Note: This guest post is from consultant Alyson Molloy Hussey. Thanks, Alyson! 

2020 was a challenging year for many organizations. Faced with a totally different environment, nonprofit leaders were forced to pivot, adapt, and get creative.

How about you? What was your biggest adaptation over the last year?

Some of these pandemic-era changes are likely to stick. One example: virtual board meetings.

Consistently, nonprofit leaders tell me that they’ve never seen better attendance at board meetings. With no commute and fewer time conflicts, board members are showing up like never before.

How can you embrace this change? Here are three suggestions for strengthening online board engagement.

1. Create engaging meetings

What are we all missing right now? Human connection.

Don’t ask your board members to attend another boring Zoom meeting – especially if they’ve been sitting through meetings all day. Your job, in designing the agenda, is to spark meaningful interactions.

• Give them time to connect. Invite people to join fifteen minutes early for a short “happy hour” before the work begins.

• Design your agenda to include small group discussions, using the breakout room feature in Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or whichever platform you prefer. Breakouts increase opportunities for board members to speak, listen, and participate.

Don’t pack your agenda with reports. No one wants to sit through a virtual meeting listening to other people droning on. Here’s a hint: consider prerecording your brief reports (use slides and video) and distribute them in advance. Written reports can also work well.

This frees up time for your board meetings to be more substantive and interactive.

2. Reactivate your committees

Remember all those committees listed in your bylaws? Maybe it’s time to start utilizing them – or eliminating the unnecessary ones. Frankly, most nonprofits have more committees than they need. I recommend three: Executive, Finance, and Development/Fundraising.

Because committee work can be creative and generative, it lends itself to virtual platforms, small group conversations, and online brainstorming tools.

When your committees are engaged and active, you may need fewer board meetings. Consider an alternating model. For example, if you meet monthly, that equals six committee and six board meetings per year.

Make 2021 the year your organization creates an annual meeting calendar, starting right now. At their first meeting, instruct each committee to choose three goals for the year.

Set the expectation that committee chairs will submit their reports to the board chair at least ten days before the board meeting. Then share these reports in advance with the full board.

3. Provide board training

Your online board meetings become more interactive when you include training. Pick one training topic for each board meeting and include at least 15 to 20 minutes for exercises and discussion.

Use your committees to help select topics and facilitate training conversations.

This is an important moment to provide (or deepen) diversity, equity and inclusion training for your board. Consider sharing power and building skills across your board by rotating the role of facilitator and meeting designer. Because there’s no law requiring the board chair to run all the meetings…

For fundraising training options, check out the book Train Your Board (and Everyone Else) to Raise Money. Many of these exercises are easily adapted to Zoom. (Editor’s note: Thanks for the plug, Alyson!)

When it’s safe, gather in person

One benefit of serving on a board is the opportunity to connect with amazing people. Frankly, those connections are easier to build in person.

Yes, there are benefits to meeting virtually. I still encourage you bring your board together – physically together – when it’s safe to do so.

Start planning your outdoor summer gatherings now; masks and social distancing may still be required. If you live in a warm winter climate, perhaps outdoor meetings will be an option soon.

Regardless of the weather, please follow public health guidance and stay safe.

Take what you’ve learned from virtual meetings to make your in-person meetings more engaging, equitable, productive, and fun.