Challenges and Benefits of Virtual Board Meetings

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Despite the current pandemic the nonprofit boards have to meet regularly and take decisions. Virtual meetings are an easy solution to increase the efficiency of board members and increases their involvement. However, these online meetings have their own set of challenges. Certain board members may not be comfortable using new technology, while others have a limited understanding of technology.

Virtual meetings can cause lack of motivation and concentration, particularly in long meetings. Participants may experience “zoom fatigue” or be easily distracted by other things on their screen. To avoid this, it is important to keep the meeting brief. It is important to ensure that the agenda is clearly communicated, and encourage attendees to speak up throughout the meeting. It can also be helpful to use polls and questions to keep attention.

Another challenge of virtual board meetings is the inability of observing the body language of facial expressions or gestures. This could affect board member engagement and impact the effectiveness of the meeting. To prevent this from happening board directors should be encouraged to use video during meetings to ensure that they are able to accurately discern the non-verbal signals of their colleagues.

Other issues include the difficulty in recording and distributing minutes of board meetings. Recording the entire meeting is crucial for the event that a board member is in a position to miss. This will also enable future boards to go over previous decisions and comprehend the reasoning behind a specific decision. The best method to avoid these problems is to utilize a tool for managing board meetings which provides a central archive of all materials for meetings including historical and current.