Chris Bernard, Senior Editor, Idealware

(Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the feature article "Boosting Board Collaboration", which appeared in the first issue of NTEN's new publication: NTEN:Change, A Quarterly Journal for Nonprofit Leaders. Read the entire article and the complete issue by subscribing online.)

While budget and board requirements will play large roles in determining which tools you use, don’t underestimate the importance of the human element in your decision. A board is made up of a group of people, and people have varying levels of comfort with, and willingness to adopt, new technology. Even the most technically articulate board members will start to push back if they have to remember a handful of different log-ins and passwords, or have to learn too many different tools or systems.

In other words, board support tools are useless without board member buy-in.

How comfortable are your boardmembers with technology? How confident are you in their willingness to accept and adopt new solutions, and their ability to overcome technological hurdles?

Whichever solution or solutions you choose, there are steps to minimize adoption challenges and ensure a more seamless transition for busy boardmembers.

First, use the right tool for the job —additional features and functionality will only confuse if they’re not necessary.

Next, test systems thoroughly in advance of introducing them to board members; a board meeting is not the time or place for a catastrophic failure, nor will such an event help secure board buy-in.

Third, familiarizing a few key staff members with the tools will serve a few useful purposes—it will give you a built-in test audience, hands-on training partners, and accessible tech-support resources for confused board members. Prepare for a transition period and add time to the agenda for the first few meetings with the new software to allow for questions, log-in difficulties or other unforeseen difficulties.

Finally, try to minimize necessary user input. The fewer separate log-ins and passwords people have to enter, the happier they’re going to be—and a happy board goes a long way toward a happy organization.

Read the article in it's entirety by subscribing to the journal. It's free!

In the meantime, we want to hear from you: What has your experience been with getting buy-in from your nonprofit board? Other pitfalls to avoid or advice you can share?