Board meeting minutes 101: Free template and examples included

Good board meeting minutes are a top priority for every nonprofit. This official document serves as the permanent record of the organization’s history, increases efficiency, transparency, and accountability, and makes board member service more effective.

It may therefore be surprising to hear that they are one area where boards can and do make mistakes. According to a recent survey, while 86% of nonprofit meeting participants confirmed that someone created and distributed minutes, only 54% reported that action points stayed on the radar and were followed up on in a timely manner. Among other benefits, effective meeting minutes can help boards with follow-through from one meeting to the next.

In this blog, we’ll cover:

• What meeting minutes are
• Why they’re important
• What a successful template looks like
• What to include in meeting minutes and what not to include
• Writing minutes step-by-step
• Common mistakes and best practices in producing minutes

Read on for everything you need to know about board meeting minutes and how to take them, with clear examples and a meeting minutes template.

What are meeting minutes?

Board meeting minutes, as the name suggests, capture what happens during a board meeting. Nonprofit board minutes, typically the responsibility of the board secretary, detail the board’s actions, decisions and key deliberations in narrative form.

Below, you’ll find a few examples to help answer the question, “What do board meeting minutes look like?”

Why are meeting minutes important?

Meeting minutes are critical to a well-functioning board and its relationship with stakeholders. Consider these reasons:

• Efficiency: Minutes allow the board to quickly pick up where previous discussions left off.
• Transparency and accountability: Minutes allow stakeholders — from donors to staff to grant organizations to volunteers — to understand the full picture of how the board is supporting the board’s mission, budget and more. They also serve to capture the next steps.
• Communication: By reviewing the board’s actions in a brief format, every participant has the ability to either approve or clarify the contents, reducing the risk of future misunderstanding.
• Institutional memory: Minutes provide a record of the history of the board’s actions, which are helpful from meeting to meeting, but also to understand how the board’s thinking has developed over the years.

Preparation for board secretaries: Using a board meeting template

Board secretaries can prepare for meetings by reviewing formats of past meeting minutes and using templates for sample board meeting minutes. Templates will have areas to fill in pertinent information, such as the date, time and regular agenda items, with flexibility for adding new items. It helps to review formats for nonprofit board meeting minutes examples that other organizations have used successfully. The board secretary and president should agree on the board minutes’ content. They should also decide what to leave out to protect the board and its directors from legal liabilities. We’ll discuss more on that consideration in the “What not to include” section.

Before each meeting, the board secretary will need to obtain information from the board president about attendees, guests and any speakers or special presentations. The secretary will also want to review the past meeting’s minutes and gather any documents for the meeting.

Finally, the secretary will work with the board president to set and solidify the agenda.

Nonprofit meeting minutes template

Members of organizations are entitled to obtain certain records, like financial reports and meeting minutes. More importantly, board directors have legal and fiduciary duties, so it’s important to have a record of the actions that the board took during meetings.

In addition, the minutes of board meetings serve as guidance for the board as they plan and make strategic decisions. Taking board meeting minutes using a specified format and template also serves as legal protection for the board and the organization.

If you're starting from scratch or want to enhance your existing template, use this effective board of directors meeting minutes template. This example comes from BoardEffect, the board management software designed for mission-driven organizations.

What to include in meeting minutes

The most important element of creating effective board meeting minutes is capturing the board’s actions, but it’s not the only aspect. The document should be brief, so avoid going into detail about discussion points. Other documents, such as reports, can be attached later and do the heavy lifting in providing detail.

Elements to include are:

• Meeting date, time and location
• Whether it was a regular or special session
• A statement of whether the minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved
• Corrections and amendments to previous meeting minutes
• Additions to the current agenda
• A list of the presiding officer, directors, staff, guests and other attendees, as well as any absentees
• Whether a quorum does or does not exist
• Motions taken or rejected
• Voting (that there was a motion and second) and the outcome of the vote
• Actions taken or agreed to be taken
• Next steps
• Items to be held over
• New business
• Open discussion or public participation
• Next meeting date and time
• Time of adjournment

An excellent source that board secretaries can use as a guide for recording board minutes is Robert’s Rules of Order.

What not to include in meeting minutes

Not everything should be included in nonprofit board meeting minutes. The wrong entries could pose problems for boards later on. These are some of the things board secretaries should leave out of board meeting minutes:

• Abbreviations, acronyms and jargon, unless the meaning is obvious
• Judgmental or opinionated comments
• Personal observations about members at the meeting
• Notes about personal arguments
• Statements with political undertones
• Exact discussions where lawyers gave legal advice
• Words of praise

Board meeting minutes serve as legal records in a court of law. Discussions, comments and direct quotes by board members could someday be taken out of context or misinterpreted in court hearings. In the event of a lawsuit, the opposing counsel will be looking for weaknesses detailed in board meeting minutes. Too much information can lead to legal risks.

