Five Ways to Improve Your Meeting Attendance
By: Debi Peverill
Tags: Governance, Board, Productivity, Meetings, Agenda

Meetings are a fact of life. Many organizations, especially nonprofits without staff, need to accomplish tasks at meetings. Poorly attended meetings are a sign that the organization itself is not healthy.

Every organization needs their board members to attend every board meeting. This is how things get done. If you are going to have effective meetings, then you need all of the players in place to make that happen. If board meetings are poorly attended, then the organization does not have all of the firepower it needs at every meeting. The board has been carefully chosen to reflect a range of skills and experience. If any of those people are missing, then the full range of expertise is not being brought to bear on the issues being discussed at the meeting.

How can you get board members to come to every meeting?

1. First of all set the expectation that full attendance is required at every meeting. Let it be known that board members are expected to attend each meeting held each year. Explain that missing a meeting should be a very rare event. Establish consequences for missing meetings.

2. Make it easy for board members to remember to attend meetings. Do you offer a virtual option for people who are not close enough to attend in person? Do you send out meeting reminders a few days before the meeting so that people can check in with their schedule? Do you plan your meetings well in advance so that board members can check their availability ahead of time? The second Wednesday of every month is an easy way to make sure that your board members can keep the time available for the meeting.

3. Make the meeting productive. Avoiding drama is an excellent goal for most organizations. A meeting where participants leave with a sense of accomplishment, is a meeting that will be well attended next time. Everyone needs to feel that their time is being well spent. I have written other articles on how a strategic plan helps to make sure that meetings are well attended, because each meeting moves the organization forward to achieving their goals.

4. Avoid unpleasant meetings. All board members should be trained in respectful conversations. You want to be discussing the issues not anyone’s personalities. A meeting should be a safe space for people to share their views and have a discussion that does not involve name calling or other disrespectful behaviour. Board members should feel comfortable to express themselves at a meeting without anyone attacking them.

5. Respect time limits. Board meetings should be scheduled for a specific time and the meeting should not extend beyond that. The best way to do this is to stick to the agenda that was created for this meeting. The agenda should be sent out ahead of time so that board members can determine if there is anything on the agenda, where they could have a conflict of interest. Once that has been established then the full board package would be sent out to each board member so that they can prepare properly for the upcoming meeting. Well prepared board members lead to quicker meetings because you do not have to wait for people to read the material and understand the issues.

If you implement these five strategies, then your organization will have better board meetings.