Customer Stories
Association of Military Banks of America
AMBA improved board meetings and saved hours on minutes, empowering leaders to focus on serving military families with help from OnBoard and Minutes AI.
Customer Stories
AMBA improved board meetings and saved hours on minutes, empowering leaders to focus on serving military families with help from OnBoard and Minutes AI.
Industry: Associations
Headquarters: Arlington, Virginia
Board Management Goals
Results
OnBoard Capabilities Utilized
The Association of Military Banks of America (AMBA) is a nonprofit trade group of banks that serve military members, veterans, and their families, both on and off military bases.
Military bankers founded AMBA in 1959 to connect their on-base branches with the Department of Defense. Over time, its role expanded to help banks strengthen financial health across the military community.
From its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, AMBA brings together more than 100 member institutions, from major national banks to small community lenders. “We range from the biggest banks in the country all the way down to one small, one-branch community bank in rural America,” said Andia Dinesen, AMBA’s Chief Operating Officer. “About 70% of our members are banks out in the local community.”
As AMBA modernized its brand and outreach, it also wanted to modernize how its board operates — making meetings easier to prepare for and decisions easier to record.
Online security is at a premium in the military and in the banking industry, which presents a unique set of challenges for AMBA’s online communication. That reality manifested itself even more profoundly when COVID-19 pandemic hit and AMBA moved its board meetings from an in-person format to a remote environment.
When the board initially made the switch, it encountered more than a few initial hiccups. AMBA dabbled with piecemeal virtual solutions prior to COVID, but Andia says issues with their previous board portal such as firewall problems and clunky information flow prevented the board from working as efficiently as members hoped.
Andia and the AMBA board learned about OnBoard’s board intelligence platform from a partner agency, the Armed Forces Financial Network (AFFN).
“We were looking for solid customer service,” she says. “I can’t tell you how many times we were using a program [with a previous provider] that our point of contact changed. I could never keep up with who we were supposed to email.”
Once Andia and AMBA signed up with OnBoard, she says they immediately saw the benefits, and they couldn’t have been more necessary.
“The firewall issues have not been a problem with OnBoard, thank goodness,” she says.
"One of my favorite things about working with OnBoard is that when we mention something, you all listen and make changes.”
AMBA uses OnBoard to make board work simpler, faster, and more transparent. The board runs four main meetings each year — two in-person, two remote — and several virtual check-ins in between.
The platform keeps every document, agenda, and vote in one secure place. “We have actually stepped up our number of meetings … and using OnBoard for that is just brilliant,” Andia says. “It’s so nice to have everything in one place. Everyone knows where to go get it. It just works so nicely.”
Because AMBA directors serve long terms, consistency matters more than training. “We don’t have term limits for our board of directors, so it’s not a lot of new training,” she says. “Everybody’s really comfortable with using it.”
Andia also encourages expanding use across committees. “We’ve had ad hoc committees, but right now we only have two — our Executive and our Finance and Investment Committees,” she says. “I think we should start using it for Finance and Investment now that their responsibilities have grown.”
AMBA’s steady feedback has helped shape product updates. “One of my favorite things about working with OnBoard is that when we mention something, you all listen and make changes,” Andia says.
“The biggest ROI is that I'm not constantly annoyed.”
Before discovering Minutes AI, recording meetings was a chore. “It was absolutely tragic. That’s the only thing I can say. You can quote me on that,” Andia says.
Her process was manual and slow. “We’d record the meeting, then I’d go back and listen to the whole thing and type up the minutes,” Andia says. “If I had a two-hour meeting, it could take me four to six hours to finish the minutes. Finding that time in my schedule was painful.”
Then AMBA found Minutes AI right inside the platform. “I think it was in-app from what I remember … maybe there was a ‘try this out,’” Andia says. “We gave it a try and then we were like, yeah, 100% we need this.”
Setup was simple. “I don’t think the user experience required much training,” she says. “It explained what to do — set the time and it’ll automatically join the meeting.”
The first time she used it, an admin accidentally paused recording. “I opened Minutes and saw it was paused, so I just restarted it,” Andia says. “It’s that easy.”
“The last meeting I held was 90 minutes. I hit 'Generate Minutes,' made a few updates, and probably spent 45 minutes total.”
Now, Minutes AI handles what used to take hours. “The last meeting I held was 90 minutes,” Andia says. “I hit ‘Generate Minutes,’ made a few updates, and probably spent 45 minutes total.”
The tool captured key points and even recognized speakers. “If everyone identifies who they are, the AI remembers the sound of their voice,” she says. “It worked well and really captured the essence of what was discussed.”
That improvement gives Andia more time to focus on people instead of paperwork. “I read through and checked a few things, but I probably didn’t need to take that long,” she says.
The change inspired her to share the tool with others. “I just had a meeting last week and told another association, ‘You need to get Minutes. It’ll make your life so much easier,’” she says. “We had a board member once say, ‘I know this was decided at the meeting,’ but we didn’t have the minutes to prove it. This solves that.”
“It's not just about going digital. It's about making meetings better.”
Beyond Minutes AI, AMBA relies on the platform to simplify board life. Members can read materials, cast votes, and review notes from anywhere. “Our board members are located across the country, and OnBoard makes it easy for everyone to stay connected,” Andia says.
She’s also seen how much more her board could use. “There’s so much functionality that we could tap into,” she says. “It’s not just about convenience. It’s about helping the board be more effective.”
When asked what she’d tell another board considering a move to OnBoard or Minutes AI, Andia didn’t hesitate. “Don’t wait,” she says. “The difference in how your board works is incredible. It’s not just about going digital. It’s about making meetings better.”
"OnBoard and Minutes AI let us focus on what really matters — our mission and the people we serve."
For AMBA, every hour saved means more time to support military families and the bankers who serve them. That’s why Andia sees these tools as more than technology.
“OnBoard and Minutes AI let us focus on what really matters — our mission and the people we serve,” she says. “They’ve made our board meetings not just easier, but better.”
“He said it was so easy for him to navigate ... During our board meeting, he said, 'I don't understand why you guys can't do these approvals, even the blind guy can do it.”
AMBA Board Director Steve Beres knows how board meetings should operate. He’s a member of six boards in all. He’s also blind, having lost his vision while serving in Afghanistan, which makes navigating board meetings challenging if the board or its board management solution don’t account for that disability.
Beres, a vice president and veterans outreach manager for Regions Financial, uses screen readers and can easily access board postings and sign documents through OnBoard’s board management portal.
When AMBA decided to switch board management software providers, Dinesen says Beres’ vision wasn’t even a consideration; partially due to Beres’ own technological savviness and partially due to OnBoard’s ease-of-use.
“We’re used to trying to make concessions for Steve when and if they’re needed, Dinesen says of Beres. “However, when we switched to OnBoard, we basically knew it was going to be better than what we were using before so it honestly didn’t really cross my mind. We were just going to be happy with the new solution, and if we needed to make concessions, we would.
“He said it was so easy for him to navigate,” Dinesen adds. “During our board meeting, he said, ‘I don’t understand why you guys can’t do these approvals, even the blind guy can do it.’”
“A lot of companies need to take accessibility – whether that’s physical or digital – into consideration from the start,” Beres says. “It’s a heck of a lot easier to build something up with accessibility at the forefront, than it is to try to add it in later.”
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