board presentation requirements

13 Tips on How To Nail a Presentation To the Board of Directors

Published: January 13, 2021

In college, I always made it a point to listen intently to presentations. I knew how stressful and nerve-racking it was to present in a room of peers and authority figures.

I would nod feverishly to let presenters know I was invested in their presentation. And they knew it too. They often zeroed in on me as I became their focus point and silent motivator. The fixation felt awkward at times, but that felt like one of my small contributions to society. That, and an endless supply of cat videos.

Back then, the stakes were relatively low. But when you’re tasked with putting together a presentation to a board of directors, the pressure’s on.

But with a few tricks in your arsenal, you won’t need a sympathetic audience member to gauge how well you’re doing.

Let’s walk through some tips to prepare for your presentation and review some things to avoid.

How To Make a Presentation To the Board

• Know your audience.
• Plan ahead.
• Structure your presentation.
• Keep it concise.
• Set up early.
• Incorporate visuals into your presentation.
• Focus on results.
• Send materials beforehand.
• Build confidence with your power outfit.
• Rehearse your script.
• Don't fall into the PowerPoint Trap.
• Read the room.
• Include time for questions.

1. Know your audience.

Knowing your listeners is as important as the content of your presentation. When you understand their priorities, you can put together a presentation that speaks directly to them.

If you don't know the board well, do some research and get answers to these questions:

What does the board care about?

This will help you see from what lens they look at things. For instance, a board keen on community impact may not be drawn to a presentation focused on return on investment (ROI).

There are a few ways to find this out. You can start by looking into each board member’s professional background. If most members have a finance background, for instance, you’ll want to make sure you cover any financials as it relates to your presentation. This could be cost, expected ROI, or operating margins.

You can also get some insight into what the board cares about by looking back at your interactions with its members. Think about the conversations you’ve had: What comes up most often? Is it company culture, profit, philanthropy, innovation, or something else?

What are their main concerns?

A board of directors is responsible for making decisions that will ensure the growth and sustainability of a company. So naturally, they will be looking out for anything that may impede that process.

Common concerns a board may have are:

• Costs: How much time and money will it require?
• Timeline: How long will this project take and is that timeline feasible?
• Risks: How risky is your proposal and what is the risk-to-return ratio?

You may find that each board member has a different focus, which means your presentation should be well-rounded to tackle these issues.

Once you know this answer, you can subtly handle each concern throughout your presentation. Getting those answers will help you create a presentation that not only interests your audience but also aligns with their goals. This, in turn, will bring you much closer to accomplishing the plans laid out in your presentation.

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2. Plan ahead.

The next step in delivering a great presentation is making a plan. This means figuring out the focus of your presentation, what you’ll cover, and what you’ll leave out.

A presentation should follow the structure of any good movie, with a beginning, middle, and an end. Here’s an example outline for a presentation where the head of the marketing team is proposing course offerings as a new lead generation channel.

The middle is the meat and potatoes of your presentation. You'll likely spend time providing data, contextualizing it, and explaining your approach.

Your ending should bring together your key points and leave your audience with actionable steps. Because what good is providing the information if you have no plan for what to do moving forward?

3. Structure your presentation based on the board’s process.

Not every board of directors operates in the same way. Sure, there are standard guidelines for every meeting. However, the approach may vary for presentations.

Some may operate more like a town hall, pausing periodically to discuss the points as they come up. In this case, leave room after each section of your presentation to discuss what was covered.

Others may follow the more standard approach: presentation followed by a discussion. Studies show that humans remember best the beginning and end of what they read, hear, and see. What’s in the middle tends to get lost. With that in mind, consider sharing your most pertinent information toward the beginning and end of your presentation.

4. Keep it concise.

One thing board members aren’t known for is open availability. That said, you want to make the most of your time with them. How do you do that? Stick to the scope of the presentation.

While it’s great to incorporate storytelling, avoid getting sidetracked and wasting time. Be clear and keep it simple.

If you’re showing data, only share one highlight per data graph. There are several reasons for this:

• Data itself doesn’t tell a story. You, as the presenter, do. As such, you have to explain what it means and why it matters. Let’s say lead generation at your company has plateaued in the past year across all channels. That’s all the data says. But during your research, you realize it’s due to a shift in how your audience is consuming information. Your role is to present the data and explain the "why" behind the plateau along with a solution.
• You want to prevent information overload. Share the piece of data that best supports your points and has the most impact. For instance, if a new lead generation channel is the focus of your presentation, diving into the specifics of another channel may not be worth your time. Tools like Diligent Boards can help ensure directors receive a complete yet concise view of information directly pertinent to them, so you’re not overwhelming them with unnecessary details.

If you leave it to your audience to make sense of the data, they might reach a conclusion that doesn’t align with your message.

5. Set up early.

There’s nothing more awkward than silence during a technical difficulty.

Everyone’s looking at you while you’re figuring out why technology has forsaken you. The more time the issue takes to resolve, the more panicked you get. We’ve all been there.

To avoid this, set up early and do a run-through before your scheduled presentation time. It’ll give you time to get familiar with the space and any technology you’ll need to run during your presentation.

6. Incorporate visuals into your presentation.

When choosing between words and media, pick the latter.

Visuals help us make sense of information at a much quicker pace than words do. We’re also better at remembering what we see versus what we hear by 55% – it’s called pictorial superiority .

It’s also beneficial to keep your visuals simple. If you have too much going on, your audience will be confused. But if it’s too bare, it will take too many visuals to paint the picture. So, pull your most significant data and use data visualization tools to design intuitive graphics.

7. Focus on results.

A board of directors typically focuses on big-picture decisions that will have a long-term impact on the company.

In this vein, every piece of your presentation should get you closer to answering these questions:

• " Why does this matter? "
• " What is the long-term impact? "
• " How does this bring the company closer to its goals? "
• " Any potential roadblocks? How will you address them? "

Incorporating these answers into your presentation will set you up for a smoother Q&A session.

8. Send materials beforehand.

Depending on what you’ll be covering in your presentation, it may be helpful to send the board materials to review in advance. This should only be supplemental information that would be too time-consuming or distracting to cover in a presentation, like reports and demos. This way, the focus during the presentation will be on the "why" and not the "how."

The one material you don’t want to send is your presentation, as you want to be the one to contextualize it. Otherwise, the board might form an opinion based on limited information.

A week before the meeting is a good rule of thumb, leaving room for you to respond to initial comments or feedback.

Think of this process as an advantage. You get insight into what the board members may bring up during the meeting and more context to prep. Secondly, it ensures everyone is on the same page ahead of the meeting. That way, you can dive straight into key points during your presentation without covering minute details.

9. Build confidence with your power outfit.

Building confidence is one of the less concrete tips on the list to implement. But the good news is, there are research-backed techniques you can use to achieve it. One of them is right within your reach: clothing.

Many of us can relate to the feeling of trying on clothes in a fitting room and feeling like a million bucks. It tends to put us in a better mood and shift our perspective.

Well, turns out there’s a reason for this. In 2012, two researchers coined the term " enclothed cognition " to refer to the impact clothes can have on the psyche. They found that the clothes we wear can shift our perspective.

In that spirit, put on your best blazer or suit the day of your presentation. That outfit may be just the boost you need.

10. Rehearse your script.

During a presentation with a board of directors, you want to avoid the Michael Scott approach at all costs.

Instead, go the exact opposite route: practice. Practice is the cure to presentation jitters and the formula for seamless delivery. The more familiar you become with your content, the better the presentation will be.

If it’s been a while since your last presentation, start by practicing in the mirror. You’ll immediately notice any mannerisms that may be distracting to your audience. Recording yourself also works great.

Then, practice in front of an audience. And, unfortunately, your dog won’t cut it for this one. Practice with family or friends who can give you feedback on how to improve.

And remember: You’re the only one who knows your speech and presentation. So, if you mess up or forget to mention something, you’re likely the only one who noticed.

11. Don’t fall into the PowerPoint trap.

You’ll likely use a tool like PowerPoint to guide you during your presentation. Yet, it’s important that you don’t overly depend on it.

For instance, packing your slides with heavy text or bullet points is a surefire way to lose your audience. In fact, 40% of respondents in a 2018 study by Prezi said it caused disengagement and made it harder to retain information.

So, stick to one key point on each slide. It’s easier for your audience to remember and prevents information overload.

12. Read the room.

Even if you follow every tip listed above, you might hit a point in your presentation where there’s a disconnect between you and your audience. You might notice confused looks or a shift in body language. If that happens, that’s your cue to pivot.

If your audience seems confused, dive in a little bit deeper on your point. If you sense disagreement, tackle those concerns head-on.

Let’s say you’re proposing a new initiative for the company, and you sense some pushback on the timeline.

You can address it by saying something along the lines of, " You may have some concern regarding the timeline and whether it’s feasible given our current projects. While the timeline may seem tight, we have factored in X, Y, and Z, and, given our past initiatives, we believe this timeline will account for A, B, and C ."

A response like this can mitigate the situation while still keeping you on track.

13. Include time for questions.

As a foodie, dinner for me isn’t complete without a good piece of chocolate. Whether it’s a KitKat or a chocolate cake, having chocolate after dinner feels like the perfect ending. Q&A sessions are kind of like that. It’s the audience’s chance to ask questions and discuss the presentation.

Be ready for questions regarding the data and solutions you presented. The length of the Q&A session will vary depending on the length of your presentation, the size of the board, and other factors.

Additionally, it’s your opportunity to address any looming concerns and re-emphasize your key points. Not sure what to do if you don’t have an answer to something? Here are a few responses:

• "That’s a great question. I don’t have an answer for you at the moment, but I will follow up over email by end of day."
• "I don’t have much experience in that X [topic/department/]. However, I will reach out to X and get back to you within a week."
• "We haven’t explored that yet, but what I can tell you is …"
• "That’s a great point we hadn’t considered before. My team and I will reconvene and strategize on the best way to approach this."

When the stakes are so high, a presentation to the board can seem daunting. By incorporating these tips into your strategy, you can remove the stress and focus instead on your delivery.

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3 Ways to Nail Your Presentation to the Board

• Daniel Casse

No one wants a bored board.

The boardroom is a distinct forum that requires a different type of presentation and preparation. In this article, the author outlines three practices every business leader should embrace to enhance their board presentations: 1) Start with a governing thesis: a big idea or perspective that captures the main point of the discussion. Presentations that start this way leave the audience with a compelling message. 2) Understand that the CEO is not the target audience. A board presentation has to provide some quick refreshers on the operating environment and — more importantly — identify the biggest problems that need fixing. 3) Steer the presentation toward getting valuable feedback. Instead of concluding remarks that restate key business results, share two or three important ideas that will drive future success and concerns that could benefit from director input. The goal: Get the board’s validation or critiques of a proposed course of action. The result, invariably, is a mix of candid feedback and intelligent, probing questions that create thoughtful board engagement.

