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Board Portal More efficient Organization
How a Board Portal Makes Your Organization More Efficient

By Dustin McKissen, November 21, 2016

If you took Economics 101, you’ll probably remember two things your professor taught you: supply and demand, and opportunity cost. You are well versed in supply and demand, but if it’s been a while since you were in the classroom—or if the thought of taking Economics 101 filled you with a perfectly rational horror—we can explain what opportunity cost is.

Opportunity cost is the cost of what you give up when you spend your time doing one thing rather than another. For example, if you have a limited amount of time and have to choose between going to dinner or going to a movie, and you choose dinner, then your opportunity cost is the movie you missed.

Or if you narrowed your career choices in college down to computer scientist or nonprofit executive, and you chose to be a nonprofit executive, the opportunity cost of that decision would be a (probably far more financially lucrative) career as a computer scientist.

All of the choices we make have an opportunity cost—including the choice of how our board of directors spend their time during a meeting.

If your organization is firing on all cylinders and has more money than it knows what to do with, then you probably don’t have to worry about opportunity cost.

However, if you are like the rest of us, the reality is that time and money are objects. And if you’re like nearly every other trade association, community bank, school district, credit union, or other small, board-led organization, time and money are especially limited.

Why?

Because no matter how successful or efficient you are, organizations like this are always striving to make the biggest footprint possible using as few resources as possible. In other words, even if your credit union or school district is thriving, your resources are still stretched.

And one of those resources is the time and talent of your board of directors.

So, how are you using your board meetings?

Does your board meeting exist primarily to approve minutes or rubber-stamp decisions and documents that are a foregone conclusion?

Or are you using your board meeting to get maximum value and contribution from your board members? For example, are you using your board meeting to conduct a SWOT analysis on a potential new program or product for your organization?

You might ask why your board meetings can’t be used to do both, and sometimes board meetings can be a mix of the mundane and strategic. However, that can make for very long board meetings, which, over time, might lead to a less-engaged board.

With their directors’ time at a premium, most organizations need to decide what they are going to focus on in their board meetings: the routine, or the strategic?

Thankfully, with BoardPaq, the cost-conscious board portal of choice for a wide variety of organizations, you can make the most of your board members’ time using BoardPaq’s new Document Approval feature. This exciting addition allows board members to approve necessary documents between meetings, all while automatically creating the record of approval your organization needs.

And time spent between meetings approving documents will allow your organization to use actual board meetings in a far more value-added way—like conducting a SWOT analysis using one of BoardPaq’s other exciting new features.

Sign up for a demo today, and start turning your board of directors into the strategic resource that will take your organization to the next level!


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Dustin McKissen is the founder of McKissen + Company, an association management and marketing firm. He is a Certified Association Executive and has served as an executive or consultant to a wide variety trade associations, professional societies, and nonprofits.
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