Nonprofit Board Pack

---
name: nonprofit-board-pack
description: Builds the nonprofit board meeting pack that produces engagement instead of nodding - a one-page dashboard of finances, program KPIs, and fundraising pipeline up front, routine items batched into a consent agenda, one real decision per meeting, and an explicit ask naming what board members can do. Use when a nonprofit ED says "prepare the board packet", "our board meetings are just report-outs", "the board approves everything without discussion", "what should go in the board dashboard", or "how do I get the board to actually help". Do NOT use for general board governance strategy, recruitment, or managing board dynamics - use board-management instead - and do NOT use for the public annual report - use impact-report-builder instead.
---

# Nonprofit Board Pack

Most nonprofit board meetings are serial report-outs: the ED talks for fifty minutes, the board nods, and the organization's best-connected volunteers go home having decided nothing and been asked for nothing. The board pack determines the meeting - a pack built as reports produces nodding; a pack built around a dashboard, a decision, and an ask produces a working board. This skill builds that pack. For governance strategy beyond the meeting - recruitment, composition, officer roles, managing a difficult chair - route to board-management; this skill owns the packet and the meeting it shapes.

Work the example organization throughout: Bright Futures Tutoring, a youth-education nonprofit with a $420,000 annual budget, 3 staff, serving 250 students, with a $180,000 grant goal and a $75,000 Hearthstone Foundation ask in play.

## Operating procedure

Send the pack 5-7 days before the meeting - late enough to be current, early enough that "I didn't have time to read it" is a choice. Under 10 pages total; the dashboard does the compression.

### Step 1: Build the one-page dashboard (the dashboard-first rule)

Page one is always a single-page dashboard with three blocks - finances, program KPIs, fundraising pipeline - each showing actual vs plan and direction vs last meeting. The rule exists because board members are part-time: they will reliably read one page, and if that page holds the whole organization's vitals, every member arrives oriented even if they read nothing else.

- Finances: cash on hand and months of runway (months of runway = cash ÷ average monthly expenses; for Bright Futures, $105,000 cash ÷ $35,000/month = 3.0 months), YTD revenue and expenses vs budget. Red line: under 3 months of runway is a board-level alarm; nonprofits die of cash timing, not deficits.
- Program KPIs: 3-5 numbers maximum, outcomes over activities, drawn from the same canonical set impact-report-builder publishes - students enrolled (250 vs 275 plan), reading-gain rate (72 percent last measured), waitlist (40+).
- Fundraising pipeline: the coverage math from grant-prospect-researcher, cited identically - qualified asks outstanding vs the 4-5x-goal target ("$810,000 pipeline target on the $180,000 goal; currently $560,000 qualified - coverage 3.1x, below target"), proposals pending with amounts and decision dates (Hearthstone $75,000, decision expected next quarter), and individual-giving YTD vs plan from donor-communications.

Every number gets a status marker (on-plan / watch / off-plan) so the page reads in ninety seconds.

### Step 2: Batch routine items into the consent agenda

Consent-agenda discipline: everything requiring approval but not discussion - prior minutes, routine financial statements, policy renewals, pre-vetted committee reports - goes into one block, distributed in the pack, approved in a single vote with no presentation. Any member may pull any item to the discussion agenda by asking, before or during the meeting; that safety valve is what makes batching legitimate rather than burying. A consent agenda routinely returns 20-30 minutes of a 90-minute meeting. Rule of restraint: never put a genuinely contested item on consent to slide it through - the first time the board catches that, the whole device dies.

### Step 3: Frame one real decision (the one-decision-per-meeting rule)

Each meeting gets exactly one substantive decision, framed in the pack as a one-page memo: the question in one sentence, 2-3 options with costs and tradeoffs, the ED's recommendation with reasoning, and what is being asked of the board (approve / choose / advise). One, because a 90-minute meeting minus consent and dashboard leaves roughly 45 minutes of real deliberation - enough for one good decision or three bad ones. Bright Futures example: "Should we open the second program site in the fall (cost $12,000/year rent, contingent on the Hearthstone award) or wait for the award decision? Options: commit now / commit on award / defer a year. Recommendation: commit on award. Asked of the board: approve the contingent commitment." Decisions that are really updates ("approve the direction") do not count; if no genuine decision exists this cycle, use the slot for a generative discussion question - but say which it is.

