Many boards know they need new skills, but they do not refresh fast enough to solve that problem through recruitment alone. PwC’s 2025 survey found that only 32% of executives believed their boards had the right mix of skills for current business needs.
Spencer Stuart’s 2025 U.S. Board Index helps explain why: turnover remains low, so change tends to happen slowly. In reality, that leaves boards with a narrower path forward. If they want to keep up with new demands, they need a clear development plan rather than waiting for the next appointment to fix the gap.
A robust board development plan provides boards with a structured way to close that gap. It helps board leadership review current strengths, identify skill gaps, plan learning, and connect development with board succession planning and evaluation.
Key takeaways
- A board development plan gives the board a practical way to strengthen its skills, prepare future leaders, and improve overall board effectiveness.
- Board development efforts should review current board strengths, identify gaps, set development priorities, and track progress over time.
- A nonprofit board development plan plan requires a more structured approach because trustees may bring varying levels of experience and limited time for onboarding.
- Annual board evaluations help shape development priorities and feed into board succession planning.
- Effective boards view development as an ongoing responsibility that supports stronger oversight and long-term performance.
What is board development?
Board development is the ongoing process of improving how a board governs. Simply put, it helps directors build the knowledge, judgement, and skills they need to oversee strategy, risk, leadership, and accountability well.
Induction sessions and governance briefings are important, but they are only part of the process. Effective board development also includes:
- Reviewing current capabilities
- Identifying gaps
- Supporting new directors
- Preparing future leaders.
Board development works on two levels simultaneously. It helps individual directors build their skills and strengthens the board as a whole. It also covers board composition, succession planning, committee readiness, and regular evaluation. When priorities shift, the board needs to respond.
For a practical starting point, you can download the Ideals Board board development plan template. It is a free, editable resource that covers the eight core elements of an effective plan and helps you turn board development into a structured governance process.
Why nonprofit board development is especially important
Nonprofits usually have even less room to delay board development, since many trustees are volunteers. They may bring strong professional experience, yet still need support on charity law, fiduciary duties, financial oversight, fundraising expectations, and the organisation’s mission model.
The Charity Commission’s 2024 Trustee Welcome Pack states that understanding trustee duties is critical from the start, and NCVO states plainly that trustee induction is vital.
There is also a practical reason to formalise a nonprofit board development plan. Government research with trustees in 2025 found that only 36% of nonprofit boards used any codes, standards, or governance tools, and only 30% used the Charity Governance Code. That suggests many organisations are still governing without a consistent development framework.
What is a board development plan?
A board development plan is a formal, board-approved document that records the board’s current capability, identifies development gaps, and outlines how the board will strengthen itself over a defined period, usually the next 12 months.
It is broader than a training schedule. It connects learning, induction, evaluation, composition, and succession to the organisation’s strategic direction.
A development plan is different from a general training plan. While the two are sometimes used interchangeably, they serve different purposes. A training plan focuses on courses. A development plan, by contrast, focuses on organizational needs, identifies gaps, outlines support, and sets out a way to track progress.
In some organisations, it’s also called a board plan, but that term is often too vague to be useful.
Key components of a board development plan
Below are the main elements of the board of directors development plan.
| Component | What it should cover | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Board skills and competency map | Current strengths across governance, finance, sector expertise, risk, digital, people, and behavioural capability. | Shows whether the board’s mix matches strategic needs. |
| Individual director profiles | Tenure, committee roles, expertise, past development, and probable future leadership path. | Helps you personalise support and identify succession options. |
| Skills gap analysis | Gaps between the current composition and future requirements. | Turns discussion into an evidence-based recruitment and development agenda. |
| Development priorities and strategic goals | Whole-board priorities and individual learning goals. | Keeps activity focused on the highest governance needs. |
| Development activities and timeline | Training, mentoring, briefings, committee rotations, workshops, and external reviews. | Makes the plan actionable. |
| Induction plan for new directors | Governance duties, strategy, finances, policies, committees, stakeholders, and key risks. | Speeds up contribution and reduces uneven onboarding. |
| Succession planning section | Readiness for chair, committee leads, and the future director pipeline. | Prevents last-minute leadership gaps. |
| Review and progress tracking | Annual review date, owners, milestones, and evidence of progress. | Creates accountability and keeps the plan alive. |
Board development for nonprofits also focuses on mission context. New trustees need to understand not only the mechanics of governance, but also the organisation’s programmes, beneficiaries, funding model, and stakeholder relationships. That is why induction packs often include strategy, committee charters, recent financials, and core policies.
Board development activities: what to include in your plan
Start with formal learning in areas where the board needs stronger support. This may cover governance qualifications, sector-specific education, legal updates, cyber and AI oversight briefings, or refresher sessions on board roles and responsibilities.