For most executives, even those at the most senior level, a presentation to the board of directors is the most demanding test of leadership communications. Very few succeed.

• DC Daniel Casse is the president of G100 Chief Executive, a group of public and private company CEOs that has been meeting for 20 years. He is also president and managing partner of High Lantern Group, a strategy and communications firm.

Partner Center

Board of directors presentation: The all-in-one guide

Learn how to craft a persuasive pitch, deliver your presentation with confidence.

Raja Bothra

Building presentations

When it comes to presenting to your board of directors, it's not just another run-of-the-mill presentation. You're facing a unique audience with high expectations and critical decisions to make.

In this guide, we'll delve deep into the art of creating impactful board of directors presentations. Whether you're a seasoned presenter or just starting out, these insights will help you shine in front of your board members.

Art of presenting to your board of directors

Presenting to your board of directors is a skill that can significantly impact your organization's success. It's a chance to convey your ideas, strategies, and achievements in a way that aligns with the company's goals and values.

Board of directors: The pillars of governance

The board of directors, often referred to as the "board," plays a crucial role in steering the company. They are responsible for major decisions, overseeing company performance, and ensuring it stays on course. Understanding the dynamics of the board is key to a successful presentation.

Board members: Your audience

Your board members are a diverse group with varying backgrounds and expertise. They bring their unique perspectives to the table. Addressing their specific needs and concerns is essential to a successful presentation.

Slide design: Crafting visual impact

In board presentations, slides are your canvas. Use them to create a visual narrative that complements your verbal communication. Avoid overcrowding slides with text. Instead, focus on concise, visually appealing slides that enhance your message.

Board meeting dynamics

Board meetings are structured events where presentations are made, decisions are taken, and strategies are discussed. Understanding the flow and purpose of a board meeting is crucial to your presentation's success.

Purpose of a board of directors presentation: Why do we need one?

Why present to the board.

Every board of directors presentation serves a distinct purpose. Whether it's a quarterly performance update or a strategic proposal, your presentation should align with the board's needs and expectations.

The long-term value proposition

Remember, your presentation should not just be about the here and now. It should convey the long-term value your strategies and initiatives bring to the company.

How to structure an effective board of directors presentation

A well-structured presentation is like a well-organized roadmap. It guides your board members through your ideas, helping them understand and appreciate your perspective.

1. Title slide :

• Start with a compelling title that summarizes the purpose of the presentation.
• Include your company logo and the date of the presentation.

2. Agenda :

• Create a slide that outlines the agenda for the presentation.
• This helps set expectations for what will be covered.

3. Introduction :

• Begin by introducing yourself and your role within the company.
• Provide a brief overview of the presentation's purpose and goals.

4. Company overview :

• Present a concise overview of your company, including its history, mission, and key achievements.

5. Financial highlights :

• Share key financial metrics and performance indicators.
• Use charts and graphs to visualize data for easy comprehension.

6. Operational updates :

• Discuss recent operational developments, such as product launches, market expansion, or cost-saving initiatives.

7. Market analysis :

• Provide insights into the industry landscape, market trends, and competitive positioning.

8. Strategic initiatives :

• Detail any strategic initiatives, projects, or goals your company is pursuing.

9. Risk assessment :

• Identify and assess potential risks and challenges your company may face.
• Explain your mitigation strategies.

10. Financial projections :

• Present future financial projections, including revenue forecasts and expense estimates.

11. Recommendations :

• Offer recommendations or decisions that require the board's input or approval.
• Clearly state the desired outcomes.

12. Q&A session :

• Dedicate a slide to transition into a question-and-answer session.
• Encourage board members to ask questions and seek clarifications.

13. Conclusion :

• Summarize the key points of your presentation.
• Express gratitude for their time and input.

14. Next steps :

• Outline the next steps or actions expected from the board following the presentation.

15. Closing remarks :

• End with closing remarks and thank the board for their attention.
• Reiterate your commitment to the company's success.

16. Appendix (Optional):

• Include any additional data, charts, or supporting documents in the appendix.

Do's and don'ts on a board of directors presentation

Presenting to a board of directors is both an art and a science. Knowing what to do and what to avoid can make or break your presentation.

• Rehearse : Practice makes perfect. Rehearse your presentation to ensure a smooth delivery.
• Keep it concise : Avoid lengthy, meandering explanations. Keep your presentation concise and to the point.
• Engage your audience : An engaging presentation can help board members understand complex topics better.

Don'ts:

• Overload the slides : Avoid overcrowding slides with too much information.
• Copy-paste content : Your presentation should never be a copy of existing documents.
• Lack of preparation : Don't go into a presentation without thorough preparation.

Summarizing key takeaways

• Unique audience expectations: Board presentations are distinct, requiring understanding of the board's unique audience with high expectations and decision-making authority.
• Impactful communication: Craft presentations that effectively convey ideas, strategies, and achievements aligned with the company's values for maximum impact.
• Board governance insights: Recognize the vital role of the board in steering the company, making significant decisions, and maintaining its course.
• Diverse board members: Acknowledge the diverse backgrounds and expertise of board members; cater to their specific needs and perspectives for success.
• Effective presentation structure: Structure presentations thoughtfully, including key elements like agenda, company overview, financial highlights, strategic insights, and a focus on engagement while avoiding common pitfalls.

1. How should I approach discussions and decision-making in the boardroom after my presentation?

After your presentation, discussions in the boardroom are crucial for reaching a consensus and fine-tuning the decision. It's not uncommon that the discussion starts immediately without formal presentations. Be ready to engage with board members, answer questions, and provide additional information if needed. Keep the long-term value and risks in mind during these discussions, as board members generally watch over the long-term value of the company. Your role in the boardroom is not only to present but also to actively participate in the decision-making process.

2. What are some tips for engaging board members during a presentation?

Engaging board members during a presentation is essential for a successful outcome. Here are some tips:

• Craft visually appealing slides that support your content.
• Use bullet points to present key arguments or take-aways.
• Encourage questions and open discussions to foster engagement.
• Keep the presentation concise and focused on what really matters.
• Avoid going into the details of things beside the point.
• Make sure your presentation is based on selected details and numbers that are relevant to your proposal.

3. How should I handle questions and answers (Q&A) during a board presentation?

Handling Q&A during a board presentation requires finesse. Be prepared to answer questions, even if you don't know the answer, but be honest if you don't have the information at hand. Don't take questions lightly, as they can influence the board's decision. Additionally, don't make up information. If necessary, offer to follow up with a detailed response after the presentation. Q&A is an opportunity to provide clarity and ensure the board members understand your proposal.

4. What should I include in the slides of my board of directors presentation?

The content of your presentation slides is crucial. Each slide should contribute to the narrative of your presentation. Use visuals, bullet points, and concise text to convey your message effectively. Your slide deck should be more than a mere copy of the presentation. It should be a visual aid that supports your spoken words. Ensure that your slides align with the purpose of your presentation and the key arguments you want to present. Don't overload the slides with unnecessary information; instead, focus on elements that you want the board to remember.

5. How can I make my board presentation more impactful and memorable?

To make your board presentation impactful and memorable, consider these strategies:

• Craft an inductive story that captures the board's attention from the start.
• Structure your presentation based on the three typical parts: introduction, key arguments, and conclusion.
• Prioritize information quality and unanimity in your presentation.
• Ensure your presentation revolves around what really matters to the board.
• Use connectors for your computer to ensure everything goes as you expected during the presentation.
• Finally, don't forget to express gratitude for their time and attention at the end.

Create your board of directors presentation with Prezent

In the world of board presentations, having the right tools can make all the difference. Prezent, an AI presentation software designed for enterprise teams, can help you create compelling board presentations that are on-brand, engaging, and effective.

With Prezent, you can:

• Craft visually appealing slides that resonate with your board members.
• Save time and effort in creating and sharing presentations.
• Ensure 100% compliance with brand guidelines.
• Collaborate with your team in real-time, even for overnight presentations.

Presenting to your board of directors is a skill that evolves with experience and preparation. Whether it's your first presentation or you're a seasoned presenter, following best practices and leveraging tools like Prezent can help you deliver presentations that leave a lasting impact on your board members. Remember, it's not just about the content; it's about the art of persuasion and engagement.

To further enhance your boardroom presentations, consider incorporating a well-structured Board of Directors meeting presentation template . This valuable tool can guide you in organizing your thoughts, ensuring clarity in your message, and maintaining a professional and polished appearance. So, next time you step into the boardroom, armed with your carefully crafted presentation and utilizing a Board of Directors meeting presentation template, keep in mind the insights and tips shared here. With the right approach and a touch of finesse, you can master the art of presenting to your board of directors.

Are you ready to make a real impact with your presentation to the board? Try our free trial or book a demo today with Prezent!

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How to Make an Effective Board Presentation

--> Presentation Skills ,--> Executive Presence --> 501 Commons

• The Commons – Our Blog

4 Tips to Plan Effective Nonprofit Board Presentations

How to make a Presentation to the Board of Directors

by Edouard Gruwez – September 2019

This article is a brief guideline for anyone who prepares a presentation to the Board of Directors or to a Board Committee.

A Board of Directors is a particularly demanding audience because time pressure, information quality and unanimity are more important to them than to any other management team. A presentation to the Board should be to the point: short and complete, simple and substantiated, persuasive and factual, confident and honest.

Don’t talk like TED, be TO THE POINT.

The answer to this challenge is NOT to make a TED-like presentation. Directors and Executives are not seeking entertainment. They want to make the best possible decision in the shortest possible time, while taking all information and risks into account.

Time Squeeze. Time is money, especially in Board Meetings. Directors want to get directly to the heart of the matter. If you don’t do so, they will interrupt you from the very start. But how to make a story short if the subject is complex and information abundant?

Information Gap. Information that reaches the Board might be biased in many ways. So, they want to check. With their experience, they often ‘feel’ if something is right or not. Both checking facts and getting the right feeling, requires them to investigate details. But how can you provide details within the extreme time constraint?

Team Dynamics. Aligning such a group of intelligent, authoritative individuals with many, often conflicting, priorities is a subtle process of information, discussion and persuasion. But how do you behave as a visitor, not being familiar with these dynamics?

The answer to this challenge is a meticulous preparation:

Step 1 – Understand and focus on the essence. Step 2 – Build a concise, solid narrative. Step 3 – Create convenient and detailed documentation. Step 4 – Prepare to be your honest self.

Following pages describe the four steps in further detail.

STEP 1 – Understand and focus on the essence.

