Frequently Asked Questions

You're an ideal fit if:

• You lead a nonprofit with a $500K to $3M budget.
• You've decided it's time to stop managing the board you have and start building the board your mission needs.
• You've probably tried the DIY route (handing out articles, running your own retreats), only to learn that the issue is structural.
• Your board chair is willing to partner with you on this.

We work across nonprofit subsectors: human services, mental health and wellness, arts and culture, and environment. The structural challenges of governance (role clarity, composition, alignment) look similar whether you run a food bank or a regional theater, which is why the Assembled or Built?™ framework applies regardless of mission. We bring the governance framework; you bring the subject-matter expertise. If your sector has unusually specific governance requirements (federally qualified health centers or charter schools), let's talk about whether we're the right fit.

Yes, but it may change how we work together. Above $3M, organizations often have dedicated governance staff or work with larger consulting firms; we're better suited to organizations without that infrastructure. Below $500K, boards are often operational rather than governing (what's sometimes called a “working board”), and a full engagement usually isn't the right fit yet. That's why we offer the standalone Board Health Check, to give organizations like yours an accessible starting point. We specialize in the middle because that's where the shift from an assembled board to a built board tends to matter most.

Then this isn't the engagement for you, at least not yet. The chair has to be willing to engage and do their part; without that, the data won't matter and the engagement won't take. We sometimes recommend the Board Health Check Lite as a first step. It gives you and your chair a structured way to compare notes before any larger commitment, and sometimes the conversation alone shifts what's possible.

You can. Plenty of boards do their own assessments and run their own retreats. The catch is that it's almost impossible to see the room clearly when you're sitting inside it. Self-assessments tend to confirm what you already think because you wrote the questions. Internal facilitators have a harder time getting honest answers because the people in the room are talking to a colleague. People say different things to an outsider than they do to a colleague. That's the difference an outside facilitator makes.

Jeff brings three vantage points to client engagements: he has reviewed boards as a foundation grantmaker, sat as an interim ED, and worked alongside chairs and boards as a consultant. Together those experiences produce a read on boards that no single role can produce on its own. He also holds the BoardSource Certified Governance Consultant credential, the field's primary professional credential in nonprofit governance. And we anchor every engagement in a specific framework, Assembled or Built?™. The framework names whether a board was assembled over time as openings came up, or built deliberately around what the mission needs. Most boards have never been asked the question outright. Asking it shows both where the board is now, and where it could be.

They solve different problems for different leaders:

• Board Foundations is for an established executive director and board chair who've identified a specific governance gap and want focused work on it. It's a 3-month engagement that centers on one or two priority areas.
• The Inherited Board is for a new executive director working with a board they didn't have a role in building. It's a 90-day plan focused on understanding what you've inherited and figuring out where to focus first. Board Foundations is governance consulting. The Inherited Board is coaching to help equip the executive director to work with the one they have.

LEGO® Serious Play® enters an engagement when a board has work that's hard to do with words alone. The format makes abstract ideas concrete: each person builds a model of what they think, then explains it to the group. That's usually vision or alignment work, where assumptions need to surface before they can be discussed. Because everyone builds and everyone explains, no single voice can dominate the room.

A Board Health Check is built around data review and structured conversation, so LSP doesn't appear there. If the data raises questions a board wants to dig into, that's often where a follow-up LSP engagement starts. It also isn't the right format for every board. Some boards prefer traditional conversation, and we honor that.

What you can expect from us:

• Honest assessments, even when they're uncomfortable to deliver
• Clear communication and a 24-hour email response window during engagements
• A defined methodology and structured assessment process
• Following through on what we agree to do

What we expect from you:

• The executive director and the board chair both showing up as active participants
• Honest communication, including when you disagree with something we've found or recommended
• Engaging with hard findings rather than working around them
• Real time and attention, not 15-minute slots between other priorities

Both, depending on what the work requires. Most of the coaching calls, committee sessions, and working sessions in Board Foundations, The Board Build™, The Inherited Board™, and the Annual Governance Retainer happen on video. That keeps the work moving and keeps us accessible to EDs and boards across the country.

Annual Board Retreats, speaking, and workshops are in-person by default. A retreat asks the board to step out of its operating rhythm, and that shift is harder to create on video. Workshops and keynotes work the same way: the format is built around shared time in the room.

Even in otherwise-virtual engagements, there are moments where in-person serves the room better, like a kickoff with the full board or a governance conversation that needs to happen face to face. When that's the case, we'll talk through it together and decide.

Our published rates cover the consulting work itself. When in-person is part of the engagement, travel and expenses are billed separately, at cost.

If you've been in workshops that produced inspiring conversation and nothing on paper, you already know why this question matters. Every engagement produces specific written deliverables. Board Foundations and The Board Build™ each include a Board Health Check report and an implementation plan. The Inherited Board™ produces three documents: a Brief on the board you've inherited, a Partnership Agreement with your chair, and a 12-month Playbook. Workshops and retreats produce working agreements and post-session summary memos. The full list lives on each service page.

We'll tell you, and we expect you to do the same. If something isn't working between us, we'd rather raise it early and figure it out than let it drift. If we can't fix it, the engagement ends, and we close it out fairly. We won't continue an engagement that isn't working just for the sake of preserving a contract.

We believe transparency is a baseline requirement for good governance. Publishing our prices allows you to assess whether an engagement fits the organization’s current capacity before investing time in a discovery call.

• Standalone Board Health Checks are paid in full at booking.
• Workshops and retreats are invoiced at booking and due in full before the engagement.
• All other engagements are invoiced at booking, with the option to pay in full or in monthly installments: three for Board Foundations and The Inherited Board™, six for The Board Build™.

Because we structure The Inherited Board around the executive director, not around the organization. A new ED working with a complex board has the same coaching need regardless of the organization's budget. Tiered pricing fits engagements where organizational size shapes scope, like Board Foundations and The Board Build™. This one is sized to one ED, not to the budget.

Yes, within six months. If you bought a Lite ($149) and book Board Foundations or The Inherited Board™ within six months of receiving your BHC results, we credit the fee in full toward the engagement. The same goes for the Full ($299) and The Board Build™. After six months, board composition or context usually shifts enough that we'd need a fresh diagnostic anyway, so the credit doesn't apply.

You're a graduate if you've completed Board Foundations, The Board Build™, or The Inherited Board™. That earns you reduced rates on Annual Board Retreats, as well as access to the Annual Governance Retainer ($750/month, graduates only). The Retainer continues as governance advisory for Board Foundations and Board Build graduates, or as ED coaching for Inherited Board graduates.

The default before any engagement is a free video discovery call, with no expectation that we end up working together. We work with EDs and boards across the country. For engagements that include retreats or workshops, in-person work is built into the model; travel and expenses are billed separately to the engagement.

No, we don't provide client references. The work we do with boards requires vulnerability from EDs and board chairs, so confidentiality is a strict policy. Out of respect for their privacy and their time, we don't ask them to field reference calls. We'll protect your privacy the same way.

The best way to evaluate whether we're a fit is to connect with us. A free discovery call gives you a chance to bring your specific board challenges to the conversation and see how we think through them in real time. Between that conversation and the writing on our blog, you'll get a clear picture of what working with ebersmith coaching & consulting looks like.

Jeff Smith runs all engagements one-on-one. While Brian Ebersole collaborates behind the scenes and assists on complex engagements, clients work directly with Jeff from start to finish.

Stay in touch however works for you. The best starting point is the free Assembled or Built?™ quiz. You can also read the blog, subscribe to the newsletter, or connect on LinkedIn. If you want to revisit the conversation later, a 30-minute discovery call is always free.