Flip the Agenda at Your Next Volunteer Board Meeting

How many meetings have you participated in throughout your career? I bet you have several meetings a day.

If you work in a not-for-profit organization, you constantly have meetings with staff, administration, volunteers and/or combinations of these groups. As you move up the leadership ladder, you are given the task of creating agendas for these meetings. Anyone can create an agenda, but making the agenda come alive is another story.

When participating in a meeting as a staff leader, concentrate on the agenda and what you have to say. Like any production, focus attention on factors such as timing of the meeting, time allowed for each speaker, handouts or audiovisuals to be used, and the desired end result for the meeting. Each meeting should be one step in a constant series of meetings.

Make sure the agenda is comprehensive and the materials are relevant but not overwhelming. Start the meeting on time and finish on time. Also make sure the expectations for each meeting's speaker is clear and the meeting flows. As a staff leader, provide guidance to the volunteer chair, who is typically responsible for directing a volunteer-focused meeting.

With respect to the agenda, constantly watch each participant during the meeting to determine his or her engagement level. As usual, this level is a mixed bag from totally involved to those who play with text messages. Seek feedback from meeting members. It's a great way to improve the meeting process. Many times, you just have to learn by doing.

In a fairly recent meeting, I created an agenda that reflected staff presentations at the front end of the meeting and time for discussion by the volunteers at the back end of the meeting. I noticed that when there were staff presentations, while good, the communication was only one-way and very time-consuming. On an overall basis, volunteers did not seem interested in the meeting. This process left little flexibility for the volunteers to speak and engage. I then made the smart decision at the next meeting to flip the agenda.