The pandemic has made life more difficult than ever for nonprofits to operate and generate community support, and many depend on board meetings held remotely to make critical decisions and ensure their continued existence. It can be difficult to conduct a remote board meeting without the physical presence of every member.
A specific, clear agenda will help keep your board meeting remotely on topic and focused. Include your board in the process of establishing the agenda. This will allow you to determine what topics to cover. Then, distribute the agenda as far ahead of time as you can to all attendees to allow them to prepare. This will help ensure they have a full understanding of what’s to be discussed and will allow them to add any items to the agenda ahead of time. Utilizing an online board portal secure to distribute agendas and other materials will also help to reduce security risk.
Video can enhance engagement in remote board meetings, by adding a vital face-toface element to the discussions. Video also lets participants observe the body language of others and note non-verbal signals, such as excitement, boredom or impatience.
It can be difficult for busy boards to schedule meetings in person, especially when they have multiple commitments both professional and personal. With remote board meeting software, finding an acceptable time for all attendees can be much easier. Tools like SavvyCal’s free meeting polls let you propose multiple times for your meeting and let participants vote on the times that work best for them. This eliminates the need for back-and-forth emails and saves you a lot of time and hassle.
