Meeting and Exceeding Expectations: A Guide to Successful Nonprofit Board Meetings

Meeting and Exceeding Expectations:
A Guide to Successful Nonprofit
Board Meetings

8-1/2" x 11", softcover, 141 pages,
BoardSource, $51.00.

Meeting and Exceeding Expectations: A Guide to Successful Nonprofit Board Meetings provides the information you need to ensure that your downtown organization’s board meetings are productive, legal and orderly.

Without quality time spent in the boardroom, the downtown organization’s board of directors cannot possibly govern effectively. Yet many organizations are not fully versed in the best practices for running effective board meetings

Meeting and Exceeding Expectations provides the information you need. In seven detailed chapters plus a wealth of sample documents, the book:

Clarifies the legal framework of board meetings
Discusses the ins and outs of how to plan an effective board meeting
Presents options for achieving agreement and consensus
Addresses the importance of documenting the board’s decisions
Provides tips on how to keep board members fully engaged, and more.

Meeting and Exceeding Expectations also includes helpful tips on how to bring absent board members back to meetings, ground rules for a laid-back meeting that is still legal and orderly, balancing the business and social aspects of meetings, managing conflicts of interest, staying focused on the right issues, and more.

A valuable resource for board members, chief executives, and senior staff who are new to downtown leadership, as well as a quick reference for experienced board members who need a fresh look at how to make their meetings more meaningful.

Introduction
1. The Law and Meeting

Running meetings under Sunshine Laws

What should the bylaws say about board meetings?

Case study: Youth movement
2. Planning a Meeting

What is the purpose of this meeting?

How often should a board meet?

The when, where, and how of planning a meeting

How much will it cost?

Meetings without a boardroom

Case study: Be prepared
3. Meeting Documentation and Board Communications

Agenda as your road map

Consent agendas: How do they help?

Preparing board books

Board meeting minutes

Recording meetings

Generating board reports

Communicating electronically between meetings

Case study: Better late than never?
4. Meeting Structure, Decision Making, and Voting

Board structure and the role of parliamentary order

Using deliberation in decision making

Reaching a unanimous decision

Seeking consensus

How do boards vote?

Deciding by majority rule

Voting by proxy

Managing split votes

Abstaining from voting

Case study: Silence is not always golden
5. Meeting Participation

No quorum, No meeting

The absentee board member

Leave of absence

Other participants in meetings

Case study: Heal thyself
6. Overcoming cultural and behavioral barriers

Keeping civility in the boardroom

Managing conflicts of interest

Bringing private agendas into the boardroom

Culture of inquiry

Electing a devil’s advocate and devil’s inquisitor

Case study: Persistent and persnickety
7. Other kinds of meetings

First meeting of the founding board

Annual meeting

Special or emergency meetings: Taking care of the unforeseen

Committee Meetings: The Board’s Workshop

Executive committee meetings

Making use of executive sessions

Convening an organization’s membership

Retreats: Helping to go forward

Case study: Two (or three or four) heads are better than one
Sample meeting agendas Sample contents of a board book Sample minutes templates Sample committee report template Sample ballots Sample resolutions Sample meeting evaluations Sample proxy Sample agenda for an orientation retreat Glossary Resources

Meeting and Exceeding Expectations:
A Guide to Successful Nonprofit
Board Meetings

Table of Contents

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