The Nonprofit Board Accelerator

Discover what you
bring to the boardroom.

Board Insight Studio is a research-based board development tool that helps nonprofit board members understand their natural strengths, and the board work where they add the most value.

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35+
Built by a recognized leader who has served as a nonprofit executive and board member at the local and national levels, teaches the Big Five framework to undergraduate business students, and is a published voice on nonprofit board governance in the American Alliance of Museums' magazine.
5
Big Five personality traits. The one personality framework with broad scientific consensus in academic psychology, customized for the important work of nonprofit boards.
15
Minutes to complete. A validated assessment, a personalized report, and a shared language for your whole board.
What you’ll discover

Three views of your boardroom contribution.

Every participant receives a personalized report with three linked insights: a leadership signature, a place in the board transaction cycle, and a map of the strengths you bring to governance.

01 · Signature

Your Leadership Signature

Your top two personality traits combine into a distinctive boardroom archetype. The Relational Rainmaker, the Reliable Steward, the Analytical Futurist, and seven others. Each comes with the natural roles, strengths, and contributions it brings to the board.

02 · Placement

Your Place in the Cycle

Every board moves through five stages of work. Your personality naturally equips you to lead in one or more of them. This shows you exactly where you shine, and how your contribution matters to the whole.

03 · Profile

Your Strengths & Shadows Map

A clear profile across all five research-based personality dimensions. What each trait means for board work, where it’s a strength, and the tradeoffs worth knowing. Nothing to fail. Everyone has both.

For your leadership

And for your Board Chair and CEO.

Your Board Chair and Executive Director can manage the engagement through a private dashboard that gives them the collective picture — informing committee assignments, board recruiting, and the broader work of strong governance.

Sample Board Insight Studio dashboard showing the Board Transaction Cycle for a fictional organization, with five stages of board work and the board members anchored in each. Click to explore the live sample →
Preview of the dashboard each participating organization receives. Sample data from a fictional preservation trust.
01 · Profile

The shape of your board

A clear read of where your board’s collective strengths sit across the five Big Five dimensions, with a one-paragraph interpretation written for your specific board’s pattern.

02 · Map

The Board Transaction Cycle map

Each member shown in the stage of board work where their personality naturally anchors them. Coverage gaps surfaced clearly — including the gaps you didn’t know you had.

03 · Alignments

Recommended role alignments

Suggested committee chairs, project leads, and search-committee assignments based on each person’s Leadership Signature. Starting points for your debrief conversation, not endpoints.

One thing the dashboard does not show: individual participants’ numeric scores or personalized coaching language. Those stay private to each participant. The dashboard is the collective view — what only your Chair and CEO need to see, and nothing more.
See the live sample dashboard → Opens in a new tab. No sign-up required.
The five stages

A board’s work follows a cyclical model.

Not dissimilar to a business work cycle, a nonprofit board moves through five distinct stages of work. Every stage matters. Different personalities naturally thrive in each one.

STAGE 01

Innovation

Envisioning and generative work to keep the organization’s strategic direction mission-forward, no matter the internal or external environment.

STAGE 02

Presentation

Advocating for the organization and raising the resources that make its work possible.

STAGE 03

Partnering

Deepening the relationships that move the organization forward.

STAGE 04

Delivery

Good board governance practices. Performance monitoring for leadership, financials, programs, and board processes.

STAGE 05

Assessment

Evaluating the board’s and the organization’s performance to inform the innovation process again.

How it works

A simple, focused engagement.

Board Insight Studio is designed to slot into a busy board calendar without creating burdens for volunteers or staff, and to deliver on one of the most meaningful board development goals in your strategic plan.

01

Purchase access for your participants

Start with your board members, Executive Director, and any senior leaders you want included, typically 8 to 20 people per organization.

02

Participants complete the assessment

Each person receives a personalized email invitation with a unique link. The assessment takes 15 to 20 minutes. Each participant receives their own individual report and a short explainer video tailored to their profile.

03

Your dashboard populates in real time

Track completion, view your board’s emerging Transaction Cycle map, and prepare for the interpretive conversation. Individual results remain confidential. Only the Board Chair and CEO see the collective picture.

04

Schedule your leadership debrief

Once all assessments are complete, your designated leaders meet with a BIS facilitator via Zoom to interpret the findings, understand your board’s composition, and talk through implications for governance and recruitment.

05

Go deeper with a board retreat

Boards that want to dedicate a full session to this work can add an in-person facilitated retreat. One of the most meaningful and engaging ways to fulfill the board development goals most strategic plans include.

What this really is

Most board consulting teaches roles.
This illuminates people.

Typical board consulting

The “what” of governance

Most board consultants help boards understand their roles and responsibilities: duties, bylaws, fiduciary obligations, fundraising expectations, committee structure. That work is valuable and necessary. It is the framework of good governance.

