Board Member Nomination Form Template

Bring rigor and consistency to your board recruitment process with a structured nomination form. This template collects the nominee's professional background, the nominator's qualifications argument, relevant expertise areas, and critically — whether the nominee knows they're being put forward. Your Governance Committee gets everything it needs to evaluate candidates fairly before outreach begins.

Use this template

Last updated 21 August 2026

Fields in this template

Nominee Full Namerequired
Nominee Email Addressrequired
Nominee Phone Number
Nominee's Current Employer and Titlerequired
Your Name (if different from nominee)
Describe the nominee's relevant qualifications and experiencerequired
Why would this person be an asset to our board?required
Relevant Expertise Areas
Legal and compliance · Finance and accounting · Fundraising and development · Marketing and communications · Healthcare or human services · Technology and data · Real estate or facilities · Human resources · Government and public policy · Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Is the nominee aware they are being nominated?required
Yes, they are aware and interested · Yes, they are aware but have not confirmed interest · No, I am nominating them without prior discussion

Who uses this template

Nonprofit Governance and Nominating CommitteesAssociation boards of directorsCommunity foundation leadership teamsUniversity advisory board coordinatorsHealthcare organization board committeesArts and cultural institution leadershipProfessional society governance staffCooperative and mutual organization boards

About this template

A board member nomination form brings structure and accountability to one of the most consequential decisions a nonprofit makes. Without a standardized submission process, nominations arrive by email, text, hallway conversation, and board meeting sidebar — impossible to compare fairly and easy to lose. A structured form ensures every candidate is evaluated on the same criteria and every nomination includes the context the Governance Committee needs.

The nominee awareness question is among the most important fields in this form. Discovering that a nominee had no idea they were being put forward — only learning when the governance chair calls to confirm interest — creates awkward and avoidable situations. This field prompts nominators to consider whether they've had the courtesy conversation, which dramatically improves the quality of nominees who reach the formal review stage.

formformform makes it easy to open nominations for a defined window each year, collect submissions from board members and community stakeholders, and close the form when the deadline passes. Your Governance Committee receives instant notifications for each nomination and can export the full candidate pool to a comparison spreadsheet for their deliberations — replacing a chaotic inbox with a clean, organized candidate pipeline.

15 form ideas you can build with this template

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What's included

Separate fields for nominee and nominator to handle self-nominations and third-party submissions

Employer and title field to assess professional standing at a glance

Long-form qualifications field with structured guidance for nominators

Expertise area checkboxes to match nominees to board skill gaps

Nominee awareness radio button to flag cold nominations for proper handling

All nominations stored for Governance Committee review and export

Instant notification so committee members can begin vetting promptly

Embeddable on member portals or shareable as a direct link in governance communications

How to create a board member nomination form

1
Click 'Use this template' to open the board nomination form in your formformform account.
2
Customize the expertise area checkboxes to reflect the specific skill gaps your board has identified in its annual self-assessment.
3
Update the paragraph intro with your Governance Committee's name and the nomination review timeline.
4
Set the Governance Committee chair's email as the notification recipient for each submission.
5
Add a closing date to your form's description or thank-you message so nominators know the evaluation timeline.
6
Share the form link in your board newsletter, member portal, and annual governance calendar communications.

Best practices for your board member nomination form

Open nominations annually and communicate the window clearly

a formal, time-bounded nomination process signals governance maturity and discourages last-minute additions to the candidate slate.

Ask nominators to describe board composition gaps

adding a brief question about what specific perspective the nominee would add helps the Governance Committee assess strategic fit, not just individual qualifications.

Require the nominator to confirm nominee awareness before formal vetting

a nominee who declines when contacted wastes committee time; the awareness question surfaces this risk upfront.

Keep expertise checkboxes aligned with your board skill matrix

if your annual governance self-assessment identifies gaps in technology and finance, those should be the prominent options so nominators can see alignment.

Conduct reference checks independently of the nominator

the form surfaces a candidate; the committee's independent due diligence determines fitness.

Store all nominations confidentially

access to nomination submissions should be restricted to Governance Committee members only; configure your notification email accordingly.

Frequently asked questions

Can board members nominate themselves through this form?

Yes. The form includes a 'Your Name (if different from nominee)' field, which self-nominators leave blank. This lets you track which submissions are self-nominations vs. third-party recommendations.

How do we keep nominations confidential?

Submissions are stored in your formformform dashboard, accessible only to users in your organization's account. Restrict dashboard access to Governance Committee members and export submissions only to the committee — don't forward raw notification emails to the full board.

Can we add a field for the nominee to upload a résumé or bio?

A résumé doesn't need to live in someone's inbox waiting to be forwarded along. Put an Upload field on the form and nominators attach it directly, up to 2 MB per file. The long-text fields already built into this template for qualifications and board fit do a lot of that work too, so some committees skip the file entirely and just ask for a LinkedIn link or a short bio pasted in there instead — use whichever gets your committee what it needs.

What happens to nominations after they're submitted?

Your Governance Committee reviews all submissions manually and determines which nominees to contact. formformform stores the nominations but does not automatically notify nominees — that outreach is handled by your team.

Can we use this form for advisory board nominations too?

Yes. Simply update the form title and intro paragraph to reference your advisory board, and adjust the expertise checkboxes to match the advisory board's focus areas.

Is there a way to set a nomination deadline?

You can close the form manually on your deadline date from the form settings page. Until then, it accepts submissions continuously. Add the deadline date to your form's introductory paragraph so nominators know the cutoff.