In most cases a person from the audience is at the origin of your invitation. Use your sponsor as sounding board throughout your preparation and consider talking to some Board members.

a. Make the purpose yours and stick to it.

The Board has invited you for a purpose. Make sure that this purpose is crystal clear. If it isn’t, ask your sponsor or check with the Board Secretary. What is the exact scope? Is it an item for information or decision? And if so what decision? If not done by the chair, consider reminding the audience of the purpose at the beginning of your talk.

Don’t have a hidden agenda! Stick to the purpose of your presentation. Any attempt to achieve a hidden purpose will only weaken your presentation and credibility.

b. Know who sits in the Board of Directors and understand their needs.

Ask your sponsor about the Board members, their background, their knowledge, their opinions, their formal and informal roles.

Make sure to understand what they are looking for. Boards generally watch over the long-term value and risks of the company. Understand what ‘value’ means to them: contribution to society, sustainability, well-being, or legacy can be as important as monetary value. Find out if there are specific worries. The more you can build your presentation around what really matters to them, the more you will capture their attention.

Typical Board questions are :

• Have we looked at all alternatives?

• Is the data reliable and is the methodology solid?

• Can we secure the resources?

• What are the risks?

• How does this create value in the long run?

• Is it a well-grounded strategy that fits the mission and goals?

And understand their background. Non executive board members might be less familiar with some industry-specific technicalities and acronyms. Either avoid these items or give enough background information.

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There's an Art to Presenting to Your Board of Directors

The corporate board is often described as a black box, a powerful members-only club. For some executives, however, the time will come when the club door will swing open, and they'll be ushered inside. When that day arrives for you, you want to be ready. 

An invitation to present to the board is a badge of honor, says Rich Fields, head of the board effectiveness practice at Russell Reynolds. "You don't get asked to do that if you're not kind of a big deal at the organization." 

Although the board's agenda determines who's asked to speak, the CEO, who makes the invitation, might have their own motive, too, says Jeff Wong, EY's chief innovation officer. CEOs often want to expose the board to someone worthy of a major leadership role in the future. That way, directors are familiar with the employee when the CEO floats their name at the next board meeting. And if those directors like what they see, they'll also have more confidence in the CEO's leadership. 

Moreover, engaging with the board and getting exposure may be your stepping stone to landing a future board seat. 

The stakes are admittedly high for an executive asked to present to the board, but—and this is paramount—put that aside as you prepare for your big day. The best way to hit the mark during your boardroom debut is to stay focused on your mission, and meet your audience's needs, says Lisa Edwards, executive chair of the Diligent Institute. Here's what that means and how to do it. 

Focus on the topic at hand, not every topic under your sun  

This was the No. 1 piece of advice from every board member, executive, and governance expert interviewed for this guide. When you're presenting to the board, your mission is to stay narrowly focused on the subjects that most closely align with its goals. 

Be selective even if asked to give a general update: What matters most to the board? What are the two or three takeaways you need to drive home? This isn't a data dump, nor is it about showcasing all of your deep knowledge. It's about delivering specific information. 

Turning the presentation into a show-and-tell moment is the most common error executives make when first appearing in the boardroom, says Edwards. "It's human nature that you want to show your expertise," she says. But you can do that by demonstrating you understand the board's role in the firm. "They don't want to run your business," she says. "They want to get assurances that you're on top of it." 

Hold a premeeting and ask questions

Most board presentations are meant to either: a) keep the board informed about a key area of business or b) supply data and context to help the board go deeper on a topic when a strategic decision is needed. Your job in the premeeting with whoever invited you to meet the board—usually the CEO—is to find out exactly what the board expects from you and what they already know. 

The questions to ask, according to Fields: 

• What is the key message I need to get across? 
• What actions do I need to get from the board? 
• What questions should I anticipate? 
• What has the board heard about or decided on the subject already? 

This pregame tête-à-tête also helps executives understand how much time they should spend preparing the presentation. According to Fields, practiced presenters spend 10 to 15 times the allotted presentation time on prep work. But Deborah Rubin, senior partner and head of RHR International's Board & CEO Services division, warns that senior team members often spend an outsized amount of time—days or weeks—on boardroom prep, creating unnecessary anxiety and taking the focus off of day-to-day business, when the potential return on investment may not match the effort.  

At smaller companies, executives may have preexisting relationships with board members and should feel comfortable inviting them to a coffee, says Yasmene Mumby, a leadership coach who has worked with organizations like the ACLU,  International Rescue Committee and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

"Instead of at the board meeting that's very public, and everyone is waiting for something juicy to happen, meet people where they are before the meeting, understand what they care about," she suggests. 

Make your presentation memorable 

Only once you understand the scope of your mission can you start preparing your meeting materials: a pre-read deck, slides (if you plan to use them), and the general outline for your short talk. Here's a lightning round of advice to make your material and delivery stand out: 

Keep your pre-read laser-focused

You'll be asked to submit reading for the meeting's "board book," a collection of documents that board members are expected to read and digest before arriving at a meeting. The length of your pre-read deck will vary depending on the topic and ask. However, some say limiting the pre-read to five pages is a good rule of thumb. Fields typically advises executives to create a first draft and then trim it by half. Peggy Foran, chief governance officer at Prudential and a longtime National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) faculty member, likewise argues that the pre-read has to relay tailored information in as few pages as possible. Use bullet points, she says. 

When you feel compelled to add details to flesh out your pre-read, remember that there's always an appendix. That's where full financial statements will land and you can slip in additional reading. "By the way, you'd be surprised, a lot of board members go deep into the appendix," says Jocelyn Mangan, a board member at Papa John's and CEO of Him For Her, which aims to improve gender diversity on boards. 

Don't ignore the raw data, especially when it's requested

Keeping your presentation materials short and well-structured is essential, but some board members—especially new ones or activist investors turned directors—will want to see raw data rather than a carefully curated report. If boards ask for raw data and only receive selected, packaged charts and narratives, says Rubin, they may worry that the company's leadership team lacks transparency. If you're unclear on how much detail to offer, ask the CEO or the company's corporate secretary for a sample presentation. 

Plan on sharing very few, if any, slides

While your pre-read must be carefully edited, your slide deck ought to be positively minimalist. Fields challenges executives to use one slide—to perhaps find one striking visual—to drive home a point. 

Mind your speaking-to-listening ratio  

The biggest mistake you can make in a 30-minute presentation is to prepare a 30-minute speech, warns Foran. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, speak for no more than 10 minutes and use the rest of the time to converse with the seasoned professionals in the room. Listen to the directors' insights, and take their questions.  

Avoid jargon  

If technical terms cannot be avoided, include a glossary. Your board presentation and pre-reading can include an educational component for meaty topics like data privacy or sustainability, but the "lesson" shouldn't take over. Stay out of the weeds as much as possible and offer to send follow-up material. 

Start with the conclusion.  

Time-pressed directors get impatient and frustrated with long introductions, says Fields. Instead, say, " Let me start at the end and then provide more detail." Or, "Here's the decision we need to make, and here's where we need your input." Opening with that one-line scene-setter is "profoundly obvious," Fields adds, "yet somehow not universally used." 

Do not read from a script.  

Nor should you read your slides. "What I want is the color behind it, the nuance," says Edwards. "Let's have a conversation about the possible risks or opportunities associated with what you're talking about."   

Provide context

Offering a backdrop helps board members come to their own conclusions about data, Edwards says. "So our risk score has improved. Is that good or bad? What do we look like versus the industry? What do we look like versus our named competitors in the proxy? How do we hold up overall?" 

Remember that boards aren't insiders  

"You see the business every day," says Michael Maggio, CEO of Reciprocity, a cybersecurity software company. But unlike you and the colleagues you normally present to, the board has spent maybe 30 minutes on this topic in the last 90 days. 

"If you're presenting to a board that you presented to before, give them an update," Rubin advises. "Link from where you were, what they asked for, what happened, and where you're moving forward." 

Connect to the company's mission  

"Executives should always remember that the board's fiduciary duty is long-term value creation for shareholders while taking other stakeholders into consideration," Sonita Lontoh, a director at the solar company Sunrun and the workforce management software firm TrueBlue, suggests in an email to Fortune . "As such, when executives present to the board, they should share insights as to how their topic is helping the company to better navigate material risks and opportunities for long-term value creation." 

Report the good, the bad, the unclear

Want to demonstrate your leadership skills? Be upfront about what is and isn't working in your area of business. It may take courage, but it's your job and an essential part of building trust, says EY's Wong, who regularly reports to the consulting firm's board. "The number one thing I want them to know is I'm going to tell them the truth." 

Ashley Kramer, CMSO at GitLab, says her company uses a green, yellow and red color coding system to give board members a visual guide to where initiatives stand. Most importantly, she says, tell the board how the company plans to keep the good things going and what it will do to monitor and mitigate risks and trouble spots. 

Make the experience tactile

When it makes sense, EY's Wong allows board members to play with new products or emerging technology as he delivers the presentation. "How do you make it so they can see, feel, and touch it inside their environment?" Wong says. "You don't just talk about what it is in theory. You show it to them in action." For product managers and developers, this is an opportunity to demonstrate the potential return on investing in an innovative idea or educate the board about a new development—like virtual learning or ChatGPT—that may impact the company. 

This article was written by Lila MacLellan from Fortune  and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace . Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.

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Practical tips for presenting to the board.

Boardroom presentations are an important part of every senior executive’s personal and professional development. Following the 10 tips outlined below will help you to present like an experienced professional and help your board to make the best and most appropriate decisions following your presentations.

It is far easier to progress your career when you are an executive who is welcomed into the boardroom as a trusted source of good quality information and a pleasant presenter.