Board Insight Studio

The “who” of governance

Board Insight Studio is the first product designed specifically for nonprofit boards that brings the rigorous personality science used to develop senior executives at the highest levels of business, customized for the important work of nonprofit boards. It illuminates the unique combination of humans on your particular board, and how their personality dynamics shape every decision, conversation, and relationship the organization depends on.

Both matter. Most boards get the first. Very few get the second. A shared language for who people are when they are at their best is the piece most board development leaves out, and the reason Board Insight Studio exists.

What’s included

A complete engagement for your board.

Simple, transparent pricing. What you pay for each participant includes everything they need, and everything you need to translate the results into governance practice.

$295
per participant

Most organizations include all board members, the Executive Director, and one or two senior leaders.

Optional add-on
In-person full board session: $5,000
Travel anywhere in the U.S. is included. Ideal for retreats, capital campaign kickoffs, or onboarding new board leadership.
What makes it different

Not another personality test.

If you have done Myers-Briggs, DiSC, CliftonStrengths, or the Enneagram at work, the honest question is: how is this any different? Here is a straight answer.

Myers-Briggs (MBTI)
Four-letter type · 1944

Categorizes people into 16 fixed types based on a framework developed by a mother-daughter team without formal training in psychology. Widely used in corporate settings, but test-retest reliability is poor. A majority of people get a different type on retake. Not supported by contemporary personality research.

DiSC
Four quadrants · 1928

A workplace communication tool built on a four-quadrant behavioral model. Useful for quick communication-style awareness and team dynamics on the staff side. Not grounded in the modern personality science consensus, and not designed to predict leadership behavior in governance contexts.

CliftonStrengths
34 themes · 2001

A strengths-based framing developed by Gallup and widely used in coaching. The emphasis on strengths is genuinely useful. But the 34 themes were not derived from empirical personality structure, and test-retest reliability is limited. The framework is a business product, not a scientific model.

The Enneagram
Nine types · spiritual origin

A typology of nine personality types that has surged in corporate and coaching settings over the past decade. Its origins are spiritual and philosophical, not empirical, and it has essentially no peer-reviewed psychometric support. Popular because it feels insightful, not because it predicts behavior.

What we use

The Big Five (OCEAN).

The only personality framework with broad scientific consensus in academic psychology.

Over four decades of peer-reviewed research across cultures and languages has converged on the same five dimensions: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. It is what academic personality psychologists actually use, and the only framework with demonstrated test-retest reliability and predictive validity for workplace and leadership behavior.

Board Insight Studio pairs the Big Five with a proprietary Board Transaction Cycle, developed specifically for nonprofit governance with Dr. George Watts, EdD, former Foundation Board President of the Society for Psychologists in Management (SPIM), and Laurie Blazek, MBA. The result is a leadership insight tool grounded in real science, not a branded corporate product.

Don’t take our word for it SciShow · 14 min · 400K+ views

Here’s Why Personality Tests ALWAYS Work *

A mainstream science-education channel breaks down the psychological trick that makes most personality tests feel accurate, and explains why the Big Five is the one exception with real scientific backing.

Behind the work

Built by someone who has lived both sides of the boardroom.

Karen Coltrane, MS is the founder of Board Insight Studio and a 35-year veteran of the nonprofit sector. She has led five nonprofits as chief executive and has worked with boards from leadership positions in many more, spanning higher education, healthcare, museums, trade associations, and human service organizations. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards and is a BoardSource certified consultant.

Karen also teaches the Big Five personality framework to undergraduate business students as an adjunct professor at the College of Charleston School of Business, where she brings the same research-based model that sits at the heart of Board Insight Studio into the classroom.

Board Insight Studio grew out of a pattern she has seen across the nonprofit sector for more than three decades: boards filled with capable, committed people whose full potential is not always visible or well used, even though they want to contribute more. This product is designed to change that by aligning every board member’s strategic value with the real work of governing a nonprofit.

The assessment’s theoretical foundation is a long-running collaboration with Dr. George Watts, EdD and Laurie Blazek, MBA.

Becoming a Strategic Leader by George W. Watts, EdD and Laurie W. Blazek, MBA — American Psychological Association, 2024
Becoming a Strategic Leader
Watts · Blazek
Foundational text

Becoming a Strategic Leader: Capitalize on the Power of Your Personality

George W. Watts, EdD · Laurie W. Blazek, MBA · American Psychological Association, 2024

“Watts and Blazek have crafted a sturdy foundation for leadership growth… a budget friendly, accessible alternative to executive coaching, offering a quick path to both personal growth and enhanced people development skills.” — Karen S. Coltrane, MS · published endorsement, APA

Learn more from the American Psychological Association →
BA Economics, William & Mary MS Leadership, The Citadel BoardSource Certified B-School Adjunct Former CEO, 5 Nonprofits

Give your board a better way to understand itself.

Board Insight Studio helps nonprofit leaders move from good intentions to real insight. A shared language, a clearer fit between people and work, and a stronger foundation for the governance that great missions deserve.

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