### Step 4: Write the board ask (board-ask clarity)

Every meeting names, in writing, what board members can concretely do before the next one. Specific, time-boxed, divisible: "Review the Riverton Community Foundation trustee list (attached) and flag anyone you know by the 15th" beats "help with fundraising" every time. Tie asks to the pipeline: grant-prospect-researcher's watch-tier funders that need a trustee connection are the natural source. A board that is asked for something specific at every meeting stays a working board; a board asked for nothing learns it is decorative.

### Step 5: Assemble in fixed order and run the meeting to the pack

Pack order: (1) dashboard, (2) consent agenda with attachments, (3) decision memo, (4) board ask, (5) ED narrative - one page maximum, only what the dashboard cannot say, (6) appendix. The agenda mirrors it: consent vote first (5 min), dashboard questions (15), decision (40-45), board ask and commitments (10), generative or ED items (remainder). Minutes record the consent vote, the decision, and who committed to which ask.

## Inputs to collect

Cash balance and average monthly expenses, YTD budget vs actuals, the canonical program KPIs (same numbers as impact-report-builder), pipeline figures (from grant-prospect-researcher's table and donor-communications' YTD), the one decision candidate with its options, and candidate board asks. Label any unaudited or estimated figure as such on the dashboard itself - a board that catches one silently wrong number stops trusting the page.

## Worked artifact: pack template

```
BOARD PACK - [FILL: org name] - [FILL: meeting date]   (sent [FILL: date, 5-7 days prior])

PAGE 1 - DASHBOARD                                    status: OK / WATCH / OFF-PLAN
FINANCES         Cash $[FILL]  Runway [FILL] mo (red line: 3.0)      [FILL]
                 YTD revenue $[FILL] vs plan $[FILL]                 [FILL]
                 YTD expenses $[FILL] vs plan $[FILL]                [FILL]
PROGRAM          Students enrolled [FILL] vs plan [FILL]             [FILL]
                 [FILL: headline outcome, e.g. reading-gain %]       [FILL]
                 Waitlist [FILL]                                     [FILL]
FUNDRAISING      Grant pipeline $[FILL] qualified vs $[FILL]
                 target (4-5x the $[FILL] goal) - coverage [FILL]x   [FILL]
                 Proposals pending: [FILL: funder, $, decision date] [FILL]
                 Individual giving YTD $[FILL] vs plan $[FILL]       [FILL]

PAGE 2 - CONSENT AGENDA (single vote; any member may pull any item)
  [FILL: minutes / financials / renewals / committee reports]

PAGE 3 - DECISION MEMO
  Question: [FILL: one sentence]
  Options:  [FILL: 2-3, each with cost and tradeoff]
  Recommendation: [FILL + reasoning]
  Asked of the board: [FILL: approve / choose / advise]

PAGE 4 - BOARD ASK (before next meeting)
  [FILL: specific, time-boxed, divisible - e.g. "flag any Riverton
  trustees you know, by the 15th"]

PAGE 5 - ED NARRATIVE (max 1 page: only what the dashboard cannot say)
APPENDIX - [FILL: full financials, program detail, correspondence]
```

## Deliverable

A complete, sendable board pack in the fixed order - one-page dashboard with status markers, consent agenda, one-decision memo, a written board ask - plus the matching meeting agenda with time allocations.

## Do NOT

- Do not open the meeting with the ED report; report-first is how meetings become nodding. Dashboard first, decision at the center.
- Do not put contested items on the consent agenda; one discovered burial kills the device permanently.
- Do not bring three decisions; the board will decide all three badly or defer all three.
- Do not ask the board for "support" or "engagement"; ask for a named action with a date.
- Do not let dashboard numbers diverge from grant-prospect-researcher's pipeline math or impact-report-builder's outcomes - board members read both, and inconsistency reads as either sloppiness or spin.
- Do not exceed 10 pages; the appendix exists so the pack does not have to.

## Quality bar

- The dashboard fits one page and covers finances, program, and pipeline with actual-vs-plan and status markers.
- Runway is computed and checked against the 3-month red line.
- Pipeline coverage cites the same 4-5x rule defined in grant-prospect-researcher.
- Exactly one decision memo, with options and a recommendation.
- The board ask is specific enough that a member can start it the same day.
- Pack sent 5-7 days ahead, 10 pages or fewer.

## Escalation

Board recruitment, composition, officer succession, and governance dynamics route to board-management. The dashboard's program numbers come from impact-report-builder's canonical set; pipeline numbers from grant-prospect-researcher; individual-giving numbers from donor-communications. Bylaws interpretation, fiduciary-duty questions, and conflict-of-interest rulings need a nonprofit attorney; this skill is not legal advice.