• Don’t be daunted. Presenting to the board is an important and onerous task. If someone has recommended you to make a presentation in the board room they have done so because they believe that you have what it takes to make a good presentation. Boards are important. Nobody is going to recommend a poor presenter, or presentation by somebody who has insufficient knowledge of the topic. To do so would reflect badly on them far more so than on you.
• Be prepared. Understand why the board wants your presentation. Do they need background information on a topic, or a report on progress, or is there a decision which the board must make. If you understand what your presentation is expected to achieve you will be able to develop your presentation so that it does achieve that.
• Understand what boards do. The board is the ultimate decision making forum within any organisation. Individual board members have very little power but the board as a whole, acting in consensus, is empowered to perform or delegate all of the business of the organisation. The board should act on behalf of the shareholders. The aim of the board is to enhance shareholder wealth or, in a not-for-profit organisation, to ensure that the organisation does what the people who founded it wished it to do. Make sure that your presentation helps the board to fulfil its aims.
• Understand how boards work. Because boards work as a team, rather than as a group of individuals, it is important that they discuss issues thoroughly and form a group decision. When presenting to a board, even if you are giving them background information, your aim should always be to enable the board members to have a good discussion of the topic and reach their own understanding and form a basis the future decision-making.
• Understand board protocol. It is normal in most boardrooms for all information to flow to the board under the direction of the chairman. You can expect that experienced board members will address their questions to you through the chairman. The chairman will also manage the amount of time that the board can dedicate to anyone agenda item, and may ask you to spend more on less time on your presentation than previously envisaged depending on the amount of time the board has already spent on other issues. It is wise to enter the boardroom with the ability to present at least 20% more than you planned to present, but without an additional 20% more slides. You should also be able to achieve your objective even if your time is cut by 20%.
• Allow the board to prepare thoroughly. Boards need to discuss the information presented, and to do that they need to understand it. Try to provide a background paper or briefing report which can go to the board with the agenda and other meeting papers so that the directors are “up to speed” before you present.
• Discuss rather than present. Boards sit through a lot of presentations. Rather than subject them to yet another presentation, try to summarise very briefly the information you have provided beforehand, and then facilitate a discussion with the board members. They will be much happier that the things they say them with anything you can say.
• Provide good quality information. Boards need information that is relevant, in perspective, timely provided an appropriate frequent intervals, and reliable consistent coherent and easily comparable with other data, and above all, clear and easily understood. Be sure to name your sources, quote references, and alert the board to any inconsistencies between different data sets that you might have incorporated into your information.
• Set the content at an appropriate level. What goes into a report depends upon what the board already know, how important this report is to the board, whether the report is in a written or verbal form, any supporting information, etc. Do not gloss over the risks involved. Boards need to understand the worst possible outcome, the most likely outcome, and the best possible outcome in order to make an appropriate decision having full awareness of the risks involved.
• 10. Be punctual and polite. Board members are important people, they should not be kept waiting. Be sure to attend the meeting a few minutes before your appointed time and to allocate sufficient time so that if the board is running late you do not have to rush your presentation or leave before the board has finished the discussion. Remember that manners are important and that people will respect you if you respect them. Please and thank you are the two most important words in your presentation. If a board member interrupts interjects, rather than react to their rudeness show your good manners, and pause politely to listen to their comment and deal with it before moving on.

Of course, you must also be a polished presenter. These tips do not obviate the need for expertise in presenting. They add to you presentation skills and allow you to take them to the most important and discerning corporate audience, the board.

______________________________________ Julie Garland-McLellan has been internationally acclaimed as a leading expert on board governance. See her website and LinkedIn profiles, and get her books Dilemmas, Dilemmas: Practical Case Studies for Company Directors and Presenting to Boards .

Julie Garland McLellan

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Presenting to the Board of Directors: What to say and how to say it

When someone asks, “what did you do over the weekend?” they don’t really expect you to give them every single detail. You’d tell them anything interesting, funny, or out of the ordinary, or if nothing much happened, you’d just say, “the usual.” For financial institutions awash in a sea of regulations, compliance issues are part of what you deal with day in and day out. So when it comes time to present to the Board of Directors, deciding which issues to present and how to present them is a bit tricky. Do you give them every single compliance detail, or do you give them just a broad, basic overview (“Everything’s great!”)? There’s a delicate balance between not wanting to alarm the board while making sure the board is aware of the need to devote sufficient resources to address potential compliance concerns.

More specifically the questions financial institutions should ask are: What level of concerns should be brought to the board’s attention and what can be handled at a management level? And if an issue does merit presentation to the board, how can you present the information in a way that helps the board appreciate your institution’s compliance risks and decisions?

Telling the Board

The quick answer to the first question is that you should definitely tell the board about compliance issues that are likely to receive regulatory attention before your regulator does. A system of regularly identifying and addressing compliance deficiencies necessitates acknowledging them early on in the process. The list of enforcement actions is filled with violations that started out as small items or aberrations that were not appropriately acknowledged and addressed, leaving them to grow to become costly issues. That said, many issues can be handled on a management level and don’t require board attention.

In determining which issues rise to the level of board attention and which don’t, it becomes a matter of assessing the degree of the potential concern. One way to do so is to assign identified issues to one of three levels of potential violations:

• Level 3/High Severity: Potential issues that may result in significant negative consequences to consumers or members or that have a basis, pattern, or practice of discrimination issues, including redlining or discouragement. These concerns, if proven, typically result in a request or a requirement for restitution in excess of a given dollar amount (for example, $10,000 in aggregate).
• Level 2/Medium Severity: Potential issues that may reflect systemic or chronic issues. If proven, they represent a failure of the bank/credit union to meet the requirements of part or all of a regulation or statute. These concerns, if validated, may prove to have had a small negative impact on consumers/members or have the potential to do so if uncorrected. These issues may result restitution in an amount below that of Level 3.
• Level 1/Low Severity: Potential issues that are likely isolated or sporadic, or systemic concerns that are of such marginal negativity that they are unlikely to affect consumers/members. These concerns are typically due to individual failures to follow established procedures or minor errors in the implementation of procedures to meet obligations of a regulation or statute.

Informing the Board of Level 3 concerns is, of course, vital, as are most Level 2 concerns. Conversely, Level 1/Low Severity potential concerns are likely unnecessary to have a material impact on the financial institution. While these may not require board attention, these concerns, if proven, should nonetheless trigger appropriate response efforts and post-action notification, and would likely be presented to a committee rather than the board (i.e., Supervisory, Compliance, Audit, etc.).

Helping the Board Appreciate Compliance Risks

After identifying the level of risk posed by the potential issue, you may then determine that presentation to the Board is advisable. This is when a compliance officer faces the second portion of the balancing act: How can I help my Board understand, or at least appreciate, our compliance risks or our current compliance situation in a way that doesn’t unnecessarily sound the alarm, but helps ensure that the institution is devoting adequate resources to address the issue?

As with most misunderstandings, a common pitfall here is a lack of context. When it comes to a Board’s understanding of its institution’s compliance risks, it is worthwhile to take the time to provide context and trend. It is easy to say, for example, that your institution’s Fair Lending is experiencing a rising risk as is the industry in general, but what is the direction of risk relative to your institution, its products, services, personnel, regulatory factors, etc.? Presenting this context cannot be overstated in importance if you wish the Board to understand the reasons for decisions and actions taken to mitigate risks.

To illustrate, one financial institution recently made the decision to disconnect the CIP/CDD/EDD module of its AML System, because, after much thought, it considered it to be a duplication of effort. Did the Board understand and accept the aggregate risk created by the decision? In cases presented void of context, this is unlikely.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts to the contrary, the full appreciation for an “uncontexted” decision isn’t realized until it’s too late, if at all. The institution then experiences an imbalance between the Board and the decision. At that point the Board might ask the question: Did the Chief Risk Officer or the Compliance Officer do his or her job? However, by appropriately filtering those concerns that merit presentation to the Board and by providing appropriate and adequate context to help the Board understand risks and decisions, it is far more likely that your Board presentations will achieve that perfect balance.

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Which Reports do Directors want in a Board Presentation?

Scott Orn leverages his extensive venture capital experience from Lighthouse Capital and Hambrecht & Quist. With a track record of over 100 investments ranging from seed to Series A and beyond in startups, including notable deals with Angie’s List and Impossible Foods, Scott brings invaluable insights into financing strategies for emerging companies. His strategic role in scaling Kruze Consulting across major U.S. startup hubs underscores his expertise in guiding startups through complex financial landscapes.

Making reports to your startup’s board of directors is a fundamental part of a CEO/founder’s duties Communicating regularly with the board helps you maintain transparency, and lets you take advantage of the board’s contacts and experience. So let’s look at what you should include in a board report.

How Often Should You Have Board Meetings?

First things first, you need to consider the frequency of your board meetings .

In general, you should have board meetings about every two months, in person. Sometimes companies will have them every six weeks and sometimes it’s every quarter. The bottom line is, it is really important to hold them on a regular basis so that you are in touch with your board and they can then help you when you need them.

Let the Board Help You

A lot of people find board meetings intimidating and expect the board to scrutinize them. They may also find board meetings to be time-consuming. While both of these things may be true, if the board doesn’t know what’s going on in the company, then they can’t help you if you’re facing issues.

Get the deck done early - and talk with board members before the meeting

Your board members will give you the best advice and perspectives if you’ve given them time to prepare for the board meeting. You can accomplish this in three important ways:

• Getting the board deck distributed early
• Meeting with directors prior to the board meeting
• Sharing news (especially bad news) as soon as practical, not just at the board meeting

Three ways to get the most out of your startup’s board meeting

1. Distributing the Board Deck Early

Distributing the board deck early - ideally at least a week before the meeting, at worst a couple of days before - is crucial. It allows board members to review the materials at their own pace, prepare questions or suggestions, and fully engage during the board meeting. If you are sharing a number of KPIs, getting the materials early lets the directors think about the numbers and how they compare to other investments, or how they compare to prior estimates or results. And it gives them a chance to ask their partners for advice. 

Additionally, an early-distributed board deck helps establish an atmosphere of transparency and good governance. By getting the materials out early, you are demonstrating respect for the board members’ time and their role as strategic advisors, which can lead to a more collaborative and effective board dynamic. Even more importantly, you are proving that you know how to execute. 

2. Meeting with Directors Prior to the Board Meeting:

One-on-one meetings with board members prior to the board meeting can significantly enhance the quality of board discussions and decisions. These meetings serve multiple purposes:

Pre-discussions : Discuss key issues and decisions that will come up during the board meeting. This ensures that board members are not surprised or caught off-guard during the actual meeting.

Get opinions : Gain feedback on strategic plans and proposals. Board members’ diverse experiences can provide unique insights and suggestions that you might not have considered. More importantly, it prepares you for how the group is going to decide or vote on important topics. For example, if two directors have different opinions on a strategic investment, you want to know that head of the meeting! It’s an early warning system for disagreements. Or, if a director is negative or against something the management team wants to do, it’s best to surface this ahead of time in a one on one conversation so you aren’t blindsided at the meeting.

Getting consensus . One of the VCs I used to work with would say that decisions shouldn’t be made at the meeting, they should simply be confirmed. Meeting ahead of time lets the CEO gain consensus and get the directors and investors to pre-agree to the most important decisions.

Relationship Building : Strengthen relationships and build trust. The more comfortable board members are with you, the more open and constructive they will be during board meetings. Given that follow on rounds are getting harder to raise, it is incredibly important to build solid relationships with your existing investors. You may need them to bridge finance your startup, so do everything you can to get them on your team.

Managing politics : Like it or not, board meetings can sometimes involve politics. Meeting individually with board members allows founders to manage potential conflicts or issues before they become disruptive in the full board meeting.

