Terrie on Nonprofits
September 2004
RESOURCES FOR RUNNING MORE EFFECTIVE
MEETINGS
Q:
I’ve been asked to staff a committee where
the chairman hasn’t run meetings before.
He wants to do it right and is turning to
me. He seems to want more specifics than
I can give him. Can you refer me to any
books on the subject?
A:
There are a number of resources that will
help your chairman avoid running meetings
that leave committee members feeling like
Milton Berle who believed that meetings are
a place where men keep minutes but waste
hours.
For
a generic step-by-step guide, check out How
to Make Meetings Work by Michael Doyle
and David Straus (Berkeley Books). First
published in 1976, a revised edition is available
on Amazon.com.
Written
specifically for our sector is Outi Flynn’s Meet
Smarter: A Guide to Better Nonprofit Board
Meetings, published by BoardSource (2004). You
might also want to refer to the chapters
on meetings in Nonprofit Board Answer
Book by Robert Andringa and Ted Engstrom
(National Center for Nonprofit Boards, 1997)
and Secrets of Successful Boards: The
Best from the Non-Profit Pros, edited
by Carol Weisman (F. E. Robbins & Sons,
1998). These three items are available through
BoardSource, 800-883-6262 or online at www.boardsource.org.
I’ve
reviewed parts of the upcoming book tentatively entitled Garber’s
Rules of Order: A Manual for Successful Board
Meetings, by Nathan Garber. If you can
wait a couple of months I know you will find
this a valuable resource. To be notified
when it rolls off the press contact Nathan@GarberConsulting.com. Meanwhile,
read Nathan’s “Chairperson’s Checklist for
Great Meetings” in Nonprofit Boards and
Governance Review at http://charitychannel.com/articles/article_6203.shtml.
Let
me also suggest an article entitled “You
May Need to Think about Meetings in a Whole
New Way” by Larry D. Lauer (Nonprofit
World, March/April 1995). You can find
this and other helpful articles on a CD-ROM
entitled “Welcome to Nonprofit World,” produced
by the National Society of Nonprofit Organizations. To
get a copy, call 800-424-7367 or log onto www.danenet.org/snpo.
Also,
check out the Internet. A Google search shows
close to six million references to effective
meetings. Two of my favorites: the Effective
Meetings site at www.effectivemeetings.com and colleague
Carter McNamara’s “Basic Guide to Conducting
Effective Meetings” at www.mapnp.org/library/misc/mtgmgmnt.htm. By
the way, if you’re not familiar with Carter’s
Free Management Library it is a treasure
trove of information for nonprofits.
Terrie
Temkin, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized
governance and planning expert. She is
president of NonProfit Management Solutions,
Inc.,
a principal in CoreStrategies for Nonprofits,
Inc., and a longtime member of AFP. Contact
her at terriet@nonprofitmanagementsolutions.com,
954-985-9489, or 866-985-9489.
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