Here’s a Dashboard template for you to download. Full instructions below.
As professionals, we live and breathe our school/organization day and night. We sometimes forget that even our engaged and committed Board members are tuning in approximately once a month.
No wonder that most financial, enrollment, or fundraising updates begin with a professional or committee chair launching into their report, only to be called back by questions like:
Wait, what was the budget projection last time we met?
Can you remind me where we stand with enrollment?
I feel like I am missing something? I’m a bit lost…
At that point, we have a choice. Either we go back and explain everything from the beginning, losing precious time and frustrating those who do remember where we were. Or we push ahead and frustrate those who do not have the context to participate in the discussion.
This is not a problem you can solve in a Board meeting. It is, however, a problem you can solve by preparing before the Board meeting.
Effective leaders do not go into a meeting without their dashboard, a quick visual summary that reminds everyone where we stand on our most important metrics such as high level budget and cash flow updates, fundraising campaign progress, enrollment, staff recruitment, etc.
As you build consistency around the format and content of your dashboard, you accomplish a number of key goals:
- You build shared context and comfort. Everyone sees the same metrics in the same format each month. Patterns become visible. Board members feel more informed and, therefore, are less reactive.
- You demonstrate confident leadership. The Board knows that you know where you are going, and trusts you to guide them along the way.
- You reclaim meeting time for strategy. With the basics covered, you can use Board time to engage around forward-looking questions.
It takes some time to set this up at first, but then it is fairly easy to update from month to month – and it keeps you focused as well! Here is a sample template to get you started.