Education : Startups are often in new, rapidly evolving industries. Individual meetings can be a chance to educate board members on these changes, ensuring they are well-informed and able to provide relevant strategic guidance. Like it or not, many VCs are a bit too proud, and don’t want to look like they don’t know something in a meeting with their peers from other funds. So if you have an investor who can use some help getting up to speed on your industry, meeting ahead of time prior to the BOD gatherings can really hep that investor add-value to the startup, and can make them appreciate your leadership style. 

If there is nothing serious happening, especially if you have worked with the directors for a while, you may be able to get by with a simple email exchange instead of a phone call. But even if there is nothing important, show the courtesy of asking the directors to chat with you prior to meeting so they can share anything is a great idea. 

3. Sharing News (Especially Bad News) As Soon as Practical:

Keeping board members updated on important developments, especially negative ones, is a fundamental aspect of board management. Surprising the board with bad news during a board meeting can erode trust and lead to reactive, ill-considered decisions.

Sharing bad news as soon as practical allows board members to digest the information and provide thoughtful, strategic advice rather than hasty reactions. It also signals that you respect their role as key stakeholders, and you trust them to handle difficult situations, which can further strengthen your relationship with them.

In essence, effective board management hinges on preparation, communication, managing expectations, and respect. By implementing these three steps, you’ll set the stage for productive and impactful board meetings, fostering a board dynamic that can provide significant value to your startup’s success.

What to Include in the Board Deck

One of the best ways of letting the board of directors know what is happening in the company is to give them the proper financial reports in the board deck.

1.      Financial Reports

Remember, members of your board could be on 10, maybe even 15, other boards, which means they are constantly going to board meetings and talking to portfolio companies. You should send the slides to directors one or two days before the meeting.   

On the first or second page of your board deck we recommend having a financial status page that displays a group of very simple metrics. You can review key metrics for SaaS companies here . These allow the board to orient themselves at the start of the meeting.about what’s happening with the company and how they can help.

In this initial financial report we suggest including the following:

• Cash balance – this will  immediately tell the board what is going on in the company and how much cash you have.
• Average three months of  burn rate – they will divide the cash by the burn rate to get the months of runway outstanding.
• Your total cash  runway – how many months of cash you have.
• MRR – monthly recurring revenue.
• ARR – annual recurring revenue.
• Bookings – these are contracts you’ve closed recently and whether it was a monthly or a quarterly bookings rate.

Laying out these basics in a clear table will give a clear indicator of your startup’s current financial situation. This could be that you’re in a crisis with six months of cash and a check needs to be written ASAP, or that you have 18 months of cash and so strategy and operating metrics can be focused on without needing a check.

This is another reason why it is important to present these metrics early in the presentation because this way you can reassure the board if there isn’t a crisis. It will allow them to think more strategically, improve the discussion, and enable them able to help you more effectively.

Otherwise, they are going to be trying to figure out where you are with your cash, your runway, and how many months you have. You’ll see them flipping through the presentation, looking for them, if you don’t have them in one of the first few pages. So put the financials up front, because time in a board meeting is precious.

2.      Income Statement, Balance Sheet,  and Cash Flow Statement

So, what comes after the first pages with those simplified metrics? Well, you will definitely want to have:

• Income statement
• Balance sheet
• Cash flow statement (potentially)

Firstly, depending on how far along and how complicated the business is, you may put the income statement and balance sheet on one page. You might have a couple of high-level call outs explaining any variance or growth in expenses, but hopefully those will be saying how great your sales team and show the revenue going up. This slide is a very baseline thing, and they just want to see it there.

The cash flow statement can be a little bit farther back, typically in the finance portion of the presentation. Sometimes you’ll have your CFO or VP of finance walk through this, or you’ll have the founder or  CEO do it.

The cash flow statement is also helpful because the board can look at it and see if there are any big CapEx going on or things like that. They will also check your math on your burn rate and cash on the balance sheet.

3.      In-Depth Operational Metrics

This brings us to the third set of reports you want to include in your board deck. These are a lot of in-depth operational metrics – often KPIs for the executive team – which are all aggregated.

We highly recommend that you have some type of appendix in this finance section, to help organize the different reports and their respective KPIs, for the board. What happens, more often than not, is you will have members of the management team, or the CEO, who will present these metrics in the flow of the presentation as they go through the functional groups.

For example, you will have the marketing portion of the presentation where the marketing VP will present metrics such as lead volume, customer acquisition cost, and things like that. And you should definitely let that marketing VP own those metrics and convey what is happening from their standpoint. Essentially, you want each portion to be presented by the VP responsible for that area.

Who Should Present What?

Let’s look at who should be presenting each of the following reports that should be included in the board deck. As we just mentioned, commentary from the VP of each individual area is really valuable for the board of directors.

Customer retention. The VP of customer success is most likely going to own the churn rate, and you want them to present this metric. That demonstrates ownership, and a good VP is going to talk about their metrics, own them, talk about how they’re improving, and illustrate that with historical data. 

Sales. Another good example of the functional expert presenting their KPIs is the sales VP. The sales VP is going to present the number of customers, the average selling price, and any upsell metrics they can provide. That is the bread and butter of the sales portion of the presentation, so let them do that.

Customer lifetime value (CLV). The lifetime value of a customer could be owned by your marketing VP, the sales VP,  or even the finance team, because they’re able to see the revenue generated by a client. They also look at retention and can aggregate this and create the lifetime value of a customer. This is one of the most important metrics a startup is ever going to present to the board of directors. If that lifetime value of the customer is really high, nothing gets a VC’s checkbook out quite like it.

Hiring. Hiring will be owned by either the CEO, or the finance VP or CFO, because each of the functional groups are going to make their own hiring decisions and roll it up into finance.  So you will often see hiring presented in conjunction with the income statement and the balance sheet portion of the board deck. Otherwise you may see a breakout of hiring expectations. There are two main reasons for this:

• There will probably be some excitement in the functional groups, where they will be talking about how the marketing person is hiring a lead gen specialist, for example, or the sales person is considering hiring a director of sales and maybe two more inside sales reps. All of which is going to roll up into finance, and the  burn rate at a startup is mostly influenced by people and by salaries. About 70 to 75% of all expenses at a startup are salaries and benefits, so this will bring up questions within the board. 
• When the VCs see the expenses are projected to go up, or they see your expenses in the last six months going up, they will immediately start talking about hiring and whether or not it was a good investment. They will want to know what return on investment you’re getting from those people and what you have planned for the future.

This is why we recommend that you have the finance person or CEO present hiring information  immediately after the income statement/balance sheet portion of the board deck, in order to pre-empt board and  VC questions.

Early-stage company board meetings

Often, in early-stage companies, the CEO will be presenting all of these reports, but it is still important to have them presented in those functional groups. The CEO will need to answer questions regarding each report in an organized format, such as discussing the startups marketing, what is coming from it, what the new programs are, how much it is costing, marketing performance and the customer acquisition cost. All these topics that need to be grouped in order to make sense and create clarity for the board.

Key Points to Remember

When you’re thinking about your board report, key things to remember are:

• Board meetings are not just for the board. They are also for the executive team and the CEO to get organized, stay focused and really hone in on what is moving the company forward and the key priorities to build on.
• We recommend holding board meetings every two months, maybe quarterly, as it is a really powerful exercise for the entire company.
• You should definitely aggregate all of the different KPIs into an appendix or contents so the board can follow the meeting and look back on it later.
• You should also send the board deck out one or two days before the meeting, so directors can review it. This makes their job easier and means they’re not flipping through the slides constantly.
• Consider who presents what, since individual VP input is really valuable.

Overall, presenting these metrics is really helpful. It will make you a more disciplined and better-managed company. If you have any questions on reports, startup accounting, startup bookkeeping, taxes, or venture capital please contact us .

You can also follow our  youtube channel and our  blog for information about accounting, finance, HR, and tax for startups!

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4 strategies for board presentation success

Veteran execs share their best advice on understanding the mindset of the board..

Ask any CIO about that very first time presenting to the board, and you’ll hear a deep sigh of relief that it’s in the past. 

“When I worked at a publicly traded company, I referred to board presentations as my personal professional development opportunity, because I learned from each experience,” recalls Diane Schwarz, chief digital and information officer of Hunt Consolidated in Dallas. She credits her former boss with boosting her confidence for her inaugural board presentation on cybersecurity by reminding her: “You know far more about this topic than any of them.”

Yet presenting to the board is something of “role reversal” for CIOs used to spending their time meeting with their teams or interacting with peers, adds Schwarz, who served as CIO at Textron before her current role. “In the boardroom, you are presenting to a highly prestigious group of experienced executives. It’s a very structured meeting in which you participate only during your section on the agenda.”

Her advice: Join the meeting with a different mindset. “It’s not a collaboration session. You’re reporting up and out on aspects of your enterprise responsibilities.”

Here, Schwarz and other veteran execs share their best advice for boardroom success.

Know the board’s needs

When he was CIO at Kaiser Permanente, Phil Fasano made a point of teaching his team about how to present to a board. “Tech people think the board wants to hear about the great stuff they’re building, but it’s nothing to do with that,” says Fasano, who serves on several boards as CEO of Bay Advisors, a strategic advisory firm in the Washington, DC area.

Enhancing the value of the company for shareholders and customers is what the board cares about, he adds. “I would coach IT people (who like to give a precise number to a decimal point) to understand that giving a number like that is an immediate tipoff to the board that you haven’t thought through all your challenges,” Fasano notes, stressing the importance of sharing both the upsides and downsides with the board.

John Murray, a former CIO and CEO who is currently a member of two private boards, agrees that CIOs need to focus on the board’s business-focused interests. “Give me milestones to measure. Show me how what you’re doing contributes to EBTDA,” he advises, referring to Earnings Before Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.

One of the most challenging aspects of CIO-to-board communications is shearing away the complexity in your technology update without glossing over the challenges ahead. 

Murray has coached a few CIO colleagues on the importance of brevity in their board communications. “The classic (complaint) is a CIO presenting for 35-40 minutes on something that should’ve been 10. Once he leaves, everybody sighs with exasperation.” 

A far better strategy: “Deliver useful, actionable insights, packaged in a way the board can absorb,” Murray recommends. “Communicate to me about any risks I’m taking. Show me how you’re going to manage them. Then get out of the room.”

When it comes to deciding how much tech detail to share, find a balance between oversimplifying and over-complicating. “Most board members are on multiple boards, or have been CEOs and had technology reporting up to them,” Schwarz points out. “They don’t come to their meetings with zero frame of reference, so don’t discount their baseline of knowledge.”

