Customer Stories

ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership

How OnBoard Helps “the Association of Associations” Work More Efficiently, Increase Board Engagement, and Keep Meetings Strategic

Industry: Nonprofit

Headquarters: Washington, D.C.

Board Management Goals

Successfully transition to virtual governance meetings
Make board materials more accessible
Help organizers better prepare for meetings
Help ASAE’s boards and committees work more efficiently
Keep board members engaged and meetings strategically focused

Results

Board materials were better organized and easy to find, making board members more self-sufficient
More efficient and effective board and committee meetings
More engaged board members

The Challenges

ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership is called by many the Association of Associations. Like many boards, ASAE’s board management transitioned from paper-based board materials to PDFs to board portals in recent years. Staff members credit OnBoard with helping ASAE resolve several challenges the organization faced, including how to:

Successfully transition to virtual governance meetings
Make board materials more accessible to board and committee members
Help organizers better prepare for meetings ahead of time
Help ASAE’s boards and committees work more efficiently
Keep board members engaged and meetings focused at a strategic level

These challenges might have daunted other organizations, but the ASAE team was able to tackle them successfully using OnBoard.

“There were other organizations struggling with how to incorporate Zoom early on, but we didn’t. Our board members had a link right there in OnBoard ... That seamlessness of experience was a really big deal.”

How OnBoard’s Ease of Use Helped ASAE Transition to Virtual Meetings

Like other members of the team, Reggie Henry, ASAE’s Chief Information & Engagement Officer, is focused on helping ASAE and the associations ASAE serves to effectively cope with an uncertain, evolving business landscape and adapt in-person meetings to the virtual environment.

“Associations are dealing with change at levels we’ve never seen before and are having to adjust,” Henry says. “We all woke up in March 2020 and realized that work wasn’t happening in a [single] location anymore and it can happen pretty much anyplace. We also realized that meetings and events, too, weren’t in one spot anymore. We began doing all of that virtually.”

In March 2020, ASAE found itself having to make an immediate switch from holding the standard face-to-face board meeting to a virtual one. In just two weeks, ASAE was able to leverage OnBoard to effectively move the meeting online. Henry credits OnBoard’s ease of use as a primary reason why the transition was a smooth one.

“I go back to OnBoard’s simplicity of use,” he says. “We were able to integrate all of the materials for the meeting because we had a tool that allowed us to pivot really quickly. We didn’t have to explain to our board members how to get to that material in OnBoard because it was pretty apparent to them.”

OnBoard was the first board management software platform to natively integrate with the popular web conferencing app, Zoom. OnBoard’s inclusion of this essential capability made an immediate impact.

“There were other organizations struggling with how to incorporate Zoom early on, but we didn’t,” Henry says. “Our board members had a link right there in OnBoard. They clicked on the link and were right in the meeting. They didn’t even have to change devices. That seamlessness of experience was a really big deal.”

How OnBoard Made Board Materials More Accessible

ASAE’s digital transformation actually started years ago when the organization moved away from paper-bound board materials.

They put together board books using a three-hole punch binder, mail, and FedEx. The time crunch put significant pressure on the organization to get those materials out enough in advance so that people could read them. It also didn’t allow for flexibility if the board needed to make last-minute changes to the board books.

ASAE used a competing board management software platform to move into the digital governance realm and found its needs evolving, so it undertook a due diligence process. They implemented OnBoard after a review of available options. Considerations that went into the selection included:

Two decades of experience – OnBoard has spent two decades on the phone, on the ground, and in boardrooms across the world helping organizations of all types and sizes to solve their governance challenges.
Listen first, talk less – When building and updating OnBoard, the OnBoard product team spent most of its time listening to directors and learning how they govern effectively. The result is a board platform based on real-world needs, not abstract guesses.
Technology does the heavy lifting – ASAE does not use technology for technology’s sake. Its goal is to make sure the technology does “the heavy lifting” and is not something in which users will have to invest a lot of time or resources. It needs to work. OnBoard is designed to be the easiest board portal to use – fulfilling ASAE’s requirements perfectly.

The impact from implementing OnBoard was immediate to board members and staff. Board materials were better organized and easy to find, so board members started to feel more self-sufficient. Staff immediately felt less pressure because they could get the board materials submitted on a more flexible schedule and with less stress.

