Question:

What does a typical board meeting look like?

Answer:

Both for-profit corporations and nonprofits have boards of directors, so it’s important to know how to conduct board meetings.

The first thing you’re going to want to do at the board meeting is call the meeting to order. Once that’s done, you’ll want to announce who’s attending the meeting, including board members as well as other attendees. Early in the meeting, you’ll also have to approve the meeting minutes from the previous board meeting. Meeting minutes are generally a concise reproduction of what goes on at the meeting, and the board secretary is responsible for the production and circulation of the minutes.

After you approve the previous meeting’s minutes and take a roll call to establish attendance, you can move onto different orders of business. This part of the board meeting typically makes up the majority of the meeting. The board can go through and finish up old orders of business, go on to new orders of business, and members may make motions and vote on different items. The familiar trope of someone making a motion, someone seconding the motion, and then the members voting on the issue is where this comes up. All of this should be making its way into the meeting minutes for this particular meeting.

When you’re ready to close up or end the meeting, someone can move to close the meeting, and someone can second that motion. Then you’ll vote to close the meeting, and that will conclude the meeting. After that, the meeting minutes get circulated among the members for approval, and the secretary then signs them.