Mind the board dynamics

Understanding the dynamics of the board itself is one area that CIOs tend to overlook in their due diligence and advance prep, says Kristen Lamoreaux, president of Lamoreaux Search near Philadelphia. “You really have to lean on your CEO and CFO to understand the dynamics of the board,” she explains. “Find out ahead of time who will ask in-depth questions or who might derail you on a financial question.”

Most CIOs get the importance of backgrounding the board members as part of their board prep, Lamoreaux adds, but few consider the maturity of the board’s working relationships. “Have they been together for five years? Are there any new members? What are the politics of the room?”

Even a detail as minor as which board members may have skipped over their assigned reading before the meeting can help a CIO prepare for surprise questions. “Unless you’ve been warned, you’ll go in there believing they’ve all read the details in the board book,” she says.   

Earn their trust

“Board members generally peppered me with questions throughout a presentation,” recalls Hunt Consolidated’s Schwarz, who noticed that the nature of their queries often repeated each year. “I started noting the questions after each presentation and reviewed them as part of the prep work for upcoming board sessions.”

When Kevin Barnes was serving as CIO of E&J Gallo Wineries in 2014 and preparing for his first board meeting, he noticed one of the new board members had been the chief financial officer at another California company where Barnes knew the CIO well.

“I called up (that CIO) and did a little social engineering and networking,” he recalls. That led to an informal overview of Gallo’s IT strategy with the board member, who asked “good, tough questions” that gave Barnes a head’s up on topics he should be ready to address in the meeting.

Gaining the confidence and trust of your board members isn’t just about information sharing, however. Schwarz used what she jokingly calls her “Help Desk 101” strategy to encourage tech conversations beyond the boardroom. “As senior technologists, we should always be ready to help whomever needs it,” the CDO says. “I fixed one board member’s phone during an elevator ride. It took me about 10 seconds — and she was so appreciative.”

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Hatica v3 – Closing the Loop on Driving Engineering Productivity ➔

11 Slides CTOs Must Present In Their Next Board Meeting

Board meetings could be a little tricky for a CTO .

In an internal meeting, your audience would mostly comprise only internal team members and CXOs. So, in such meetings, you can talk about the technical processes of XYZ project(s), successful milestones of engineering teams, new initiatives, completed projects, engineering metrics, etcetera.

This changes completely when you’re presenting as a CTO to the board of directors . 

Attending board meetings as a CTO is not similar to attending another internal meeting.. 

You can no longer talk about your “engineering things” in isolation or prevailing work silos. There is a tacit expectation of presenting software that was shipped, the velocity at which the work is getting done, customer experience and feedback on these newly released product features, the overall cost of software development, and the ROI of  investments in the engineering initiatives.

Net-Net A CTO’s rendezvous with The Board of Directors is going to be about:

• The Impact  
• The Future Growth Projections

If there are concerns around technical governance & operational workflow challenges, then the board would want to hear your mitigation strategy for the same.

You might be thinking, “ Isn’t that what a CEO should be talking about? ”. 

And you’re right. 

The CEO would most probably touch upon these in detail in the board meeting. But you need to dive a little deeper and help the board of directors understand how aligned is engineering to the business. Basically, you would make the CEO’s promises believable when it comes to the engineering side of things in your organization.

So, what should you present?

Argh ! To your disappointment, we are not going to talk about including a welcome slide, intro & agenda slide, or the thank you slide at the end of the board meeting presentation. Sorry. We shall only talk about the meat of the presentation. The core CTO & engineering stuff.

Here are the slides/deck that you as a CTO must include in your board meeting presentation to the board of directors :

• 11 Essential Slides for a CTO to Present in Board Meetings 

Remember, in a board meeting, as a CTO , you’ve only two real friends. No, not the CIO or CEO . But Data & Context . 

So, know your data. And learn to add context to your data so that board members could easily comprehend what you’re talking about and why it is important.

Having said that, here are the slides to include in your CTO presentation deck for the board meeting :

• 1. Your engineering Health: Summarize Key Engineering Metrics & Recent Launches

Slide 1: Ideally, start with the news about your recent successes . It could be:

• A major launch
• Moving an entire business vertical to the cloud
• Opening up new data centers or offshore development hubs, 
• Winning industry awards, etcetera. 

Also, help the board members fathom how these engineering advancements map to the overall business charter. Share how these achievements help improve :

• Reliability for a better customer experience (CX) 
• Scalability to serve more customers
• Cost-efficiency  

Slide 2: Next, talk about how the engineering team has solved one/more major issue(s) which has been a big pain - on the To-Do list - for a long time. For example:

• How did you lower the  application crash rate?
• How did you meet the  data center outages SLA?
• How have you significantly minimized the  peak-hour downtime issue?
• How did you solve the bot attacks mitigation challenge?

Again, show the board members how this translates into the bottom line. For example, bot mitigation helps not only protect your platform data and safeguard your users, but also fixes the cost of operating your IT infrastructure by stopping the bots from accessing your platforms, thus improving cost-efficiency. Also, this would mean more resources are now available to serve real users, thus improving platform speed and reliability. 

The point is to break the numbers for the board members. Help them see the business value of engineering initiatives. Avoid subjective information, and always speak in numbers. It helps. A lot.

Slide 3: The first two slides were for warming up the board of directors. Now, you’re ready to give them insights into the organization’s engineering health . 

Beware, do not clog your CTO presentation deck with jargon or irrelevant KPIs & metrics that do not interest the board members. Only include the ones that are of interest to the board executives.

What engineering metrics should you include in the CTO’s board meeting presentation deck? 

To answer this, ask yourself the following questions before including engineering metrics & KPIs in your CTO deck for the board meeting presentation ?

• Does this metric help demonstrate how technology is supporting our organization’s mission & strategic goals ?
• Does this metric impact the bottom line — revenue, profits, and cost savings ?
• Does this metric reflect our future readiness ?
• Does this metric capture the ROI of recent technology investments ?

In general, it’s a good idea to have the following engineering metrics categories on your deck for the board meetings presentation as a CTO :

• Show Performance Metrics

Give insights into the overall performance of your IT infrastructure systems & applications. Talk about the enhancements or deterioration in the following:

• Response time (how fast your applications respond to user requests)
• Uptime & availability (how available your system is to users) 
• Throughput (transactions handled per second)
• Scalability metrics (elasticity i.e., ease with which you can scale up/down your infrastructure, failure resilience score)

You don’t need to be explaining the HOW, just present the numbers to the board members and map them to ‘ how it helps you as an organization to win more happy customers ’. 

For example, you don’t need to tell how effectively you’re using load balancers for distributing traffic across resources , or how you have implemented algorithms to improve concurrency .

Just talk about:

• How many customers you can serve per minute during peak hours? 
• How many transactions can be completed per second? 

Then you can throw some light on:

• How these numbers looked earlier?
• What was the failure rate in transactions - before and after?

And then, explain what can be expected with the newly upgraded efficiency i.e., give the board the estimates about what the numbers may look like now as the transaction failure rates have improved. It’s better if you already have that data, and are not making predictions.

How do you collect these performance metrics to include in the CTO presentation deck?

For collecting these metrics, depending on your internal engineering stack, you could use application performance management and monitoring tools like Pingdom, New Relic, Dynatrace, Apache JMeter, Gatling, LoadRunner, AWS Cloudwatch , Prometheus, HPA, Gremlin (chaos engineering tool), etcetera. Ask engineering managers for help with collecting the metrics .

• Quality & Reliability Metrics
• Talk in numbers about bug counts, error rates, system downtime/availability, test coverage, Service level agreements (SLA) targets, fault tolerance, data integrity, security attacks & resilience .
• SLA metrics include your security, data, governance, and compliance-related metrics. This also encompasses security incidents, backup, and recovery metrics.

Again, give the board of directors a quick overview about how increased test coverage helps in decreasing bug counts & error rates, which improves system availability, and ultimately helps meet the business outcomes i.e., a better CX & more revenue . 

As mentioned earlier, the metrics depend on the industry, if you’re a hardware OEM org or provide IaaS, or PaaS solutions to your customers, SLAs are relevant to you. But in a retail consumer-facing startup like an e-Commerce business or a stock analysis platform, your vendors are responsible for SLAs, not you.

How do you collect these quality & reliability metrics to include in the CTO presentation deck?

You could use application performance monitoring tools (AppDynamics, New Relic), Log management tools (ELK stack, Splunk), infrastructure monitoring tools (Pingdom, Nagios), testing & test management tools (TestRail, OWASP ZAP), and data validation tools (DBUnit), and/or chaos engineering tool (Gremlin).

Slides 4 & 5:

• Engineering Efficiency metrics

There are 100s of engineering efficiency metrics that you can track (say ‘Hi’ to Hatica ), but you need not share all of them in the board meetings.

For example, Hatica helps VP of engineering, engineering managers , and CTOs of startups, SMEs, and enterprises track about 130+ engineering metrics & KPIs . But neither you nor the board members would have time to go through each one of them. So, here is a prioritized list of engineering efficiency metrics with an impact on the bottom line that you, as a CTO , can talk about in the board meetings :

• Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) is the average time in which your system tends to fail, and needs the attention of the SRE teams or the DevOps teams. The higher it is, the more reliable is your system, and thus the better the CX, and the lower the development & maintenance costs.
• Mean Time To Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) reflects how fast your team identifies & mitigates the issues. These should be ideally as low as possible. That would mean a quick remedy, and thus it would minimize the negative impact on the bottom line i.e., minimal revenue loss .
• Mean Time Between Deployments ( MTBD ), Deployment Frequency , Development velocity, the rate at which PRs Merge and other velocity metrics speak load about your engineering efficiency . 

Deployment metrics shouldn’t be looked at in isolation, as then it is nothing but a vanity metric. But when you help the board team get a broader picture by looking at these metrics holistically i.e., MTTD, MTTR, CFR, MTBF, Code Churn, and Incident Frequency together, then it gives clear insights about the effectiveness of the SDLC processes . If you can do some math to find out how x% improvement in Dora metrics (DF, MTTR, CFR) impacts the bottom line in terms of the number of transactions increased, y% revenue increase etcetera , it will be brilliant.

