Mastering communication with your volunteer board members

When it comes to a volunteer board, communication comprises more than simply board meetings. Onboarding and offboarding new members, sharing relevant information, sending out board materials and managing relationships are all huge efforts, and as a board administrator, this can feel like a full-time job on top of your full-time job, in these areas that impact every aspect of your nonprofit’s work.

Consider what these organisations — and their administrators — faced and overcame:

• Managing complex meeting schedules for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry’s 62-member board, eight committees and six subsidiary boards
• Ensuring compliance for Starfish Family Services, a recipient of federal funding
• Navigating misunderstandings and confusion caused by email use at the International Network of Churches
• Keeping proprietary content safe as the board changed at the Louisiana Restaurant Association
• Simplifying an overdemanding onboarding process for Presbyterian SeniorCare

For today’s nonprofit board administrators, these issues likely seem familiar. And in each case, board administration found solutions for the communications issues they faced by employing a smart technology solution. Take a deeper look at the communications challenges faced by mission-driven boards and the strategies that can help.

5 challenges nonprofits face with board communications

As the examples above show, issues with communications can come from many different areas at a mission-driven organisation. You likely are facing one or more of these issues with your own board:

1. Lack of engagement

Engagement is an important area to foster to ensure volunteer board success. What does a lack of engagement look like? You might see absenteeism, directors being ill-prepared for board meetings and a lack of response to outreach efforts like RSVPs and more.

2. Outdated or inconsistent communication methods

Many organisations continue to fall back on email or even paper to do much of their work — both of which can lead to confusion and overwhelm volunteer board members.

3. Overwhelming volume of communications

Board service becomes even more demanding when members are faced with numerous messages coming from multiple streams.

4. Insecurity around confidential information

Nonprofits face the same challenges corporations have in protecting payment, employee and other data, and their leaders need to have the same sensitive discussions — but data security, while obviously essential, can be low among budget priorities.

5. Lack of shared objectives

Board members don’t have to agree on everything, but they must share an understanding of the organisation’s mission, its strategic goals and their own roles and responsibilities. Without that baseline agreement, it will be hard for the leadership team to get anything done.

So, how can these issues be overcome?

Are your volunteer board communications as secure as they should be? Find out if your board’s communications are checking the right cyber boxes — and how to fix it if they aren’t — when you download our Securing your volunteer board communications checklist.

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Tips for administrators in supporting board communication

The concerns and issues faced by the organisations mentioned above may be affecting your own organisation. You may be spending a lot of your time chasing after RSVPs, clarifying earlier messages, repeating messages you shared with them during onboarding training, and more. The overall key to improving board communication  —  and saving time? It’s empowering the board with the information and solutions they need to fulfill their roles.

The overall key to improving board communication  —  and saving time? It’s empowering the board with the information and solutions they need to fulfill their roles.

Consider these tips for supporting your board’s communication:

Focus on clear, concise and direct communication

When working with a diverse group of busy individuals, the information you share should be as brief and literal as possible. There is a reason why “tl; dr” (for “too long, didn’t read”) became a popular shorthand online. Put necessary information (deadlines and actions needed) at the top of your messages and share background information as a link to a document stored in your board management software.

Simplify communication channels

Simplify communication channels to reduce demands on the board and keep important information front and center. Reducing the digital noise board members face is a surefire way to keep them focused on the work at hand. (Your board management solution is the ideal place to create as a ‘single source of truth.’)

Create consistent communication rhythms to keep members engaged and informed

In the Pennsylvania Chamber case study above, board administrator Carissa Burgett established a cadence around RSVPs that led board members to expect certain information at certain times and ended up increasing the response rate. Use a board management solution with built-in messaging to generate messages at expected times.

Understand your audience and their background

In that vein, having a full understanding of your board members’ demographics, experiences and more can only help with relationship-building and fostering communication. Surveys can be a powerful tool to gather information about your board and the experiences and resources they bring to the table.

Foster a positive environment

Creating a culture of trust begins with making expectations for board members clear from the beginning. Make all key information that board members need available in a central location, and keep them informed by sharing news in your board management tool.

Manage difficult or sensitive information carefully

Many organisation leaders who once thought themselves immune from cyber risk have discovered that is no longer the case. Breaches can be caused by bad actors or human error, but once lost, trust is hard to rebuild. By ensuring your board’s sensitive information is protected, you support the ability to have frank, productive conversations in the boardroom.

How technology can enhance communication

Technology can help with effective board communication, if it is used thoughtfully and strategically and if its use makes board service easier. A powerful board management solution like BoardEffect can support your board’s communication efforts, keep sensitive data secure and help your board administrator be more efficient.

Here are just a few of the ways BoardEffect enhances your board communication:

• A one-stop-shop for board member activity, with built-in communications, document storage, meeting agendas, workflows and more
• A clear dashboard keeps each director’s to-do items front and center, reducing uncertainty and allowing every board member to be more efficient while bringing important information and to-do’s direct to them
• Board members can access information at any time, anywhere and on any device including the BoardEffect app for streamlined communication
• Training and onboarding new trustees becomes straightforward using the solution, you can store key onboarding documents in one location for them to review to come up to speed
• Agenda and item approvals are managed automatically through customisable workflows, helping to streamline communication over board materials
• During meetings, the board management software offers not only a centralised location for discussion (including secure workrooms) but digital approvals and a document repository for easy reference
• Strong security and granular permissions keep your organisation’s data and communications safe, building trust among the board, staff and other stakeholders

“It’s life-changing, I don’t even know how I would still be working here if I didn’t have some sort of platform to help ease this whole process.”- Carissa Burgett, Board Administrator and Assistant to the President and CEO, Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry

We at Diligent understand the unique role of the board administrator and the needs of the mission-driven organisation. With BoardEffect, the entire team can communicate more efficiently and successfully to support the organisation’s goals.