Scheduling a board or nonprofit meeting and reaching quorum

On a nonprofit board, every director is a volunteer with a job, a family and often another commitment somewhere else. Finding one evening when enough of them can show up to reach quorum can easily turn into a week-long email thread. Here is a straightforward way to schedule board meetings, and your annual general meeting, without all the back-and-forth.

Start by re-reading your bylaws

Before you suggest a single date, open your bylaws and write down four things. They vary from one organization to the next, so check them rather than relying on “the way we’ve always done it.”

• Notice period: how many days before the meeting must notice go out, and by what means (email, mail, posting)?
• Quorum: is it a fixed number or a proportion of directors in office?
• Remote participation: can directors join by phone or video, and under what conditions?
• Who calls the meeting: usually the chair or the secretary, but confirm who actually has that authority.

Keep the answers in a shared board document: you’ll need them for every meeting.

Set the whole year’s calendar at once

The best way to avoid last-minute polls is to need fewer of them. At the first board meeting after the AGM, agree on a pattern for the year: say, the third Tuesday of every month from September to June, skipping December. A predictable rhythm lets directors block their evenings months ahead.

To pick that pattern, try this: create a poll with the evenings of one typical week, Monday to Thursday at 7 p.m., and title it “Which weeknight works best for board meetings this year?” After that, you only need polls for the exceptions: a special meeting, an urgent file, the AGM itself.

One-off meetings: poll two to three weeks ahead

When you need a date outside the regular calendar, send the poll two to three weeks before the target period. Any earlier and people don’t know their schedules yet; any later and you may not be able to meet your notice period.

Offer three or four evenings, not ten. A board of seven to eleven people responds better to a short list. Skip Fridays, the night before a holiday and back-to-school week. Put the start time and expected length in the description: “7 to 9 p.m.” gets a more honest answer than an open-ended “7 p.m.”

Give a reply-by date as well, five days for example. Here’s a message you can adapt:

Hi everyone,
We need to hold a board meeting before the end of the month to adopt the revised budget. Please mark your availability by Friday at noon. A “No” is just as useful to us as a “Yes.”
[poll link]

Know who you can’t meet without

Not every attendee carries the same weight. If the meeting is about the financial statements, a date without the treasurer doesn’t make much sense. Before you look at the results, list the people whose absence would make the meeting pointless: typically the chair, the treasurer and whoever is presenting the main item, such as the executive director or a committee lead.

The automatic score highlights the date that suits the most people. For a board, ask two more questions:

• How many firm “Yes” answers does that date have? A “Maybe” won’t get you to quorum.
• Did all of your must-attend people answer “Yes”?

If quorum is your main concern, turn off the “Maybe” option when you create the poll. Everyone has to commit one way or the other, and your headcount becomes far more reliable.

Plan for hybrid from the start

If your bylaws allow remote participation, say so in the poll. A director who would answer “No” to an in-person meeting 40 minutes away may well answer “Yes” if joining by video is an option. Put the format in the location field, for example “Community centre boardroom + Teams,” and save the actual meeting link for the official notice.

Also plan for a microphone that picks up the whole table, and send documents in advance so everyone is reading the same version.

Once the date is set, send the official notice

The poll helps you find a date; it doesn’t replace the notice of meeting. As soon as the date is confirmed, send the notice the way your bylaws require, including:

• the date, time, place and, if applicable, the video link;
• the proposed agenda;
• the documents to review: previous minutes, financial statements, motions;
• who to contact if you can’t attend.

Keep a copy of the notice and the date it was sent with the meeting records.

The AGM is a different animal

Your annual general meeting brings together all members, not just the board. There’s no need to poll fifty or two hundred people: poll the directors, the executive director and whoever will present the financial statements, then confirm the room is available. Some bylaws require the AGM to be held within a set period after the end of the fiscal year, and notice to members sometimes requires more days than a board meeting. Check yours and start looking for a date at least two months ahead.

Accordate was built for exactly this kind of situation: no account for directors to create, clear Yes, Maybe or No answers, the option to drop “Maybe” altogether, and once the date is set, everyone can add it to their calendar in one click. Create a poll for your next meeting in a few minutes. See also the date poll guide and our tips for planning a team dinner with your volunteers.