Nonprofit Board Meeting Toolkit

Is your board newer or lacking in basic structure?

This toolkit includes:

1. Sample agenda template
2. Sample minutes template
3. Board Building Worst Practices Tips
4. 11 Tips for better meetings
5. Why Executive Session is toxic and must end
6. Board Bingo game
7. Board Ice Breaker Game “Bad Libs”
8. Double-Loop Learning and why you should use it
9. Sample Development Committee Charter
10. Sample Governance Committee Charter
11. Sample Finance Committee Charter
12. Sample Board Meeting Evaluation

Agendas: Nonprofit board meetings are a critical part of how nonprofits are run, governed, and show due diligence. In order to make board service enjoyable, it is important to have board agendas for your meetings and for them to start and end on time. In this toolkit, you’ll get my nonprofit board meeting agenda template. Having a substantial part of your board agenda be predictable and consistent helps with board transparency and overall organizational communications.

Even though you can add, modify and remove items from a board agenda, it helps everyone stay on the same page if people attending the board meeting know what topics will come up and when. Use my agenda template as a starting place if you don’t already have one.

Minutes: Minutes is just another term for “notes and records”. Every organization should keep minutes from important meetings, especially board meetings. Minutes help people keep records of conversations, concerns, objections, votes, and those who abstain from voting. With my nonprofit board minutes template, you can get started with basic note-taking during board meetings.

Board minutes are important because a new or existing board member may want to go back and review why a board made a particular decision (or avoided a decision). It helps with clarity, fact-finding, transparency, and an overall record of what was the focus of the board at a particular time. You should talk to an attorney in your state to determine how detailed the minutes should be. Some organizations deal with sensitive matters and may have guidelines for how it records minutes. The best way to save time with board minutes is to use a template that everyone has access to, preferably in the cloud, and is shared right after a meeting.

Nonprofit boards function best when they send work to smaller groups called committed. Your bylaws may spell out your permanent committees. For committees to function well, they should have committee charters - mini one-page descriptions of what the committee is charged with doing. You don’t want confusion in your division of labor. Use my committee charters to create clarity, transparency, and a c