Compliance is hard.
So we fixed it.*

*Built by governance experts, for people who are not.

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A self-service governance platform that quickly shows you...

Where you are now.

GovernApp assesses your current governance behaviours and practices against a comprehensive governance framework, covering not only compliance but also Board effectiveness, efficiency and culture. It generates a report that clearly and comprehensively covers where your organisation is at across all areas of compliance and beyond.

Where you need to be.

GovernApp doesn't just reveal your current status and leave you hanging, it explicitly demonstrates where you need to get to to meet compliance requirements and optimise your Board effectiveness, efficiency and culture, with guidance that unpacks to as much detail as you need.

How to get there.

What's more, GovernApp shows you how to get to where you need to be with a risk-priorised step-by-step, detailed action plan that shows you how to plug the gaps in your governance compliance and embrace best practices. It even serves template policies, procedures and work practices to help accelerate your governance improvement journey.

The Problem

Whether you’re a large $100m charity or a local sports club, not for profit board governance presents a complex challenge. We know that improving governance leads to better organisational outcomes, and poor governance can lead to poor organisational outcomes. However, many NFP Board members are volunteers who have little to no training or prior experience in governance.

How can volunteer NFP board members - and NFP Boards as a whole - grasp the fullness of their obligations, especially given the time and cost constraints they face?

Traditional solutions to solving governance issues include expensive, single-use surveys that require consultant-driven interpretation and remediation planning, and formal governance training that is individual-centric and prohibitively expensive.

In the face of this challenge, we see the need for a low cost, easily accessed, high functioning toolset that can help our well-intentioned, passionate and purpose driven Board volunteers to flourish in their roles.

Enter GovernApp

GovernApp is an online, super-easy to use system that will:

  • Assess your individual and Board governance practices
  • Generate a prioritised action plan for improving governance tailored to your organisation
  • Provide links to model solutions that can help you to rapidly implement governance improvements
  • Track your progress in making governance improvements
  • Provide evidence of intentionality and improvement in your governance to support funding and grant applications
  • Ensure your governance risk profile is mapped and mitigated
  • Provide board papers to support governance your improvement efforts

Critically, GovernApp is priced to make sure that organisations of all sizes can use the product. It is our core mission to democratise access to good governance, and our pricing reflects this inherent motivation.

How does it work?

GovernApp uniquely supports the Board as a group, the individual Board member and the CEO.

Helping The Board

Multiple Frameworks

Most self-assessment-based tools use a single, one-size-fits-all questionnaire set. GovernApp offers multiple governance frameworks, allowing the organisation to select the most appropriate framework for assessment.

For example, GovernApp offers frameworks for Incorporated Associations, ACNC assessment, and proprietary limited NFPs. Future releases will also provide operational assessment frameworks to help Boards to understand their status regarding key issues such as cyber-security, Childsafe, and clinical governance (for health-oriented organisations).

Our frameworks range from very complex to relatively simple. Simple frameworks comprise multiple sections, each of which contains multiple questions. More complex frameworks are organised by domains, which break down into sections and questions.

Driving improvement

The assessment report and action plan provide a clear guide for Boards in how to improve their governance capabilities. Boards should review these artefacts together. The recommended action plan can be updated, actions assigned, timeframes determined.

GovernApp allows the action plan to be updated, and the status of actions tracked. GovernApp issues reminders to those to whom actions have been assigned to ensure these activities remain top of mind.

A standing agenda item of reviewing the GovernApp action plan at each Board meeting will ensure Boards remain focussed on the continual improvement of their governance practices.

The presence of an assessment and an action plan provides solid evidence for a Board’s focus on good governance and can be used in support of funding and grant applications.

Conducting assessments

Once an organisation has determined its preferred assessment framework, GovernApp presents an attractive, easy to use interface that guides Board members through their assessment process. Users are assisted with complex concepts through supplementary explanatory notes where needed. Users can complete their assessments over a number of days, being able to save and return to their assessments as time permits.

Assessment reports

Most assessment based tools provide little more than aggregated scores against the questions provided. GovernApp provides a comprehensive assessment report with:

  • Tailored report text providing qualitative analysis of the assessment results at domain and section level.
  • A risk profile of each domain and section assessed
  • A prioritised action plan with recommended timeframes for implementation
  • Links to template solutions such as policies, procedures, guidelines that can be used to guide rapid implementation of governance improvements

A virtuous loop

Most other assessment products are charged as one-off exercises. The action plan and progress tracking help keep governance firmly in a Board’s sights. By undertaking annual assessments, the Board can definitively track material improvements in governance behaviour over time. Trend analysis showing such improvements will be implemented in a future release of GovernApp.

Laying a foundation

New Board members should be inducted into their roles, and requiring a new Board member to undertake a GovernApp self-assessment as part of that induction is a great way to ensure that your new Board member is on a solid governance journey in line with the expectations and practices of their Board colleagues.

Helping Individual Board Members

Those who volunteer to serve on NFP Boards are our heroes, and GovernApp is here to help. Whether you are a subject matter enthusiast, an experienced leader who wants to give back, a staff representative on the Board, or a motivated professional seeking career experience, GovernApp will help you to identify your strengths and areas for development.

GovernApp will:

  • Allow you to conduct a private self-assessment that will identify the areas you need to improve on in your understanding and practice of governance
  • Provide you with links to artefacts and training that will help you rapidly close those gaps and build your governance skills and credibility
  • Give you the shared concepts and language that will maximise your contribution to Board meetings
  • Help you to demonstrate year-on-year improvements in your governance expertise as you conduct annual self-assessments
  • Build your expertise in governance without having to pay a cent

Helping CEOs

The practised reality for the CEOs of many smaller NFPs is that they play a key role in Board management through agenda planning, scheduling, and assembling and distributing papers. This is, of course, in addition to their role at Board meetings of demonstrating role accountability, assuring risks are managed and contributing to the strategic dialogue.

In some cases we see CEOs as the practical drivers of good governance behaviour. In these scenarios, GovernApp helps CEOs by:

  • Providing a trusted baseline of governance practice (through our assessment frameworks)
  • Generating an action plan that can be tracked
  • Delivering an updated report on the action plan status that can be included as a paper for each Board meeting
  • Creating a governance risk report that can also be included as a paper for each Board meeting
  • Providing operational frameworks that can provide both a guide and an assurance in areas such as cybersecurity, IT governance, risk management, procurement, clinical governance, childsafe, Covidsafe, and so on*

How can I try GovernApp?

GovernApp is a web app, accessible by a browser. GovernApp is currently in Beta and you can register for free here. Beta organisations will be granted free access to the system and all available frameworks for 2 years from the official launch of the app.

Pricing

Our primary pricing objective with GovernApp is to make sure that no organisation that could benefit from the product is unable to afford a subscription. We will be seeking feedback from our beta community on our proposed pricing model to make sure that we balance the ability to fund future development of the product with affordability today for our NFP community.

Support

Free support is available for beta users at support@governapp.com. Beta customers will be provided with a phone support line as well.

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