GOVERNANCE AUDIT & REVIEW
Governance Audits and Governance Reviews provide a valuable, candid, and well-documented assessment of your organization’s operational effectiveness, accompanied by recommendations for improvements.
TRAINING & COACHING
Training & Coaching allows us to provide one-on-one education, process implementation, and skills development.
CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS
Certificate Programs are a compelling and practical way to build skills and increase engagement within your organization.
RETREATS
We frequently use Retreats as a way of disrupting an unproductive paradigm. Situating a group in a different environment and facilitating open communication leads to productive changes.
Most board-led organizations are not reaching their potential. This usually results from some kind of disconnect between their mission / vision, their strategies / specific plans, and their organizational structure.
Put simply, there’s a gap between what they want to be and what they are doing.
In some cases, there is not a dysfunctional gap, but rather a desire to move from “good” to “great.” In most cases, however, we find that either governance, strategy, or communication that is poorly structured, interpersonal conflicts, or other dysfunctional factors are responsible for the organization’s failure to achieve their desired outcomes.
The BOARD VERITAS difference
Certainly, the Board Veritas team brings scientific best practices, experience-based strategies, and extensive skills to each engagement. What makes us unique is our ability to tactfully bring the things that often go unspoken to the surface. Many organizations have extremely difficult underlying issues that – for reasons that may be political, cultural, or personal – remain buried and unaddressed.
Quite often, these are the issues that hold an organization back. Our diverse and sophisticated team can help your organization productively and sensitively address such issues, and integrate related solutions into a new culture of performance and communication for your organization.
Some of the challenges we often help organizations address include:
Governance & Culture
Where assessment ends, action begins
Consultants are often regarded as having the role of identifying problems and opportunities, and then making recommendations to address them. In that scenario, the consultant’s job is then complete, and the organization is left to implement any solutions of their choosing on their own. When it comes to things like governance, quality of leadership, complex personal dynamics, and operational culture, most organizations are only going to able to make a very small amount of meaningful change without outside guidance.
For that majority of organizations who will need additional assistance to adopt and implement effectual practices, Board Veritas is available to concatenate our consulting with training and coaching. We can shepherd new procedures, approaches, benchmarks, and more to individuals and groups within your organization (ie. managers, directors, committees, the collective board) to ensure optimal, long-term integration. With sustained execution of strategies that were devised uniquely for your organization, and with the right people performing productively in appropriate roles by design, your organization will be positioned to achieve its greatest impact.
OUR UNIQUE APPROACH
VERITAS is TRUTH.
Value and Impact from Our Engagements:
Since 2017, NFRC has benefited from the expertise and guidance of Lisa Anne Taylor and her colleagues. What started as a simple request for information about board governance best practices has evolved into an ongoing partnership with Lisa Anne and her team members Elliott, Linda, Michelle, Chris and Michael. Board Veritas has been instrumental in assisting me, as CEO, with board education/development, an examination of board functioning which resulted in a revamping of our board composition, and the very hands-on training of our volunteer leadership – extending from our board chair down to NFRC members.
Board Veritas provided the framework for our 5 year strategic plan. Lisa and her team facilitated working sessions with our board and senior staff, and assisted with moving the plan from theory and into practice. Lisa Anne is adept at providing a compelling case for good governance practices – which many non-profit boards find easy to ignore in a climate of competition and emergent issues. I found that bringing my board back to the concept of good governance actually equipped them with the know-how to tackle the big issues. Vision and strategy are fundamental expectations of any well functioning board, and NFRC’s has benefited mightily by the training received from Board Veritas.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with the Board Veritas team on several client engagements, and there are few people I would extend the professional trust I have in Lisa Anne. They are dynamic and highly versed in all matters board and governance; a great value-add and partner to my practice. I highly recommend Board Veritas for any organization needing a governance review or a strategic overhaul. Expertise, combined with wit and honesty makes her and her team a wonderful resource.
The Myositis Association worked with Lisa to create a comprehensive 3-year strategic plan. Lisa was integral to our success of going from a one page plan with no specific goals or metrics, to achieving quantitative and qualitative measurable strategic outcomes that our organization measures quarterly. Throughout the development process and Board strategic planning retreat, Lisa shared her expertise and unique ability to resolve complex issues and address problem-solving head-on, with her innovative and creative thinking that yielded bottom line results.
In addition to working with our Board, Lisa successfully worked with our organization leadership and staff working across organizational lines to bring people together and bring significant projects to fruition. She articulates a clear vision and has a disciplined and organized approach to keep projects moving forward through many obstacles. She is responsive, prepared and ready to make progress at every juncture. Lisa's guidance and encouragement have been instrumental in our growth at TMA. She is a trusted professional, mentor and leader!
When I served as CEO of WomenHeart, Lisa also worked with the Board and organization to develop a comprehensive strategic plan for an organization representing the leading cause of death of women. Lisa provided training for the Board on leadership, Board and CEO duties and responsibilities and other Board leadership training. She does an outstanding job of ensuring engagement from all individuals in the process and holds Boards and staff accountable for their responsibilities. This tough love to her approach working with non-profit patients groups is the very seed that is needed for healthy new growth! It is my honor to give Lisa the highest recommendation possible for working with non-profit organizations based on over a decade of working with her!
It was engaging and productive to work with Board Veritas. Lisa Anne and Chris were challenging with an eye towards success for myself and the Coalition. Their energy and questions helped drive my thinking but also allowed them to combine expertise to develop a tool that the Coalition needed. I enjoyed their professionalism, positive energy and keen intellect.
Lisa Anne gave a talk at a special dinner meeting of a group of high energy leaders -- and she absolutely captivated them! Throughout the talk she provided knowledge and insight that these leaders are already implementing to achieve improved board governance and engagement. It was only 30 minutes and she maximized the entire time and completely packed in useful nuggets of wisdom that was applicable across the very diverse life cycles of the organizations represented in the room.
You can't imagine the peace to the soul our conversations have. The logic-refined thought you offer allows the mind to focus on the essence of why we are here and passionate about things.