November 16, 2017 | Read Time: 2 minutes
When Abel Nuñez took the job as executive director of the Central American Resource Center, or Carecen, in 2013, the Washington nonprofit did not have a formal evaluation process in place for its leader.
Instead, the board president had a conversation with the executive director about how they felt things were going at the organization, which now has a budget of about $1.5 million and 16 staff members. Then the board president would report back to the rest of the board.
Mr. Nuñez, who succeeded a longtime leader who was killed in a car accident, aimed to get a formal review in place. So amid other changes at Carecen, including expanding an eight-person board to 13, establishing a number of standing board committees, and reworking its procedures for evaluating employees, Mr. Nuñez also pushed board members to evaluate him.
But jump-starting a formal review process was slow going, Mr. Nuñez says.
“The board was really happy with the work I was doing in the organization and the way I was moving the organization,” he says. “But we hadn’t had an intentional space where a performance evaluation could be done.”
So in late 2016, looking for momentum, Carecen applied to the Jovid Foundation for help. The foundation lent then-executive director Bob Wittig to the nonprofit to help shape the process. The group also established a committee to design the executive director’s evaluation.
The work kicked off in earnest in early 2017 and concluded in July, says Mr. Nuñez. It produced three key documents, which Carecen shared with The Chronicle. They are downloadable below.
1. Executive Director Performance Evaluation
Updating the job description was an important early step, says Mr. Nuñez. In addition, he and other members of the committee identified nine functions of the job that form the key criteria by which the chief executive is to be judged. The performance evaluation also takes into consideration whether the leader accomplished the goals set the year before and establishes a new set of goals.
2. Questions for Stakeholders
Leaders at Carecen wanted the evaluation to include feedback not just from board members or top nonprofit staff but also from supporters. Committee members created a list of key sources to consult for feedback on the executive director’s performance.
3. Evaluation Timeline
To ensure that the chief executive’s evaluation occurs regularly, it must be built into a nonprofit’s calendar. The leaders at Carecen established a timeline for various steps in the process to occur. The nonprofit has not yet decided whether to conduct a full performance review annually or at some other interval, Mr. Nuñez says.
Download the Executive Director Performance Evaluation form, the timeline for conducting an evaluation of a chief executive, and questions to ask stakeholders when conducting an evaluation of a leader, and adapt as you see fit.
