Compliance is hard.
So we fixed it.*
So we fixed it.*
*Built by governance experts, for people who are not. GovernApp simplifies board governance for not-for-profit organizations.
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 with NFP Governance
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: A Solution for Simplified Governance
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 in support of your governance 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.
How GovernApp Supports Your Board and CEO
Multiple Governance 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 Governance 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.
Comprehensive 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 of Improvement
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 for New Board Members
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.
Empowering 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
Supporting CEOs in Board Management
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*
Pricing
How does GovernApp pricing work?
Registering your organisation and your organisation's users with GovernApp is free. There is no per-user charge. Registering does not oblige you to subscribe to any paid frameworks.
The heart of GovernApp is our suite of governance frameworks, which cover a wide range of use cases and maturity levels for NFPs.
GovernApp users can select the specific frameworks that are most useful to their circumstances, and pay a subscription to access their preferred items. See our frameworks page to see the use cases of each of our frameworks and their maturity variants.
Organisations can subscribe to as many frameworks as they like.
GovernApp enables Boards to establish strong governance foundations from week one. To keep things fair for all customers, when you subscribe to a framework, the initial subscription term is one year, which reflects the full value delivered and prevents short-term use-and-cancel patterns that undermine sustainability.
After the first year, you'll have the option to move to a monthly plan for that framework, which supports further assessments, ongoing updates of your action plan, access to the latest compliance requirements, and so on.
Why is GovernApp a SaaS application?
GovernApp is developed as a Software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform simply because governance is a continuous improvement journey supported through regular assessments, data insights, and action planning tools that evolve with your organisation.
Further:
- The platform continually updates compliance standards, best practices, and template artefacts so boards always work with the latest rules, eliminating the risk of outdated policies or missed governance obligations.
- GovernApp is structured for flexibility - boards can engage in short, focused assessments or broader evaluations, consuming governance guidance in manageable, bite-sized chunks in a way that matches its ability to progress change.
- There is no limit to how many assessments or reviews you can run, allowing continuous benchmarking and improvement across different periods or board cycles.
- You can update and track your board's action plans, assign responsibilities, and monitor progress over time, creating a living governance system that grows with your organisation and maintains accountability for improvements.
- As your governance maturity develops, the platform securely retains assessment history, giving you clear visibility into improvements made across assessments.
- It automates the creation of a current certificate of good governance, enabling you to demonstrate accountability and commitment to excellence to funders, regulators, and the public.
- The platform is delivered via the cloud, meaning access is available anytime, anywhere you have an internet connection - no installation, maintenance, or manual updates required.
Pricing Table
| Framework | Level | Annual | Monthly | |||||||||
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| Four Frames |
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| ACNC External Conduct Standards |
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| NFP Board Member Self-Assessment |
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| CMA Standards Council Nine Principles of Ministry Accountability |
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| Essential Operations* |
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Note, if you choose not to renew a framework subscription, you can still see past assessment reports and action plans, though you will not be able to update action plans.
Higher maturity level frameworks include all the content of their lower level variants, so advancing to a higher maturity level framework does not require you to maintain the lower level variant as well.
Support
Free support is available for users at support@governapp.com. customers will be provided with a phone support line as well.