"Engagement analytics shows you what pages are being read and for how long. As a meeting organizer, I want to be prepared to have a discussion on what people are interested in."

- Betsy Piper-Bach
President, ASAE Business Solutions (ABSI)

How Engagement Analytics Helps Organizers Prepare for Meetings

As the President of ASAE Business Solutions (ABSI), Betsy Piper-Bach sees many software vendors that position their products as solutions to the challenges facing associations.

The mission of ABSI, the for-profit subsidiary of ASAE, is to connect associations to essential enterprise solutions that will help them solve critical business needs, save time and money, and succeed in achieving their missions. They do this through careful curation and management of the ASAE Business Solutions portfolio of enterprise offerings.

Piper-Bach and her team recognized that the OnBoard team had a standout platform and could deliver high-quality customer service and support. That’s why they worked with us to create the ASAE-Endorsed Virtual Board Meeting Management Solution.

According to Piper-Bach, one of OnBoard’s key differentiators is engagement analytics. Another industry first from OnBoard, Engagement Analytics introduces sophisticated analytics to iterate and improve meeting preparation, deliver strategic insights, and boost board engagement. Since engagement analytics anonymizes and aggregates the analytics data, board members’ privacy is maintained.

“Engagement analytics shows you what pages are being read and for how long,” Piper-Bach says. “As a meeting organizer, I want to be prepared to have a discussion on what people are interested in. For example, by looking at the analytics, I can see that there’s a lot of people reading page 70. So, I ask myself what is on page 70? What do I need to know about page 70? It’s just a very, very unique element to OnBoard.

“Engagement analytics doesn’t actually tell you exactly who’s looking at what,” Betsy says. “That’s helpful because people might be afraid to use it if they thought they were going to be outed for either not having read or spending too much time on a particular section. So, I think the way the data is collected is very helpful in running a board meeting.”

"The platform allows us to run really efficient board and committee meetings, and come to them prepared and informed."

How OnBoard Made Board Materials More Accessible

ASAE uses OnBoard to support meetings held by both its board and committees. With a 21-member board including officers, ex-officio, and chair, OnBoard enables ASAE’s board and committee members with an organized, centralized information repository and the ability to access any information they need quickly.

ASAE’s board maintains governance responsibility for two organizations – ASAE (the association) and the ASAE Research Foundation. This dual role helps improve and unify the strategy of the organization as a whole, and any technology solution under consideration must make communication between the groups simple and seamless. OnBoard not only complements ASAE’s dual board structure, but also keeps information secure and shared with necessary individuals.

By keeping the materials so easily accessible, nothing stands in the way between the board member and what they need to prepare for the meeting.

How OnBoard Increased Board Engagement

An engaged board is a forward-thinking board. ASAE achieves this by using OnBoard to keep meetings focused as strategic working sessions.

They keep discussions strategic, adding a lot of details within the board book that they don’t necessarily discuss in board meetings because they believe people can read those things in OnBoard, and they don’t want them repeated live. By keeping the materials so easily accessible, nothing stands in the way between the board member and what they need to prepare for the meeting.

As a result, board members are leaving more meetings feeling like they’ve contributed and helped guide the organization. In a word, they feel engaged.

"I already knew I loved this product the first few times I clicked around in it. It just made it so easy to participate, be active, and be part of the meeting."

The Results

As leaders of the association that advocates for the entire association industry, ASAE’s board and committee members can’t afford to spend time on a solution that doesn’t give them complete confidence that everything will perform as expected. By that standard, OnBoard has proven to be a success. They see it in action at every meeting.

Piper-Bach recalls having a positive feeling for OnBoard almost immediately. “I already knew I loved this product the first few times I clicked around in it,” she says. “It just made it so easy to participate, be active, and be part of the meeting.”

More than anything else, OnBoard’s ease of use has helped ASAE’s board and committee members keep meetings focused on strategic decision-making.

Elevate Your Board's Decision-Making with OnBoard

OnBoard combines the highest level of security with innovative features designed to optimize your board’s effectiveness. Start your journey and unlock unparalleled security, insights, and efficiency.