Q&A #37 – Should my nonprofit use a Consent Agenda for Board meetings?

Question: The Board of Directors of my nonprofit is looking into ways to streamline our Board meetings. We have heard a lot about “consent agendas,” but none of us are familiar with how this works. Should we be using a consent agenda for our Board meetings?

Answer: There is not one uniform answer to this question for all nonprofits, but the consent agenda is used and recommended by many organizations and nonprofit consultants. The consent agenda is a powerful tool that can save precious Board meeting time and keep the focus on strategic matters where Board discussion is most needed. This is especially true for virtual Board meetings, where time is usually tighter and attention is often harder to manage. However, a consent agenda can be tricky to implement, so it is important to be thoughtful about this practice.

The basic concept of a consent agenda is to group routine Board meeting items and materials into one motion for approval by the Board, with the ability for any Board member to request that an item be moved to the full agenda for more thorough deliberation. Typical items found in a consent agenda include prior Board meeting minutes,  program and activity performance reports, committee and staff reports, proposed routine amendments to organizational guidelines and policies, and approval and/or renewal of standard contracts, to name a few. Some organizations adopt guidelines for which items are suitable for the consent agenda.

An underlying challenge is the assumption that Board members will carefully read the materials in the consent agenda before the meeting, so it is important that the Board members individually commit to this extra front-end preparation time. Likewise, it is important that leadership and staff commit to distributing all materials in the consent agenda at least one week in advance of the meeting to ensure that the Board has adequate time to review.

Planning Tip – One potential downside of the consent agenda is that Board members might not have the benefit of interacting with committee and staff reports by hearing the presentations and asking probing questions. While the consent agenda process does allow Board members to move items to the full agenda or even ask brief questions prior to approving the consent agenda, doing this frequently would defeat the intent of using a consent agenda. To mitigate this downside, consider rotating one committee/staff report into the full agenda at each Board meeting throughout the year. This practice helps to ensure that committee and staff reports do not get routinely overlooked in the consent agenda process.

The consent agenda has been a widely adopted practice for good reason. Board meeting time is valuable and there is always a need to focus the Board’s attention more on strategic insights than operational details. However, successful implementation of a consent agenda process requires thoughtful planning and implementation to make sure that important issues get the attention they deserve.

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