Can you imagine one-hour board meetings? Is it even possible? Your nonprofit would become a magnet for the best and brightest leaders in your community. On this show my guest, Marilyn L. Donnellan, describes the key components of effective one-hour meetings, like training board members to facilitate them.

Marilyn is the founder and president of Nonprofit Management Services, which builds capacity and management excellence through consulting, publications, training, coaching and more. The company is based in Clermont, Florida. She has written the award-winning Hour Series guides and training modules for nonprofit managers, and we’re honing in on the One-Hour meeting this week.

First off, we examine why our meetings get out of hand and common misconceptions about why boards meet and the role of the board. Then Marilyn describes five do-able things that you must do to make one-hour board meetings a reality.

Now, before we start the interview, I invite you to send me an email at mailto:[email protected] about what you like about the show with suggestions for future episodes. I’d love to hear from you and I’ll give you and your organization a shout-out on the show.

This show pierces through a long tradition of bad board and committee meetings. You can be productive, responsible and the best nonprofit gig in town if you take on Marilyn’s suggestions. I encourage you to check out the resources on her web site.

A great companion Nonprofit Spark episode is Quit complaining: best practices for non-profit board learning, which aired the week of January 16, 2012.

Enjoy the show!