Board meetings are a great opportunity for directors of non-profit organizations to discuss a variety of issues. These topics can range from evaluating the performance of an organization to discussing the future strategies. Nonprofits typically Board Portals rely on the advice of board members with diverse backgrounds and experiences to help steer the organization towards success.

To have a productive meeting for the board, it is important that everyone is prepared and have reviewed all relevant documents before hand. The agenda should be created by a group and shared ahead of time so that all participants have time to read the documents and prepare for discussion. There is nothing that makes a meeting unproductive like having people scramble to grasp key information simultaneously and it is essential that meeting agendas include sufficient information to allow participants to participate effectively.

By establishing clear rules for making decisions and distributing them to the participants the board can focus discussions around a common objective. This prevents divergent discussions that eat up precious meeting time and prevents the board from achieving an agreement or deciding on important issues. Utilizing technology tools for real-time collaboration makes it easier for members to share and communicate documents, even when they are geographically dispersed.

A well-balanced mix of board members can help energize meetings and create more productive discussions. It is important to choose a mixture of optimism with pessimism, a mix of youth and age, and experience with fresh ideas. Changes in the location of the meeting or the time of day will also aid in energizing the discussion. This is because it will change the mood of the room and get attendees out of their routines. It is vital to evaluate the quality of meetings every year. To do this, hand each board member two sticky notes and ask them to evaluate their overall satisfaction the meetings on a scale of + (what is working well) to -(what is in need of improvement).