Free online tool offers church boards a quick check-up
VICTORIA, BC - Boards that govern non-profit organizations - including churches, denominations and other Christian groups - now have a free online tool at their disposal that can help them be more effective overseers.
Victor Murray, an adjunct professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria, is the developer of the Board Performance Self-Assessment Questionnaire.
Andy Renton, until recently the youth pastor at Lambrick Park Church in Victoria, did an evaluation of the tool for his master's thesis in leadership studies at UVic. He believes it is “critical" that Christian boards especially make use of it.
“We often have the mentality that you don't want to argue, you don't want to fight about things. So some things do remain unsaid," says Renton. “The goal is to give everyone...the ability to have their say, because not everyone is as vocal as others."
Filling out the questionnaire only takes about 20 minutes. For those assigned to coordinate the survey, the time-commitment is up to an hour spread over two weeks. The findings are analyzed and reported back to the board. No names are used.
“It tells you where you are really strong as a board, but also those areas that you need to work on," Renton says. “And it gives you some help for how to work on those areas."
Murray says he and an American colleague designed the tool to assist non-profit boards, because they often include people with little or no previous board experience.
“They mostly are great well-wishers of the organization," he says. “But they don't necessarily always have a lot of relevant background. So they can get into difficulty."
Three organizations agreed to take the questionnaire as part of Renton's research - and it seems all of them found it useful. “Everyone that I talked to said it already was having a positive impact, just giving people more clarity," he says.
“It's comparable," says Murray, “to going to a doctor for the first time and being asked to fill out a long checklist, saying, 'Do you have any of the following?' It tells the doctor what to focus on - and that's how we view this."
Music for Youth, a two-year-old organization that gives children the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument in school, is one of three groups that tried out the tool for Renton's project.
Ron Truswell, who chairs Music for Youth's six-member board, calls it “a nice tool" to have as they start shifting from basically running the organization to doing some vision-casting.
“Planning was sporadic," he says. “I mean, we were running around looking for places to have a board meeting. But now that we have our feet on the ground, there can be some planning. And that tool, I think, is definitely going to be a huge help for us."
To date, about 40 boards have answered the questionnaire. Murray plans to follow up with them in about a year to see what kind of difference the tool has made.
In 2007, Renton was selected as one of the up-and-coming Christian leaders in Canada under the age of 35 profiled in ChristianWeek's “35 Under 35" publication.
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