• Change Failure Rate (CFR) gives you the probability of deployments that would need hot fixing, patches, or rollbacks in the future. The lower the CFR, the better. Low CFR means high-quality code is being shipped, and thus low tech debt , and hence low cost of maintenance, and improved system reliability. So, if you’re improving CFR, do bring this to notice, and applaud the team responsible for this. 
• Code Churn is a measure of what percentage of code gets deleted after being merged. It’s not the same as refactored code, which is done to improve readability or performance. High Code Churn means poor requirements gathering, scope creep , or exposes the inefficiency of engineering talent & code review process. Low code churn is good for reducing development costs.
• Incident Frequency (IF) is the average number of incidents that happen in a time period. Incidents could be software crashes, network interruptions, data loss, power outages, third-party vendor services failures, human errors, server outages, database errors, etcetera. Instead of diving into each of these, just give an overall view. And demonstrate the ROI on investing in low incident frequency. In some cases, after a particular IF level, investments toward preventing incidents are costlier than responding to them.
• Cycle Time is how long it takes the code to go from the developer’s first commit to the deployment. It includes coding, review, and rework time. Companies strive for lower cycle time. Normally, cycle time is under 4 days for most companies. Low cycle time displays the efficacy of your engineering teams & processes. 
• Data Metrics, to give insights into the ROI of investing in data. For example, talk about the percentage increase in revenue attributed to data-driven decisions, and improvement in the accuracy & precision of your predictive models with the increase in data sources integrated for analytics. 
• ESG Metrics, to demonstrate how your engineering practices & initiatives have resulted in decreased energy consumption, hence low contribution to the carbon emission (carbon footprint reduction), and the impact on operational costs. Basically, tell the board members how green & sustainable is your engineering supply chain. Celebrate wins like LEED green certifications for your data centers, etcetera.
• Compliance and regulations metrics to share compliance audit results, the number of data & regulatory compliance requirements met, the number of data breaches & compliance violations, etcetera.
• 2. Team KPIs — Developer Productivity, Developer Experience (DX), and More!

In your Slide 6 , share the team & developer coding experience-focused metrics, such as: 

• Active Contributors count who are committing to the code base. This reflects effective human talent utilization & engagement. The higher, the better.
• Developer Coding Days is a measure of how active are developers on average. Ideally, it should be 100% for a flawless engineering process & culture. Low coding days expose process or engineering inefficiency. And that means, there is a scope of optimization where costs could be saved, or developer experience could be improved. If it is high, it is awesome. Else, share with the board the reason, the strategy, and the investment needed to improve this. 
• Code churn (the same as above), if high, could be a signal for inefficient coding skills or process inefficiencies like requirement gathering. This results in poor developer productivity and spoils the developer experience (DX) , hence hitting the bottom line negatively. You should have an idea of the possible reasons, and how to mitigate them.
• Pickup time, active reviewers average, reviewer reaction time, submitter response time, involvement, and other code review -related metrics are measured to demonstrate how well the code review process is implemented in the organization, across project verticals. Explain how adherence to the ideal numbers for these metrics means an improved developer experience, and high-quality code yield, and also contributes to higher maker time . Thus, positively influencing the bottom line by reducing the costs of dealing with technical debt , and employee churn.
• Maker time could be the highlight of this slide as it tells what percentage of uninterrupted time a developer gets on average to actually do the coding. A high maker time positively impacts metrics like PR throughput per contributor, Lines of Code (LoC), coding time average, coding days , and code review metrics . It won’t be an exaggeration to say, the higher the maker time, the better the developer experience. 

Read why you as a CTO should be championing investing in a better developer experience for your board of directors.

• A low code churn (explained above) may mean improved prowess of engineering talent. So, you can put that as well in this slide.
• Besides, you can talk about the percentage of talent who participated in tech training programs to upskill and share metrics about tech talent retention. These too reflect a well-engaged culture, which is a sign of good developer experience.
• 3. Market Dynamics & the Current Landscape of the Industry

Slide 7 should give a quick overview of:

• What’s buzzing in the industry? 
• Competitor research insights 
• Future of technical landscape in your industry, and basically noteworthy emerging technologies from the Gartner hype cycle . 
• New Feature/Product Introductions to match the paradigm shift

This helps stakeholders & board of directors to grasp a good understanding of where the industry is headed. You may take the help of a VP, EM, or tech lead to prepare this slide. Salespeople may also come in handy. This is a good exercise to nurture the next generation of internal leaders and to be a floor leader even as a CTO .

Slide 8 should be about Where do you stand — your tech stack, talent pool, training programs, etcetera

Based on what you’ve included in the industry landscape slide 7, help the board of directors to:

• Take a peek into your current organization tech stack
• Understand how prepared you are technically for the future, and the strategy for tackling any anticipated or unexpected disruption, or tapping the emerging market opportunity.
• 4. Innovation & Research — Your Tech Radar

Slide 9 should be a continuation of your last slide. Here, you can talk about:

• Your initiatives targeted at growth, adaptability, innovation, and disruption. Like ThoughtWorks, you can share your own tech radar , where you show your prowess in different technologies, and what you plan to adopt in the future. 
• Also, you can share the number of patents filed, intellectual property assets created by the team, open source leadership, etcetera.
• 5. Budget & Resource Allocation — The Sweet Spot of CFOs, and CEOs 
• Lastly, take the help of your VPs from different engineering departments or geographies, and prepare a slide where you could demonstrate how you’ve been allocating financial resources and its ROI .
• Also, advocate for new investment opportunities for improving engineering outcomes.
• Find a balance of investments, and allocation with your CFO– building quality products without offshoot budgets. One way to do so is via capitalizing some of your R&D costs . Keep your finance team in the loop about presenting capitalized vs non-capitalized expenses, and how they impacted the overall development costs. It’s one way to shoot two stones with one arrow: Free up budgetary considerations for your engineering team, while keeping the C-suite, and board members happy, and enrolled. 

Slide 11: Feel free to conclude the presentation on hope with announcements of major upcoming launches , and/or small celebratory news, and/or by highlighting the major positive takeaways from the presentation . Or the best, applaud some of the emerging engineering talents within the organization.

• Building a Strong Engineering Narrative for the Board

Putting up a deck could be very challenging, especially for a CTO, as you’ve no time for it. But you can work with engineering managers & VPs who could help you with it. If you’re using Hatica, then it’s almost a cakewalk, as it tracks almost 90% of the metrics you would need for the decks. Almost all the engineering efficiency metrics that you would need to present in the board meeting as a CTO can be easily collected from the Hatica dashboard . In fact, you would get ready-made aesthetic charts to include in your board meeting presentation deck . 

Hatica is a gift for every engineering team to get unprecedented visibility into engineering processes & operations. It helps in unlocking developer productivity and delivering enchanting developer experiences (DX). Book a demo to see why 20k+ engineers are using Hatica for driving engineering excellence. Also, if you do not want to miss out on more engineering insights, subscribe to our blog .

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• January 11, 2023

Board Meeting Minutes 101: Free Template and Examples Included

• --> Written by Toni Hoy
• BLOG , Issues and Trends

As commonplace as it is for board secretaries to take nonprofit board meeting minutes, it may surprise you that boards of directors are not legally required to take minutes at all. Taking minutes with  board meeting software  has become a best practice to support  good governance .

Here, you’ll discover everything you need to know about board meeting minutes and how to take them with examples and a meeting minutes template.

What Are Board Meeting Minutes?

Board meeting minutes provide a record of what happens during a board meeting. Nonprofit board minutes, which typically fall under the responsibility of the board secretary, detail the board’s actions, decisions and key deliberations in connection with the agenda in narrative form. Below, you’ll find a few examples to help answer the question, “What do board meeting minutes look like?”

Examples of Board Meeting Minutes

While nonprofit board meeting minutes follow a similar format, there is no overarching standard for how to write minutes. The following examples will give you a general idea of how other nonprofits approach taking minutes.

• Basic sample #1 
• Basic sample #2

Printable Board Meeting Minutes Template — Nonprofit

A free board meeting minutes template for nonprofits gives your board a good place to start when establishing a process for taking minutes.

Printable Template for Board Meeting Minutes from BoardEffect

Members of organizations are entitled to obtain certain records like financial reports and meeting minutes. More importantly, board directors have legal and fiduciary duties , so it’s important to have a record of the actions that the board took during meetings.

In addition, the minutes of board meetings serve as guidance for the board as they plan and make strategic decisions. Taking board meeting minutes using a specified format and template also serves as legal protection for the board and the organization.

Need a PDF or printable nonprofit board meeting template to share with colleagues? Download your copy here .

What Information Do Board Secretaries Need to Record?

The best source that board secretaries can  use as a guide  for recording board minutes is  Robert’s Rules of Order .

The most important part of the minutes is documenting an accurate account of board members’ actions during the meeting. Secretaries will also want to include a statement of whether the minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved.

When writing board meeting minutes, secretaries should include an overview of what took place at the meeting without being overly wordy. It should include items such as:

• The meeting’s date, time and location
• Whether it was a regular or a special session
• A list of the presiding officer, directors, staff, guests and other attendees

Designating the percentage of present members constituting a quorum is not necessary. The secretary only needs to document whether  a quorum  does or does not exist.

You will find a more comprehensive list of items to include in board meeting minutes later in the article.

Writing Board Meeting Minutes: Step by Step

Effective minute-taking requires the  secretary  to take four steps. The steps include:

• Planning before the meeting
• Taking notes during the meeting
• Writing a formal report after the meeting
• Filing and sharing the minutes of each meeting

Step 1: Preparation for the Board Meeting

In learning how to take board nonprofit meeting minutes, it’s important to note that every organization records its minutes a little bit differently. The board president can fill the secretary in on any expected meeting minutes formats they should use. Secretaries can also review past meeting minutes and use them as a template. The board president will have a copy of the meeting agenda and the names of all attendees, including guests or speakers.

Step 2: Taking a Record of the Board Meeting

Unless your organization requires the secretary to type notes at the meeting, they can either type them out or write them longhand. A strong board meeting minutes template can help maintain more structured minutes. The two most important things to know when writing board meeting minutes are what information to record and how to present it. To take effective meeting minutes, the secretary should include:

• Date of the meeting
• Time the meeting was called to order
• Names of the meeting participants and absentees
• Corrections and amendments to previous meeting minutes
• Additions to the current agenda
• Whether a  quorum  is present
• Motions  taken or rejected
• Voting-that there was a motion and second, and the outcome of the vote
• Actions taken or agreed to be taken
• Items to be held over
• New business
• Open discussion or public participation
• Next meeting date and time
• Time of adjournment

Detailing the discussions during a board meeting is as crucial as including the information in the bullets above. For each agenda item, write a short statement of actions taken by the board and a brief explanation of the rationale for the activity. If there are extensive arguments, write a summary of the significant ideas.

When writing board meeting minutes, record discussions objectively and avoid inflammatory remarks and personal observations. A good way to do this is by avoiding adjectives and adverbs whenever possible. Check your language to be sure that it is clear, unambiguous and complete.

As noted earlier, nonprofit board meeting minutes are an official and legal record of the board meeting . In a legal arena, meeting minutes are presumed to be correct and can be legal evidence of the facts they report. Boards have legal liability, so keep information basic and language simple to avoid any legal complications that place the organization at a disadvantage in any legal proceedings. Use names only when recording motions and seconds.

After the meeting, the secretary will want to write the formal record when everything is still fresh in mind. It helps to prepare the document soon after the meeting.