Writing nonprofit meeting minutes step by step

Effective and efficient minute-taking requires the secretary to take four steps. The steps include:

1. Planning before the meeting
2. Taking notes during the meeting
3. Writing a formal report after the meeting
4. Filing and sharing the minutes of each meeting

Step 1: Prepare for the board meeting

To best prepare, you’ll need two documents:

• Minutes template: If you are taking minutes for the first time, look at previous minutes and talk to the board president to determine whether there is an existing template to follow. If there is no existing template, creating one should be a priority. You can create and store a standard template in your board management software.
• Meeting agenda: The minutes document will be based on the agenda, so refer to that document for the structure and topics of the meeting. Your board president should have a copy.

Step 2: Be minutes-ready during the board meeting

While some secretaries still hand-write minutes, boards may have requirements that minutes be typed. Digital entry better reaps the efficiency benefits of using templates for the task.

• Start with your template: The board meeting minutes template prepared in step one will help produce more structured minutes. It should include prompts for the necessary elements (listed above).
• Manage the amount of detail: Minutes-takers have to walk a fine line between including just enough information but not too much, particularly when it comes to discussion. For each agenda item, write a short statement of actions taken by the board and a brief explanation of the rationale for the activity. If there are extensive arguments, write a summary of the significant ideas.
• Be objective: Record discussions objectively and avoid personal observations or inflammatory language. A good way to do this is by avoiding adjectives and adverbs whenever possible. Ensure your phrasing is clear, unambiguous and complete.

In a legal arena, meeting minutes are presumed to be correct and can be legal evidence of the facts they report. Boards have legal liability, so keep information basic and language simple to avoid any legal complications that place the organization at a disadvantage in any legal proceedings. Use names only when recording motions and seconds.

Step 3: Write the official record of the board meeting minutes

Write the formal record when everything is still fresh in mind. Follow this linear process for efficiency:

• Review the agenda to gain the full scope of the meeting
• Add notes for clarification
• Review actions, motions, votes and decisions for clarity
• Edit the record so the minutes are concise, clear and easy to read
• Attach meeting handouts and documents referred to during the meeting to the final copy rather than summarizing the contents in the minutes

Step 4: Signing, filing and sharing minutes

You’re almost done, but there are a few steps before finalizing the minutes document:

• Make the minutes official: Once your board meeting minutes are fully written, you are responsible for making them official by having the board secretary sign them. Your organization may also require the president’s signature. This step can be made easier with board management software that enables review and approval workflows.
• Store the minutes: As part of knowing how to take minutes for a board meeting, you should always follow your organization’s bylaws and protocols for storing minutes. It’s a good idea to have backup copies either in print, a hard drive or (best case) a board management software.
• Share the minutes: The secretary also has the responsibility for sharing minutes. Ensure the president has approved the minutes before sharing them in print or online.

Common mistakes in taking board meeting minutes

Creating quality meeting minutes is a skill that takes work. Keep an eye out for these common errors:

• Failure to document a quorum
• Ambiguous description of board actions
• Including information that could harm the board in a legal sense
• Lengthy delays in providing minutes after a meeting
• Delays in approving minutes from past meetings, missing mistakes
• Failing to file and manage documents
• Failing to get documents signed, so they serve as an official and legal record

Always be mindful that the purpose of taking meeting minutes is to reflect the true intentions of the board and that they are an official and legal record. Given the breadth of detail and complexity of the process associated with proper documentation of meeting minutes and learning to take minutes for a board meeting, many organizations find using board management software helpful. Board portal tools help make this work easier and more efficient, ultimately elevating organizational performance.

As serious as the job is, taking and preparing minutes can also be a rewarding and edifying experience.

