QUT To Develop Not for Profit Evaluation Tool
14 September 2009 at 2:21 pm
The Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies (CPNS) at Queensland University of Technology is midway through a project to develop an evaluation tool for Not for Profit Boards and Trustees.
CPNS Director, Myles McGregor-Lowndes says there is currently no publicly available recognised evaluation tool which has been properly validated for Australian law and cultural norms.
McGregor-Lowndes says CPNS identified this gap several years ago and the project to rectify the situation has been funded by John T Reid Charitable Trusts and the ANZ Queensland Community Foundation – AN Carmichael Memorial Fund, managed by ANZ Trustees.
He says their pilot research indicates that board members and officers think about their governance in terms of five different areas: strategy, risk and compliance, oversight of the governance system, oversight and management of the chief executive and providing access to resources.
Project coordinator, Anne Overell says the research team is now looking for cooperation from a large number of Foundation and Not for Profit Boards to validate the diagnostic surveys that the initial pilot research produced.
She says participants will be asked to complete online surveys to generate a governance effectiveness report for those Boards and validation data to refine the Board Effectiveness Tool.
Overell says once the surveys have been fully developed it will eventually be possible for Not for Profit Boards to benchmark their own performance against that of comparable Boards and to assess their own performance over time.
Those wishing to participate in the project can contact Anne Overell via email at a.overell@qut.edu.au or by phone on 07 3138 6780.
