The Benefits and Challenges of Virtual Board Meetings
Virtual board meetings let you discuss and gather important issues for your nonprofit efficiently and in a convenient method. They remove the hassle of cancellations, traffic and delays in travel and allow you to plan meetings at the convenience of your board members without interrupting their work. Moreover, they allow you to attract and retain individuals regardless of their geographic area, which increases your options for recruiting and enhances the diversity of your board.
However, despite the advantages of virtual board meetings, there are still a lot of challenges with them. The first issue is how to keep your attendees entertained. It’s difficult to keep your attendees focused if you don’t have the social aspect of a physical meeting. To avoid this, make an agenda with an established structure and limit the time for discussion.
It’s also crucial to ensure that all your attendees can be heard even if they don’t speak during the meeting. Request that they muffle their microphones when they’re not speaking, and then re-mute it when they are ready to speak. Use a video conferencing tool that automatically records the audio and video so that the less tech-savvy members of your team can participate.
Finally, it’s critical to have a board management software suite that includes secure document storage that allows for the sharing, archiving, and annotation of documents prior to the meeting as well as during the meeting. This will enable your board to share and examine important documents like governing documents, financial statements, and other important information. It will then be easy to make precise and thorough minutes of the meeting.