Board meeting minutes best practices

Here’s a quick review of the best practices when creating meeting minutes:

• Develop a template if your organization does not already use one. Implement your template in your board management software to maximize efficiency.
• Gather useful information ahead of the meeting, including the agenda and any information about attendees, guests, speakers or special presentations
• Be consistent in the method of reporting so that the information is reliable
• Write the final minutes soon after the meeting, while your memory is fresh
• Keep your statements short, concise and objective
• Have a standard process for handling approvals, using your board management software’s workflows for efficiency
• Store the minutes in a consistent place so they are accessible when needed

Board meeting minutes legal requirements

Governance for nonprofits falls under state laws. Each state or locality has its own mandates for registering a nonprofit. In most localities, nonprofit boards are required to take and record board meeting minutes. A few examples:

• Utah’s corporate records statute: Minutes of all meetings of members and the board of directors are listed as permanent records that the nonprofit shall keep. The statute also requires records of actions taken without a meeting, committee actions taken in place of the board and waivers of notice. Utah explicitly labels board minutes as permanent records, emphasizing long-term retention rather than a fixed, short-retention schedule.
• Vermont’s corporate records statute: Similar to Utah’s statute, the Vermont code requires that the organization maintain minutes for meetings of all of its members and board of directors, non-meeting actions and certain committee actions.
• New York’s Not-for-Profit Corporation Law: Like the other examples, New York requires similar records retention and specifies where such documents should be kept, in this case citing “at the office of the corporation.”
• Canada’s Not-for-Profit Corporations Act: Under the section “Registered Office and Records,” the law requires preservation of “the minutes of meetings of members and any committee of members.” The records should be stored at “its registered office or at any other place in Canada designated by the directors.”
• Charity Commission for England and Wales: The UK’s rules differ depending on whether the charity is incorporated or unincorporated. Unincorporated charities must retain minutes for at least six years, while corporations must retain documents for at least 10 years from the date of the meeting.

Additionally, the Center for Nonprofit Management interprets IRS guidance for minutes retention: “Corporate records, which set forth policy decisions such as board minutes, should be kept forever. The goal here is to present a full history of the organization, since an organization may need to review historic decisions (for example, the restrictions placed on a donation).”

Transform your board’s meeting minutes process, start to finish

Board meeting minutes are a crucial document for nonprofit boards, and it’s important for your organization’s mission that they are managed consistently, professionally and within legal guidelines. Consider how these features can help your board:

• Automation: Automatically add meeting details such as attendees, dates and topics to a minutes template directly from the agenda, eliminating manual data entry.
• AI assistance: Use built-in AI tools to generate polished minutes and action items from board materials, typed notes and transcripts, significantly reducing manual effort.
• Action item management: Add action items, assign them to specific directors and monitor progress directly within the platform. System-generated email notifications and prompts ensure accountability and follow-up.
• Structured note-taking: Use the consistent, standardized format for minute-taking that BoardEffect provides and that supports your organization’s legal and compliance efforts. Minute-takers can record the amount of time spent on discussion items, helping demonstrate due diligence.
• Streamlined review and approval: Import completed minutes into the next meeting's materials for discussion and formal approval, simplifying this standard governance practice. BoardEffect also can be used to gather electronic approvals.
• Secure storage and access: Use the centralized digital library with granular permissions to store minutes and related documents securely, ensuring only authorized individuals can access sensitive information.
• Collaboration: Allow multiple reviewers to collaborate on meeting minutes in real-time, helping eliminate version-control issues and speeds up the finalization process.
• Export and reporting: Export minutes to common formats such as Microsoft Word. Administrators can generate reports, such as attendance records, for compliance.

BoardEffect offers the right tools to make every stage of meeting minutes simpler, from preparation and writing to approvals and retention. Request a demo today.

Meeting minutes frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How detailed should meeting minutes be?

It is not appropriate to record everything board members say at a meeting. Minutes should only summarize the major points of a meeting relative to the board’s actions and decisions. Additional details may increase the organization’s legal risk.

When should board meeting minutes be distributed?

Board meeting minutes should be distributed as soon as possible after the meeting so board members have sufficient time to review them and make corrections before voting to approve them. BoardEffect streamlines the process of getting minutes distributed and approved, as it all happens electronically.

What is the purpose of board and shareholder meeting minutes?

The purpose of board meeting minutes is to record motions, decisions and key discussions in connection with the board meeting agenda.

Who should take minutes at a board meeting?

Any board member can take board meeting minutes, although it is typically the responsibility of the board secretary.

How do boards approve minutes at a board meeting?

At the start of a board meeting, boards must approve meeting minutes for the previous meeting. A unanimous consent vote must approve minutes.

Are nonprofit board meeting minutes public?

The answer is, “It depends.” Nonprofit board meeting minutes aren’t automatically public, but whether they must be shared depends on your state laws and organization’s bylaws. While some states require certain publicly funded or government-adjacent nonprofits to hold open meetings, most charitable organizations operate with closed sessions and limited outside participation. There are pros and cons to both approaches.