A Board Skills Matrix provides an easy-to-use structure to guide decisions in crafting your board’s composition to fit the nonprofit’s needs. This is an essential tool to help build succession plans for recruiting new board members.
Below is an example of a wildlife conservation organization that works internationally with different governments, NGOs, and international donors. The board scored highest in the Natural Sciences (Biology) and Nonprofit Management, while it falls short in knowledge related to Marketing, Legal matters, and HR.
To create a Board Skills Matrix:
A). Identify the skills and knowledge domains needed to succeed.
B). List the experience of the board members qualitatively as Strong, Low, and No experience.
C). Assign a quantitative value to the qualitative descriptive data, such as 2=Strong, 1-Low experience, and 0=No experience.
D. Sort the scores to identify areas where your board needs to focus its resources in recruiting new members. In this case, a score under 10 reveals a scarcity of knowledge in your organization. A score of 5 and below shows an absence of knowledge.