BoardSource and the Institute of Directors (IoD) both consider structured learning a normal part of board effectiveness, rather than simply a response to weak performance.
Here are practical recommendations on activities for optimizing the process:
- Formal training and accreditation. Include governance courses, legal and regulatory updates, and sector-specific education where needed. This helps directors stay current with their duties and strengthens oversight of risk, compliance, and finance.
- Board effectiveness reviews and self-assessments. Evaluate the board regularly to assess its performance and identify areas for improvement. A board self-assessment can highlight gaps in skills, decision-making, board meeting quality, or board culture.
- Mentoring and peer learning. Pair newer directors with more experienced board members to speed up learning and build confidence. This is often one of the most practical ways to support new board members without relying only on formal training sessions.
- Induction and onboarding. Give new directors a structured introduction to the organisation, its governance model, and their core responsibilities. A good induction should cover board roles, committee structure, key policies, the organization’s mission, and any relevant board manual or recent committee minutes.
- Committee experience. Use committee assignments, observation, or rotation to broaden director experience over time. This provides board members with a better understanding of how to make decisions and helps prepare future committee and board leaders.
- External facilitation and workshops. Bring in outside support when the board needs deeper discussion or an independent view. Strategy sessions, governance workshops, and facilitated reviews can help the board step back, test assumptions, and improve alignment.
- Stakeholder and mission exposure. Site visits, programme briefings, and stakeholder engagement help directors connect governance decisions to the organization’s programmes and long-term priorities.
- Annual refresher training. Build in periodic updates on key governance topics rather than treating induction as the end of learning. This is especially useful when regulations change, risks evolve, or the board needs to revisit core duties and expectations.
- Succession-focused development. Include activities that prepare directors for future leadership roles. That may involve chair mentoring, committee leadership opportunities, or targeted development for directors who may later step into critical positions.
- Progress tracking and follow-up. Record what development activity has taken place, who it applies to, and what still needs attention.
Explore the board of directors’ roles and responsibilities to plan development activities
Board development best practices
A strong board development plan should include formal learning, practical exposure, and regular review.
- Start with strategy and board priorities. Development should reflect the board’s future oversight demands, not a generic training agenda.
- Use evidence to set priorities. Draw on evaluation results, skills reviews, committee needs, and succession discussions.
- Assign clear ownership. The board chair or governance committee should oversee the plan and review progress.
- Separate collective and individual needs. Distinguish between board-wide capability gaps and director-specific development needs.
- Link development to succession. Prepare future board and committee leaders before transitions become urgent.
- Integrate the plan into the governance cycle. Review it alongside board evaluation, recruitment, and succession planning. You can simplify this task by leveraging technology, such as Ideals Board.
- Revise it when circumstances change. Strategy shifts, leadership changes, and regulations should trigger an update.
- Track outcomes, not just board meeting attendance. Measure whether the board is better prepared, better balanced, and better able to govern.
Discover best practices for nonprofit boards in our blog
Nonprofit board development strategies: approaches for different contexts
A sound development approach should match the board’s context. What works for a small volunteer board may not suit a large charity or a corporate board. Even so, the goal remains the same: to build the board’s capability to govern well.
Small nonprofits with volunteer boards
Keep the process simple and practical. Use shared induction materials, peer learning, short online training, and a basic annual skills review. At this stage, the priority is setting clear expectations for new members, supporting current members, and establishing enough structure to enable effective governance.
The Charity Governance Code notes that smaller charities may apply the principles proportionately and use the suggested practices to identify gaps as they grow
Mid-size nonprofits that are scaling up
As the organisation grows, informal learning becomes less effective. This is where a clearer nonprofit board development strategy becomes useful, with formal evaluation, succession planning, and more deliberate recruiting against identified gaps. Strategic planning and board development should also be more closely linked.
Large charities and public-benefit organisations
Development should be aligned with the Charity Governance Code and managed more formally. This usually involves structured induction, regular board reviews, planned recruitment, and clear leadership transitions, including term limits where relevant. This level of structure becomes increasingly important as stakeholder expectations, regulatory scrutiny, and organisational complexity grow.
Corporate boards
Development should be tied to board evaluation, succession, and committee effectiveness. In practice, that means using evaluation findings to set board-level priorities and address capability gaps in areas such as risk, digital oversight, and committee leadership.
Conclusion
Board development is an inseparable part of good governance and continuous improvement. The regulatory and sector guidance is moving in one direction: organizations are expected to understand their board’s capability needs, review performance, invest in induction and learning, and plan for succession with greater discipline than before.
Organisations that treat board member development as an ongoing part of governance are better able to stay accountable, maintain continuity, and support long-term strategy.
For the next step, use the Ideals Board board development plan template. It offers a ready-to-use framework for building a more consistent and effective approach to board development.