How To Get Your Board To Show Up

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Apart from hiring board members and paying them an annual salary, there are no guaranteed ways to assure volunteer board members will regularly attend their scheduled meetings. However, to increase your chances for a quorum at future meetings, there are a number of methods you can employ.

Written Reminders – Follow-up Calls

At least two weeks before your board meeting, each member should be mailed information on the upcoming meeting. The outside envelope should have a red stamped notice declaring XYZ ORGANIZATION BOARD MEETING NOTICE. Most printing shops can produce these stamps for less than $10.

The specifics of the meeting should be concise. List times, dates, location, and detailed information about the goals and objectives of the meeting. Additional information critical to the meeting, such as financial statements, committee reports, and programs to be discussed and acted upon, should be included with the meeting notice.

A week before the board meeting the executive director should follow up the meeting notice with a call to each member. Speak directly to the board member, not to spouses, assistants, or secretaries. During this conversation you can pitch programs, generate enthusiasm, and build a stronger rapport.

A Strong Chair

Your board chair can help make calls to board members. This person should be encouraged to spend productive time communicating with other members before meetings. A call or visit from the chair will often persuade errant members to attend meetings.

Goals, Enthusiasm, And Motivation

The best meeting notices in the world, coupled with persistent follow-up calls, aren’t going to assure attendance if your meetings lack direction or are dull. Pump some life into your meetings with exciting guest speakers, energetic presentations, and dynamic goals.

Volunteers, especially board members, want to be “where the action is,” not on the listening end of a lifeless stream of inane reports. Remember, you don’t lose volunteers from overwork; you lose them from boredom. This is particularly true for volunteer board members.

Don’t forget refreshments. Hungry, thirsty board members are less likely to concentrate on the business at hand. They also may not attend your next meeting because coffee or snacks weren’t available.

Active Committees

Your board should have several committees, each with assigned tasks that require action between scheduled meetings.

Develop a written job description that addresses responsibilities, fundraising duties, committee assignments, and whatever else you feel is important, including attendance.

It’s the board chair’s and executive director’s roles to encourage members of these committees to attend meetings and report on accomplishments and failures. The agenda for your board meeting should include reports from each active committee.

Recruiting the Right Members

You can beg, bribe, and even threaten some board members, and they will still only attend sporadically. This causes frustration for the executive director and for other board members.

It could be that the person recruited isn’t right for the job. Don’t pick members on the basis of their names, wealth, or political clout, unless that’s all you want from them.

Active, productive board members should be evaluated on the basis of their support for the mission of the organization, past accomplishments, understanding of the community, and their willingness to serve.

Develop a written job description that addresses responsibilities, fundraising duties, committee assignments, and whatever else you feel is important, including attendance. Board members must attend meetings.

Dismissing Board Members

Finally, there’s the board member who ignores your repeated attempts at contact, won’t return calls, and doesn’t show up at meetings.

How do you get this person motivated to take an active role? You don’t. They obviously aren’t right for the job. This person is either too busy, uninterested, or didn’t support your efforts in the first place. What do you do? Fire them!

Your organization should have written policies addressing board responsibilities and duties. Somewhere in those policies there should be a statement that says, “Three unexcused absences in a one year period is grounds for dismissal.”

If you choose to exercise this dismissal policy, do it professionally. As in any personnel action, the executive director should document all pertinent information, such as meetings missed without excuses, attempts at contact by mail and phone, dates information was sent to the member, and the dates of any personal contacts.

The chair and the executive director should present this information to the board. A motion should be made to dismiss the member, and a vote taken. Notice of the board’s action is sent to the member by mail.

Time is too short and money too tight to be wasted on individuals who have no intention of serving your organization. You’ll be much better off if you replace them with motivated, productive members who will proudly attend meetings and help carry out the mission of your organization.

Steve Nitka is a freelance writer.

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