Boardable is definitely worth the cost. It’s extremely valuable and there are new tools and updates being released all the time. Their staff reaches out for feedback and is easy to reach. It is a great resource for managing our board meetings and being effective, supportive, and interactive for our Trustees. I never want to waste our board members' time and Boardable helps us deliver an outstanding and engaging board experience.
If you want a customizable solution that can be adapted for just about any scenario, I recommend using Notion. If you need a solution that's easy to share with people outside your organization, Notion is great and allows individual or team permission-setting. If you want a turnkey solution, Notion might not be the best since it requires a fair bit of set-up. There are templates that can be purchased to handle this, but I haven't found them very helpful.
Organize and execute Board & Committee meetings through the "Meetings" which allows you to build your agenda, attach documents, create minutes, and send out a summary of the meeting once completed.
Provide a very versatile Document Center where you can archive all types of documents for current and future use.
Polls, Tasks, & Decision-making features. These tools allow for broadcasting to members at large or to committees important information to be acted upon. It also keeps a record of responses.
Reports--this is an area we are just beginning to appreciate since it provides overviews of board member engagement and progress made within committees and the board at large.
People Directory--an invaluable tool for orienting new board members to current members as well as allowing for board members to contact each other.
Goal Setting: this is a tool we are just starting to use. It allows for the tracking of progress for board projects and/or fundraising.
I use Notion on my personal tablet, and unlike on the computer, I have a lot of difficulty editing backgrounds, GIFs, and page dividers. It's not as user-friendly, and often the elements end up cut off or misaligned, which is frustrating.
While the current calendar feature is helpful, I'd love to see more customization options. The Google Calendar style isn't always ideal, especially for tasks without specific times or for ongoing projects that require daily maintenance.
It would be fantastic to have more flexibility in customizing Notion pages. For example, I'd love to create planners with the freedom to add illustration boxes, stickers, or GIFs without being restricted to a fixed layout.
Very easy to use (I learned how to use everything on my own) and I was able to set up an entire ecosystem without any courses or other tools. I often say that Notion is like Lego for adults, because there we can use all the available tools to create a multitude of things, from funnels to projects with calculated deadlines and tags.
Boardable provides ample videos, information, and support to enable new members to learn how to navigate the platform. However, not all members are motivated to learn a new software system. Lessons learned with onboarding new members is to do a Spotlight meeting with them that utilizes as many of the popular features our board uses so that they shorten their learning curve. As with anything new, "practice makes permanent!"
The main issue is this platform is designed and geared toward nonprofits vs. adapting a for-profit board portal. The second is the price point, while it has gone up significantly, is still in line with nonprofit budgets.
The company uses both Notion and Trello within the company. Notion is more for North America employees while Trello is used between Operation team overseas and in North America. Sometimes it's a preference of how the tools look like for project management. I would say both Notion and Trello are nice tools and serves our needs.
