Board Meetings: What Does One Do?

Homeschool Leader Jennifer asks,

​Now that you helped us to form a nonprofit board, I am not sure where to go from here. What do we discuss at meeting or how do we structure? I was wondering if your board webinar series would be helpful, but based on the description, it may focus more on how to form a board. I appreciate any direction or resources you can point me to.

Hi!

Great questions! The board training is definitely a great resource and there will definitely be parts of it that are helpful with your questions, but we did not get deep into the nitty gritty of how to operate a board meeting. Here's a few brief (though not all inclusive) thoughts that hopefully will help.

1. Check your bylaws...hopefully they define the roles of each board member.

• The Chair (or President) should create the agenda for the board meeting and send it out to board members beforehand for review. Take a minute to listen to this 15 min podcast (scroll down towards the bottom) which specifically talks about board agendas. Board Binder: Meeting Calendar and Agenda - Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network (ultimateradioshow.com) Carol starts talking about the agenda around minute 5. She also has a Board Training Manual in her bookstore that has a sample agenda in it that might help you.

• The Secretary should take minutes at the meeting. Here's an article with some helpful info about this. How to Take Minutes at a Board Meeting Effectively | Aprio (aprioboardportal.com) Don't worry about this being super formal/professional, however, it's important to get the basic premise down.

• The Secretary should type up the minutes she took during the board meeting and should send those out for the board members to review before the next meeting. At the beginning of the next meeting, one of the first things on the agenda is to review and approve the minutes from the last meeting to make sure they are accurate. It's important the Secretary uses the same format for all the minutes. In the case of an audit of your organization, these minutes are key to showing your organization is operating as legally required with integrity. All board records, meeting minutes, and legal documents should be kept in a binder by the Secretary.

2. Board meeting basics:

It's common for boards to use Robert's Rules of Order. These are actually very complex, and it is fine to use a basic/simplified version of them. The most common and recommended Robert's Rules procedures are below. These are very simplified and you may want to learn more about board protocol and beef them up, but this will be a good start:

• The Chair/President will convene the meeting "call the meeting to order"

• Work through the agenda including discussion on the agenda items.

• In order to make a formal decision about agenda items, anyone on the board can make a motion to take action by saying they "move to...." (ie. "I move to approve the minutes" or, "I move to approve the hiring of an executive director")

• Once a motion is made by this person, the motion must be seconded by someone else before the group as a whole can vote on it. This is done by someone else saying in response to the first motion, "I second."

• The board chair would then say, "All in favor?" and ALL the members (including the ones who made motions) say "aye" or "nay." Check your bylaws to determine what percentage of "aye" votes you need in order for a motion to be passed.

• The board chair formally announces if the motion has passed or failed and the secretary should not this in the minutes (and also note who made the motion, who seconded, and what everyone voted).

You should also know your bylaws and what constitutes a quorum (the minimum number of attendees in order to conduct business). If you are missing a certain percentage of your board members, you may not be able to vote on actions at all.

Lastly, know what else your bylaws require of your board (how often to meet, how to choose or replace board members, etc...).

I hope this helps and answers what you were asking. You can always request a personal consult with me to talk further at www.nonprofitedsolutions.com/book-online!