Board Meeting Agenda: Guide +Template

Facilitating an effective board meeting is vital to your organization’s success. As a CEO or chairperson, these formal discussions with the board of directors and your executive leadership team are critical opportunities to align everyone on organizational objectives, chart future strategy, and make important decisions. Mastering how to run a successful and effective board meeting starts with preparing a thorough meeting agenda. Below, learn how to run a first-rate melding of the minds. 

What should be in a board meeting agenda?

Depending on your organization, board meetings are held quarterly or semi-annually. Since they’re infrequent, you need to make every minute count. With this many key decision-makers in the discussion, having a strong meeting agenda ahead of time is non-negotiable. Clear meeting topics are just the start – below is everything you should include in a board meeting agenda:

• Call to order
• Agenda adjustments
• Approval of previous meeting’s minutes
• Reports
• Old business 
• New business
• Comments and announcements
• Adjournment 

1 Call to order

A board meeting agenda should begin with a call to order, welcoming remarks, and the gathering’s objectives. The chairperson covers basic information (date, time, location), introduces the board, and calls the meeting to order—or to start.

2 Agenda adjustments

Board meeting agendas should include space for anyone on the board to propose changes to the agenda with the chairperson’s approval. The board may agree to leave the schedule as is, or some people might request changes. Once everything is agreed upon or adjusted accordingly, the meeting can move on to the next agenda item.

3 Approval of previous meeting’s minutes

This part of the agenda is reserved for the board secretary to read the meeting minutes from the previous meeting. This way, your board members can review what was discussed during the last meeting and re-assess to make necessary changes with the board’s approval.

4 Reports

In this section of a board meeting agenda, key department or committee heads provide important updates or reports to the board. Typically, the executive director gives the first report, followed by the finance director and the nominating committee. The agenda may also include a report from the program committee or the public relations committee afterward. It all depends on your organization or the current quarter’s priorities.

5 Old business 

After reports are presented, the board revisits any old items that were previously left unresolved or paused. You can leave space in your agenda to table certain items for next time or pass them off to a separate committee meeting to handle separately.

6 New business

With the old business settled, the board should discuss any new business items, next steps and meeting action items. Your agenda should leave plenty of room for debate and discussion, including a group vote to finalize decisions. You can adjust items, table them, postpone them, or send them to a committee.

7 Comments and announcements

This part of your board meeting agenda will include space for special announcements, congratulations, recognitions, and reminders. Board members can also use this time to suggest agenda items for the next meeting. 

8 Adjournment 

Once every open issue and new business item has been discussed and documented, the chairperson or meeting facilitator will formally end the board meeting. This part of your meeting agenda is called adjournment—a formal title for a formal occasion. You should thank everyone present for their time, state the end time of the meeting for the board secretary to document, and then inform everyone of the date of the next meeting. 

Free board meeting agenda template

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Tips on how to create a good board meeting agenda

Now that you have a solid board meeting agenda template to work from, you need to know how to leverage it Even if you have all the right elements, you should push more to make your meeting as effective as possible. So, how do you navigate the waters of a board meeting for the best results? Here’s what you should know.

• Approach the meeting from a new perspective
• Give a reason behind every item on the agenda
• Time your meeting to stay on track
• Get to the heart of the meeting
• Don’t overwhelm the room
• Open the floor to feedback

Approach the meeting from a new perspective 

Like any meeting agenda template, the board meeting outline above isn’t set in stone. Customizing it to your organization’s unique needs can help best align your meeting with the board’s goals. For example, you could reverse the meeting order and get right to the new ideas after the call to order. Don’t feel limited to the same repetitive format—the board may thank you later for your unique take on a plain format. 

Give a reason behind every item on the agenda

You can confidently say your agenda is clear if it tells everyone the purpose behind each item on the docket. Ask yourself: What is each agenda item’s goal? Will the item result in a vote or just require everyone to listen? A meeting works best when attendees know their roles and the meeting’s objective. That’s how you nip confusion in the bud and cut down on unnecessary chatter. 

Time your meeting to stay on track

You should go into your board meeting with a loose idea of how long each topic will take to discuss. After all, every minute counts when you only have an hour or two to cover important topics. If a certain agenda item takes too long, save it for the next meeting. Chances are there are plenty of other boxes you can check instead. 

Get to the heart of the meeting

Substance over style is always better when it comes to meetings. Namely, you should have a plan of attack before deciding the best way to explain it. A flashy presentation without real meat or action items isn’t a productive use of your board’s time. And with the whole board in front of you, it’s especially important to be mindful of everyone’s time. One easy way to do that: Keep your topics relevant to the core issues on the agenda.

Don’t overwhelm the room

We all know the feeling of sitting in a room, being talked at, and being overwhelmed by a million potential action items. Leaving a conference room like that can overwhelm you and slightly confused about what you just agreed to do. That can happen at board meetings, too, so don’t overload your agenda. Make some space in your agenda where you can be clear about everyone’s next steps and expectations for the best possible board meeting. 

Open the floor to feedback 

A meeting is all about dialogue. If you’re running a board meeting, you should occasionally invite everyone to share feedback. You can leave space for spur-of-the-moment topics in the agenda and end each agenda item with space for questions or concerns. This way, the meeting isn’t just for you – it’s for the whole board.

Importance of a board meeting agenda software

Using an all-in-one AI meeting transcription and management software for board meetings like Fellow can greatly improve the quality and effectiveness of your organization’s board meetings.

With Fellow’s collaborative meeting agendas, the executive leadership team can effortlessly prepare and collaborate on the board meeting structure and agenda to account for all pertinent items, reports, and questions. You can also leverage Fellow’s AI meeting agenda feature to generate suggested talking points based on past meetings to ensure you hit all the key topics.

During the meeting, Fellow’s advanced AI meeting recordings, transcriptions and summaries can capture notes, decisions, action items, and key takeaways. This saves the board chairperson or secretary hours of manual note-taking or follow-ups. Afterward, the AI meeting summary recap is automatically sent to the board, with action items identified based on the conversation so everything is clear.

Fellow also allows the board chair to request meeting feedback to help improve future board meetings based on what worked well (and what didn’t). 

With 500+ expert-approved meeting agenda templates, comprehensive board meeting software like Fellow takes the guesswork out of running effective board meetings. Get started today!