Does your board meet too much?

I know this may sound like heresy, but if your Board is bored, or is micromanaging the staff, it may be that it meets too much.

If you have a cadre of professional staff who carry out the operations, and have no major issues that have to be dealt with today, why meet monthly? There are more efficient ways to send out reports. And if the board receives a well-crafted dashboard regularly, then it knows without meeting whether staff are achieving objectives or if there are issues of concern that will require action.

Too frequent board meetings with nothing substantive on the agenda just open the door for the board to start mucking around in areas of staff responsibility… because there just isn’t anything to do!

Unless you have a working board (where the board members also fill staff functions because your organization is so small that it has no or a few staff), then carefully consider reducing your meeting schedule. You’ll be doing your volunteers a favor and they can invest all that newly-found time in activities that truly advance your organization.