Regardless of how your nonprofit organization is set up, the board of directors has a lot of say in the development of the nonprofit’s overall vision and long-term strategy. For any board to exercise its power responsibly, each senior official must be motivated and inspired to take part in the decision-making process.
Increasing board member engagement has massive dividends for an organization. Engaged board members are better prepared for board meetings, contribute to more productive discussions, and promote a greater culture of collaboration among the group.
Maintaining a high level of board engagement is easier said than done. Running an organization is a complicated process with a lot of moving parts. The unique personalities of each board member also have to be taken into consideration. It’s important to create an engagement plan and put procedures in place that encourage individuals to buy into the organization’s identity and work with a clear-eyed purpose. In this article, we’ll explain 5 proven ways to emphasize board engagement.
1. Set Clear Expectations and Goals
Most people do better work when they have a sense of direction to guide their efforts. Without a feasible target to center your endeavors, there’s a greater chance that your performance will falter at inopportune times. It’s important to set achievable expectations that suit each person’s role while taking their board member position into account.
Start the year with a board orientation or board retreat to review various roles, responsibilities, and strategic goals for the year. Ensure every member knows what to expect in terms of participation, decision-making, and preparation.
By eliminating any ambiguity relative to board roles and responsibilities, your leadership team can better foster accountability and collaboration among board members. Additionally, board members are more likely to contribute and engage when they understand their unique impact and role within the organization.
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2. Create a Comprehensive Board Calendar
After board members are informed of their responsibilities and roles within the organization, they need a method to track their tasks to ensure they are making good time in completing their objectives. The creation of a board calendar is a clear way to keep people aware of their tasks and promote accountability in the boardroom.
The board calendar provides an outline of every event over the course of the year, in addition to the projects that should be completed in that same time frame. In most cases, board calendars are made by the CEO or corporate secretary. They are at their most effective when they are made early in the governance year.
The board calendar gives everyone a straightforward timeline to follow and makes their work more efficient. Board calendars are best personalized to fit each organization’s particular goals and available resources, but they generally include items such as:
- The dates for regular board meetings
- Fundraising events
- Compliance reports
- Orientation for new board members
- Peer reviews
- Self-assessments
- Audit reports
- Budget approvals
If your organization has valid reasons to change the scope of its goals, feel free to revise the calendar when it is appropriate.
3. Refresh Board Training and Orientation
For new board members, introductory training programs offer a crash course in the in-house culture and workplace standards of the organization. The orientation duration and content will always vary, but the end goal remains the same for all establishments — to help new directors quickly find their footing and understand how to get the most out of their talents within the current structure.
Like all work operations, it’s smart to proactively evaluate your training and orientation programs so they remain effective as modern needs evolve. The board and other senior leaders can use data from previous training sessions to review their usefulness.
You can gain further insight by holding meetings with directors who have undergone the training or by distributing board engagement surveys. These allow officials to personally explain what they did and didn’t find beneficial about their training experience.
4. Organize Board Documents and Materials
Being an engaged board member means having the requisite knowledge of all key organization topics when necessary. Board members need to have important pieces of information on hand as often as possible to do their jobs at the highest level. One of the key aspects of knowing how to prepare for a board meeting is understanding how to organize and deliver important documents to fortify the decision-making process.
Board packs are a valuable tool in boosting board meeting engagement. Also known as meeting packs, these are a collection of important documents that supply board members with details on relevant topics in the lead-up to the next meeting so they can contribute more to upcoming discussions.
Board packs can package several items, including previous meeting minutes, the board meeting agenda, financial reports, committee reports, and project updates. Board management solutions such as OnBoard offer a streamlined way to store and deliver these materials to directors, from agendas to meeting minutes and more.
5. Define Key Performance Metrics
After setting your goals, the board must verify tangible ways to gauge progress to ensure that all projects remain on schedule. Performance metrics provide quantifiable statistics that measure the organization’s progress toward its loftiest goals.
While the terms are similar, performance metrics are not synonymous with key performance indicators (KPIs). Performance metrics are used to measure the effectiveness of your strategy in relation to an established objective. KPIs utilize specific, data-based measurements to evaluate your progress.
Performance metrics represent your board’s current ability to execute its plans and can point out ways to adjust your approach if things aren’t going as expected. Examples of key performance metrics include productivity, cost, return on investment (ROI), project quality, sales, and employee efficiency.
Getting Started With OnBoard
Board engagement is key to the growth and success of any nonprofit. Board engagement software is a great way to keep board members motivated to do their best to help the organization.
If your team needs a board management software solution, OnBoard is a terrific option. Our platform offers numerous features that help organizations of all shapes and sizes to get the most out of their future meetings and increase overall productivity. If you’re curious to see how OnBoard can aid your organization, you can request a free trial of our tools.
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About The Author
- Gina Guy is an implementation consultant who specializes in working with nonprofit organizations get the most from their board meetings. She loves helping customers ease their workloads through their use of OnBoard. A Purdue University graduate, Gina enjoys refinishing furniture, running, kayaking, and traveling in her spare time. She lives in Monticello, Indiana, with her husband.
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