February, 2015
Rating: 3.5/5
BoardEffect specifically targets not profit organisations and educational institutions. Its aim is to make the work of the board members of these community groups easier, more efficient and more effective. It tries to help its community-based clients provide good governance.
Specifically, BoardEffect built its software to meet the organisations’ needs in three areas:
BoardEffect’s client-base has expanded over the last few years to the point where it now has 1,200 clients on 2,500 boards with 70,000 users.
BoardEffect prides itself on not technically being an item of software that has to be installed on your computer. It comes in two forms. The first version was as a web-based system, that board members can access from any browser. A more recent addition has been the ability to download and install a free (if you have purchased access to the system) iPad app. Technically, it is delivered via Software as a Service (Saas) delivery model, using the cloud for storage.
BoardEffect does not quite match the capabilities of some of the more expensive board portal heavy-weights who have targeted large corporate organisations, but it does have a sizable list of features that its non-profit market find useful for their needs.
Firstly club (and other organisation) secretaries can easily put together meeting agendas, simply by dropping and dragging agenda items onto an agenda template. Any relevant files can be attached to the relevant agenda item, for example documents to read, financials, past minutes, and relevant links. Once the agenda is ready to go, the club secretary is effectively creating a one-click board book.
Board members receive their compiled meeting document files, i.e. their board book, in the form of a pdf. There is also an online tool enabling board members to directly provide an RSVP for the meeting.
One area that BoardEffect has put quite some thought into is their online committee and board collaboration capabilities. They have made it easy to designate which board members belong to which groups or committees. Anyone who belongs to a particular group has access to online discussion, live chat, group emails, alerts and notifications, as well as a secure voting tool. This ties in, of course, with the meeting scheduling tool to enable particular people to work together.
Another area which reflects the fact that different people will have different roles and involvement is that any board member has their own personalized dashboard.
One limitation of BoardEffect compared to some of their more corporate competitors is that although board members can read their document book on their iPads, and make annotations in it (with electronic sticky notes, drawings, highlighting, underlining, strike-through and bookmarks) these are not able to be seen by other board members. It is comparable to the sort of annotations that you would make in a book on iBooks or Kindle.
Overall, BoardEffect has taken the most important ideas from the corporate board portal products and effectively applied them to non-profit bodies in a secure and safe manner, using SAS70 and SafeHarbour certified management hosting.
ELEVATE YOUR ORGANIZATION’S PERFORMANCE
BoardEffect board management software drives efficiency, effectiveness and engagement among board directors, executives and administrators. More than 1,300 leading organizations use BoardEffect to manage board-related information online and advance the work of their boards. Hospitals and healthcare systems, nonprofits, foundations, educational institutions, government entities, companies and many others leverage BoardEffect to support the dynamic, nuanced, critically important work of governing bodies.
DESIGNED AROUND THE WORK OF BOARDS
The work of boards is complex, demanding, and high-stakes. It is also cyclical in nature. Boards convene on a regular meeting cycle, deliver on a recurring set of annual responsibilities, and continuously work to refresh and strengthen themselves as strategic assets to the organizations they serve. These represent three different operating cycles, each with its own pace and components. The functionality and workflows of BoardEffect have been designed to support boards as they manage the responsibilities inherent within these demanding, interdependent, and mission critical cycles. Key capabilities include: dynamic agendas, one-click board books, flexible work spaces, collaborative scheduling, customizable security and permissions, and personalized dashboards.
PROFOUND IMPACT AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
Beyond the features of BoardEffect, the needs of board directors drive our solution’s very character and personality. We strive tirelessly to achieve three things in making board management software that organizational leaders love to use:
Core Features: BoardEffect is designed to support all the activities of the board of directors, including the work that comprises the three overlapping cycles of board work:
Additional Features:
The Ford Foundation, Penn State, Golden Gate Bridge, Stanford University Health System, Lions Clubs International, American Farm Bureau Federation, and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.
