Despite the current pandemic, nonprofit boards still need to meet regularly and take decisions. Virtual meetings are a great solution that improves the efficiency of board members and increases their involvement. Online meetings aren’t without difficulties. Some board members might not be comfortable with the latest technology, while others may not have technological expertise.
Virtual meetings can cause an absence of motivation and focus, particularly during long meetings. Attendees experience “zoom fatigue” and can easily become distracted by other things on their screen. To prevent 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 during the meeting. You can also make use of polls and questions to keep the attention of the audience.
The inability to discern facial expressions or body language is a further issue with virtual board meetings. This can affect the level of engagement among board members as well as the effectiveness of the meeting. To prevent this from happening board members should be encouraged to watch video during the meeting so they are able to detect non-verbal signals that their peers are sending to them.
Other challenges include the challenge in recording and distributing minutes of board meetings. Recording the entire meeting is important for the event that a board member is in a position to miss. This will also allow future boards to look back on previous decisions and gain a better understanding of the reasons for a particular decision. The best way to avoid these problems is to use a board management tool that provides a centralized archive of all materials for meetings as well as historical materials.