Step 3: Writing the Official Record of the Board Meeting Minutes

Review the agenda to gain the full scope of the meeting. Add notes for clarification. Review actions, motions, votes and decisions for clarity. Edit the record so the minutes are concise, clear and easy to read.

It’s better to attach meeting handouts and documents referred to during the meeting to the final copy rather than summarizing the contents in the minutes.

Step 4: Signing, Filing and Sharing Minutes

Once your board meeting minutes are fully written, you are responsible for making them official by having the board secretary sign them. Your organization may also require the president’s signature.

As part of knowing how to take minutes for a board meeting, you should always follow your organization’s by-laws and protocols for storing minutes. It’s a good idea to have backup copies either in print, a hard drive, or (best case) a  board portal .

The secretary also has the responsibility for sharing minutes. Ensure the president has approved the minutes before sharing them in print or online.

Helpful Tips for Taking Board Meeting Minutes

• Use a template
• Check off attendees as they arrive
• Do introductions or circulate an attendance list
• Record motions, actions, and decisions as they occur
• Ask for clarification as necessary
• Write clear, brief notes rather than full sentences or verbatim wording
• Maintain the same verb tense

Common Mistakes in Taking Board Meeting Minutes

• Failure to document a quorum
• Ambiguous description of board actions
• Including information that could harm the board in a legal sense
• Lengthy delays in providing minutes after a meeting
• Delays in approving minutes from past meetings-missing mistakes
• Failing to file and manage documents
• Failing to get documents signed, so they serve as an official and legal record

Always be mindful that the purpose of taking meeting minutes is to reflect the true intentions of the board and that they are an official and legal record. Given the breadth of detail and complexity of the process associated with proper documentation of meeting minutes and learning to take minutes for a board meeting, many organizations find using  board portal software  helpful. Board portal tools help make this work easier and more efficient, ultimately elevating organizational performance.

As serious as the job is, taking and preparing minutes can also be a rewarding and edifying experience.

Board Meeting Minutes Best Practices

The exact format of board meeting minutes varies by the organization, although best practices for governance indicate that all meeting minutes should contain the basic information we bulleted in Step 2 as noted earlier in Taking Board Meeting Minutes: Step by Step.

Best practices also encourage boards to do the following:

• Obtain information from the board president about attendees, guests and any speakers or special presentations.
• Review the past meeting’s minutes and gather any documents for the meeting.
• The board secretary and board president should concur on the agenda and finalize it.
• Be consistent in the method of reporting so that the information is reliable.
• Carefully document any decisions the board makes.
• Document any next steps the board needs to take.
• Keep your statements short and concise.
• Utilize the minutes to track action items and follow-ups.

What Should Not Be Included in Meeting Minutes

Not everything should be included in nonprofit board meeting minutes. The wrong entries could pose problems for boards later on.

These are some of the things board secretaries should leave out of board meeting minutes:

• Abbreviations, acronyms, and jargon unless the meaning is obvious
• Judgmental comments
• Personal observations about members at the meeting
• Notes about personal arguments
• Statements with political undertones
• Exact discussions where lawyers gave legal advice
• Words of praise

As noted previously, board meeting minutes serve as legal records in a court of law. Discussions, comments, and direct quotes by board members could someday be taken out of context or be misinterpreted in court hearings. In the event of a lawsuit, the opposing counsel will be looking for weaknesses detailed in board meeting minutes. Too much information can lead  to legal risks .

Board Meeting Minutes Legal Requirements

Governance for nonprofits falls under state laws. Each state has its own mandates for registering a nonprofit. In most states, nonprofit boards are required to take and record board meeting minutes. It is best to store meeting minutes with other books and records.

States do not list requirements for how nonprofits must take minutes. Board secretaries routinely rely on best practices for meeting minutes as standard practice for recording meeting minutes properly.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How detailed should meeting minutes be.

It is not appropriate to record everything board members say at a meeting. Minutes should only summarize the major points of a meeting relative to the board’s actions and decisions.

When Should Board Meeting Minutes Be Distributed?

Board meeting minutes should be distributed as soon as possible after the meeting so board members have sufficient time to review them and make corrections before voting to approve them. BoardEffect streamlines the process of getting minutes distributed and approved, as it all happens electronically.

What Is the Purpose of Board and Shareholder Meeting Minutes?

The purpose of board meeting minutes is to record motions, decisions and key discussions in connection with the board meeting agenda.

Who Should Take Minutes at a Board Meeting?

Any board member can take board meeting minutes, although it is typically the responsibility of the board secretary.

How Do Boards Approve Minutes at a Board Meeting?

At the start of a board meeting, boards must approve meeting minutes for the previous meeting. A unanimous consent vote must approve minutes.

Preparation for Board Secretaries: Using a Board Meeting Template

The board secretary and president should agree on the board minutes’ content. They should also decide what to leave out to protect the board and its directors from legal liabilities.

Board secretaries can prepare for meetings by reviewing formats of past meeting minutes and using templates for sample board meeting minutes. Templates will have areas to fill in pertinent information, such as the date, time, and regular agenda items, with flexibility for adding new items. It helps to review formats for nonprofit board meeting minutes that other organizations have used successfully.

Before each meeting, the board secretary will need to obtain information from the board president about attendees, guests, and any speakers or special presentations. The secretary will also want to review the past meeting’s minutes and gather any documents for the meeting. Finally, the secretary will work with the board president to set and solidify the agenda.

Some Final Words About Board Minutes

Templates and formats are essential tools for board secretaries. Why not use them to take much of the work from  recording board minutes ? A good rule for minute-takers is recording a statement for every board action to avoid being overly wordy.

Hopefully, your board meeting minutes will never be evidence in a court of law. If they are, however, using these tools, your board can rest assured that the minutes accurately reflect board business.

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2024 ACP Internal Medicine Board Review Course Recordings

Ensure you're board-exam ready with ACP's 2024 Internal Medicine Board Review Course Recordings—a multimedia, self-study program that delivers multiple study tools for you to review and reinforce the content likely to be questioned on the exams.

• Recall clinical information that is likely to support success in the ABIM initial certification or recertification examinations in internal medicine.
• Interpret and answer questions written in ABIM question format and self-assess personal knowledge through peer-answer comparisons.

View lectures in any order and as often as you like to solidify your knowledge. These on-demand multimedia sessions include 37+ hours of content and more than 250 board-style questions. ACP’s Board Review Course Recordings Package breaks the lectures into targeted, short single-question segments, so you can create a custom study schedule. 

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Program Components

• Video Online : Get immediate streaming access to the very best in online learning. Your personal dashboard provides fast access to each topic and saves your progress. Watch interactive video clips linked to multiple-choice questions, answer the question, and then listen to the lecturer’s explanation. Easily submit for CME credit.

• NEW for 2024, the ACP audio app is compatible with CarPlay for listening while driving or commuting and includes links to lecture slides.
• Electronic Course Syllabus : An electronic syllabus is provided to supplement your internal medicine certification studies, including hundreds of slides and images used by the presenters.

*Price includes full access for 1 year from date of purchase

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The American College of Physicians is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American College of Physicians designates this enduring material, the ACP Board Review Course Recordings: Certification, for a maximum of 37.5  AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s) TM . Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to 37.5 MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credit.

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If you purchased a recorded version of the ACP Board Review Course within twelve months of not passing the ABIM MOC, LKA or Certification Exam in internal medicine, you may attend a live ACP Board Review Course within a subsequent period of twelve months from your ABIM notification date, subject to space availability, and not pay the registration fee, or you may receive access to a current Board Review Video Online course. Summative results from the LKA are determined at the end of the 5-year cycle (formative scores reported before the 5-year determination are not eligible). To qualify, email [email protected] a copy of the ABIM notification letter of your test results with the option you are choosing.

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U.S. Access Board Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Rule for Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations

On September 3, the U.S. Access Board published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to amend the accessibility guidelines for buildings and facilities covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 (ABA) to specifically address the accessibility of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. This proposed rule provides specifications for the accessibility of EV charging stations, to include the EV charger (including physical and communication access), EV charging space, access aisles, and accessible routes. The public can review the docket and read background documents or comments received on the docket webpage .

“The Access Board seeks the public’s feedback and comments on our proposed rulemaking on EV charging stations. As technology advances, so must our accessibility standards to ensure that Americans with disabilities have equal access to advancements in technology, such as electric vehicles,” remarked Executive Director Sachin Pavithran. “This is an opportunity for the public to engage with the Access Board’s rulemaking, and we look forward to reviewing your public comments as we move our rulemaking efforts forward.”

Public comments for the NPRM are due by  November 4, 2024 . Individuals may submit comments via any of the following methods:

• Federal Register : Select the “Submit a Formal Comment” link at the top of the notice and follow the instructions.
• Regulations.gov e-rulemaking portal : Select “Comment” link and follow the instructions.
• Email:  [email protected] . Include docket number ATBCB-2024-0001 in the subject line of the message.
• Mail: Office of General Counsel, U.S. Access Board, 1331 F Street NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20004-1111.

All submissions must include the docket number ( ATBCB-2024-0001 ) for this regulatory action. All comments received will be posted without change to Regulations.gov, including any personal information provided.

Visit our EV Charging Stations webpage to learn more about the background of this proposed rule.

The Access Board provides free technical assistance on its accessibility guidelines and standards through its helpline at 1-202-272-0080, extension 3, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (ET) weekdays. For technical assistance specifically on the accessibility of EV Charging stations, please email [email protected] .

What are the system requirements for Fortnite on PC?

Recommended system requirements, minimum system requirements.

Video Card: Intel HD 4000 on PC; AMD Radeon Vega 8 Processor: Core i3-3225 3.3 GHz Memory: 8 GB RAM OS: Windows 10 64-bit version 1703

Epic Quality Presets Specifications

If you just meet the minimum system requirements, Fortnite will run on your machine, but probably not on the highest settings. Reducing the graphics settings in Fortnite and How do I disable background applications? will help.

How to verify your PC meets system requirements

• Click Start .
• Type System Information and press Enter .

• Click the + sign next to Components to expand the list.
• Click Display to show your video card(s).

• If you meet the requirements to run Fortnite but are having trouble use our troubleshooting articles here: How do I troubleshoot crashes, errors, and performance issues in Fortnite on PC?

If you are following the series of articles in How do I troubleshoot crashes, errors, and performance issues in Fortnite on PC? and this did not solve the issue try the next step in our troubleshooting: How do I verify the integrity of Fortnite game files?

If you are following the series of articles in How do I troubleshoot low frame rate (FPS) in Fortnite? and this did not solve the issue try the next step in our troubleshooting: How do I verify the integrity of Fortnite game files?

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