and providing evaluations, coaching and feedback to executive leader(s)
  • Participating in and contributing to important organizational initiatives

Our support for the above capabilities is based on best practice materials developed over many years in diverse client engagements. We have developed and applied a Board of Directors competency profile to select, assess, coach and develop individual members and the whole team and we have generated and applied a Board Evaluation Checklist to determine overall strengths and needs and help boards improve their performance.

Our approach is flexible and includes both limited interventions such as advising and coaching CEO’s and Board Chairman’s and broader engagements focused on forming, evaluating or even restructuring boards.