Boardable--A Non-Profit's Dream Come True!
Updated May 22, 2022
Boardable--A Non-Profit's Dream Come True!
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Boardable
Boardable has coordinated the restructuring of our Board and made it easier for our Board to meet and become more engaged during the pandemic. We now see the value in using a management platform to keep us organized and productive. I highly recommend to non-profit Boards to consider using Boardable if their goal is to expand the engagement and effectiveness of their Board of Directors.
- 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.
- Spotlight bandwidth--our organization has a large board (26 members) and we encountered video issues at large meetings. In all fairness to Boardable, this was prior to the latest Spotlight upgrade as well as some of the issues had to do with users not following recommendations and/or not having a strong internet connection.
- You cannot deposit completed minutes directly into the document center. As it stands, once a meeting's minutes are published the minutes stay with the meeting then are stored on the "Past" meeting page. It would be nice to have the option to save the minutes directly to the document center for that particular board mtg or committee meeting.
- Sending notice of published meeting minutes to people who were not included in the original meeting. It would be ideal to allow all board members to receive published meeting notes to review who may not be associated with that group.
- Agenda Building features--it organizes meetings and provides a quick turnaround for minute building and publishing.
- Spotlight--is pretty robust for smaller group meetings and for larger meetings Boardable provides a zoom integration. This is a nice choice if your board is used to using zoom or is concerned about bandwidth issues.
- Dashboard--allows a clear overview of your particular group interactions, upcoming meetings, and goals, and allows a box to post unique links or documents. We use it to post our strategic map, along with the agency's organizational chart, and other general lists.
- Discussions--this is a great feature for generating and/or continuing discussion on pertinent topics that need further action.
- Directory--I find this feature practical and handy for looking up contact info on board members and/or getting to know their background.
- Boardable enabled our NP board to continue to meet during the pandemic and in the process helped us discover that we can accomplish more by using a digital platform to assimilate and store important documents, discussions, and tasks.
- I don't know the exact cost savings we gained but from a practical perspective using Boardable has saved tons of paper-generated reports, emails, and time-consuming staff activities. Boardable's fees are reasonable and provide affordable tiers to meet your agency's needs.
- I believe Boardable has taken our large board's engagement up a notch or two by providing the means by which board members can interact outside of in-person meetings.
- OnBoard Board Management Software, Govenda (formerly BoardBookit) and Azeus Convene
I personally evaluated each of these products and found Boardable was the best fit for our needs. Plus, none of these products could match the price for the features we wanted. I actually met with Boardable users and was able to ask honest questions and was pleased by the feedback I received.
Do you think Boardable delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Boardable's feature set?
Yes
Did Boardable live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Boardable go as expected?
No
Would you buy Boardable again?
Yes
Using Boardable
30 - We have 5 staff (including the CEO) and 25 board members enrolled. All but 6 board members use boardable on a regular basis. Of the 6, 3 have disabilities.
3 - The agency provides 2 IT people, and the board supplies 1--me, who is in regular touch with Boardable support.
- Spotlight
- Agenda builder
- Document center
- Directory
- Dashboard
- Building a library of documents for present and future board activities.
- Broadcasting announcements to members.
- Engaging in discussions outside of meetings.
- Learning more about board members through the directory.
- Circulating documents prior to meetings to be reviewed.
- Voting on minutes and/or issues without having to call a formal meeting.
- Improve our use of the Minute Maker.
- Continue to build our library of documents.
- Create an executive board information folder for new key executive members to access as they come into the office.
- Create an onboarding process for new members to orient them to board operations as well as how to use Boardable.
- Take advantage of more features as members' adoption increases.
Evaluating Boardable and Competitors
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
The subscription price was ideal for the number of features that fit our needs. Another good feature is that at the professional level we have unlimited guest capabilities which enable the non-tech-savvy members (who rarely use the platform anyway) to attend Boardable board meetings as a guest. There are limitations on access however these features are things they would not use anyway which offsets the cost of a full subscriber.
I wouldn't change a thing. Our agency's IT director and I met with each of the vendors to do a demo. I also did product interviews with agencies our size who use Boardable and felt that our evaluation was thorough and convincing.
Boardable Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Yes - The phases were by our design. We negotiated for a 1-month trial where we onboarded members in small groups via a spotlight meeting that acquainted them with basic operations. We were 75% successful with the members who were willing to do the onboarding. You can only lead people to the water...
Change management was a major issue with the implementation -
- It is important that the executive leadership supports and leads the way for adopting Boardable.
- Not every board member is tech-savvy and willing to learn something new.
- High-profile board members are not necessarily hands-on people and are willing to learn something new.
- Be sure to make use of Boardable expectations clear and enforced in order to get the full board to use the product.
- Use Spotlight and other features regularly so that members learn how to navigate faster.
- People being unwilling to learn how to use Boardable
- People not knowing how to set up their computer and email to receive notifications and to log in
- People having outdated browsers and/or not being willing to use the downloaded app.
- Mac and Safari users not being willing to use another browser or work within the Mac limitations.
Boardable Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
Yes, we purchased the premium level to get the support as well as to become acquainted with all the features in order to know which ones we could not function without.
Yes - Yes, Boardable's support listened, asked questions, met virtually with us, and worked as quickly as possible to rectify whatever issue we had. They also used our feedback in the development of upgrades. It was a win/win experience.
We had issues with Spotlight early on in our membership. Support did a few meetings with our IT personnel and provided resources as needed. Together we were able to figure out what to do and not-to-do for upcoming meetings with our large board meetings. (size=29)
Using Boardable
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Log in-- plus choice of browser, desktop, or mobile app entry.
- Dashboard.
- Meetings--building an agenda, uploading documents, creating minutes, publishing meeting notes, etc.
- Spotlight--for the most part. It does require reading some of the support documents and basically using it often to stay familiar with how it functions.
- Document center--building your own filing systems for important documents.
- Polls--being able to get feedback in an easy to set up manner.
- Searching for past meetings-- the search feature is not as robust as it could be, but better still is the ability to direct the meeting to a location within the document center so that minutes and meeting documents can all be housed together.
- Formatting the minute maker--you have to read about and experiment with the options when doing minutes.
- Learning best case uses for setting up goals. I find it difficult to know how to know the best metrics to use when creating goals.
- Spotlight--getting board members to follow directions and get to learn how to use spotlight to their advantage.
Yes - I don't use it often other than to receive notifications sent out via Boardable. Some of our board use it exclusively to attend meetings and depending on their phone either have an easy or glitchy experience.