Blog
How Small Charities and Foundations Can Benefit from a Board Portal
By Dustin McKissen, December 08, 2018
Charities and foundations with less than $1M in gross receipts
need to use their resources to focus more on programming and their mission, and
less on administrative activities that don’t help the organization achieve its
strategic goals or deliver on the commitments it has made to funders and
donors.
What is an example of a task that every small charity and
foundation engages in that does not further its mission?
Conducting and facilitating board meetings.
Of course, board and committee meetings are a necessary part of
running any nonprofit, including a charity or foundation.
But time spent compiling board binders and other cumbersome
meeting materials is time that could be better spent on activities that
increase a charity or foundation’s programmatic impact. In addition, adopting
technology that makes attending and participating in board and committee
activities easier will only increase director engagement.
And director engagement is critically important to the success of
small charities and foundations.
As anyone who has worked for or served on the board of a charity
or foundation knows, an organization with an engaged board of directors is an
organization that is far more likely to achieve its goals. However, convenience
and ease aren’t the only benefits BoardPaq can deliver to small charities and
foundations.
The platform also features truly innovative technology that delivers
benefits that aren’t provided by other board portals.
One of BoardPaq’s many unique features is a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis tool that will
help a board of directors develop a strategic plan that can strengthen their
bottom line while still increasing organizational impact. BoardPaq developed
its SWOT tool specifically because it knows how important good strategy is to
the success of a small nonprofit led by a volunteer board of directors.
In addition to unique and innovative features like the SWOT
analysis tool, BoardPaq also gives directors the ability to:
- Easily access
upcoming and past meeting materials.
- Easily access
contact information, bios, and committee memberships.
- Inform board
administrators and staff of their availability.
- Track
individual director tasks that need to be completed for each meeting.
- Review and
comment on draft minutes.
- Respond to
RSVP meeting requests.
- Maintain an
online meeting agenda that allows directors to view correlating documents and
add notes to agenda items.
- Attach
personal notes and reminders to agenda items for reference during meetings.
- Conduct secure
real-time discussions between directors and staff on individual agenda items.
- Vote any time
a resolution is open for voting, from anywhere.
- So much more!
Under a new pricing plan designed specifically for them,
BoardPaq—the board portal of choice for more than 1,000 cost- conscious
nonprofits across the country—gives small
charities and foundations the tools and resources they need to increase their
impact and successfully achieve their strategic goals.
For charities and foundations with gross receipts of less
than $1M, one of the most valuable resources is time. If the small charity or
foundation has staff, those staff are wearing several hats. If the charity or
foundation has an executive director, that ED is often also the chief program
officer, chief financial officer, IT director—and takes out the trash. Small
charities and foundations simply do not have the financial resources to afford
specialized staff. Utilizing BoardPaq means wearing at least one of those hats
the ED is wearing—coordinating board meetings—is a lot less cumbersome.
BoardPaq’s many features and benefits help facilitate
dialogue and collaboration between directors, officers, and staff. Increased
dialogue and collaboration also results in a more effective use of limited
time. The result of that extra time and collaboration will be a charity or
foundation in a position to increase its impact and deliver real results to its
funders and stakeholders.
Having engaged funders and stakeholders means
making a bigger impact—and a bigger impact means increased support from donors
and funders.
In other words, focusing on the little things (like board
meetings) is often the first step toward doing even bigger things.
Interested in learning more about the benefits of
BoardPaq and how small charities and foundations can use the nonprofit sector’s
most robust and innovative board portal?
Schedule a demo with a
member of our team today.
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Dustin McKissen is the founder of McKissen + Company, an association management and marketing firm. He is a Certified Association Executive and has served as an executive or consultant to a wide variety trade associations, professional societies, and nonprofits.