If you asked a newcomer to your nonprofit board of directors to describe the board, which adjectives would they use? Would they use words like healthy, robust and functional? Or would the words used be more along the lines of…
Most of the time, offering service as a nonprofit board director is a joyful and rewarding experience. Nearly every board director dreads the thought of getting a serious complaint about the executive director during their time of service. It’s not…
Open meeting laws were enacted as a result of citizens’ concerns over government meetings that were held in secret. Citizens rightly felt that if they were paying taxes to a government, or if governmental decisions affected them, they should have…
In March 2012, BoardEffect published a research report titled “U.S. Laws Governing Nonprofit Boards and Electronic Voting.” The intent was to determine and demystify the legal parameters within which a board could use board portal technology to manage its voting procedures. And it was a huge hit; more than four years later, we continue to see surprisingly widespread usage of the report.
Last week, in response to this sustained demand and to a sharp rise in related questions that have accompanied increasing adoption of board portals, BoardEffect updated and greatly expanded that report. In addition to online voting, the June 2016 version of “Nonprofit Laws: Board Rules and Regulations” addresses such topics as quorum, term limits, conflict of interest and many others. The report encompasses thirteen topic areas, clearly an important advancement to the original voting study. But expanded substance is only one of the report’s improvements. Arguably, the report’s most innovative enhancement relates to its form and format; and the purpose of this post it to explain how best to take advantage of it.
The holiday season reminds us of all the reasons we love to give and receive. It all begins right after Thanksgiving, with the Black Friday sales beginning at midnight, followed by tons of sales for online shoppers on Cyber Monday.…
Nonprofit organizations rely heavily on their board directors. The quality of the board of directors is a reflection of whether a nonprofit moves forward, backward or makes no movement at all. The two biggest assets to a nonprofit board of…
Board secretaries play a central role in managing governance for board directors. The secretarial position is one that guides the board toward best practices and making sure that all board directors are fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. In addition to taking…
Among the many topics on governance, we don’t often hear very much about ex-officio board members. Some might say that the term is becoming outdated. Perhaps that’s true, but it may be wise to contemplate the value that ex-officio members…
Communication is supposed to work both ways, but it doesn’t always quite work out. Perhaps most people take communication for granted or maybe they just don’t realize how much really goes into to it for it to be successful. It’s…
If your nonprofit board wants to maximize your board meeting time as much as possible, one way to create efficiency is to begin utilizing a consent agenda. Some boards prefer to call it a consent calendar. According to best practices…