The new year is fast approaching, and with it come New Year’s resolutions. Many individuals make these resolutions, but very few non-profit associations get around to it. This is a shame, because adopting resolutions are exactly what deliberative assemblies are for! What can your non-profit association resolve to do this coming year to improve its deliberative process? We will explore that today.

First, your association can resolve to improve the way amendments are handled at both board meetings and general membership meetings. Typically, amendments are shunned by inexperienced members and chairs, because they can be difficult to understood and vote on correctly. Often, the secretary is tasked with figuring out, after the meeting, the exact wording of a motion that was adopted with amendments. However, by carefully using the proper forms of primary and secondary amendment, a deliberative assembly of any size can efficiently and effectively amend any motion in even the most complicated ways. If a chair, or even a member, wants to significantly improve his or her parliamentary skills in a way that will be more helpful, more often, this is definitely an important area to focus on.

Second, your association can resolve to make better use of the various different temporary dispositions available for main motions. These techniques are essential to good deliberative process, and it is a shame that so few non-profit assemblies make optimal use of them. The three most important temporary dispositions are: referral to a committee, postponement to a certain time, and laying on the table. When referring a motion to a committee, the assembly is saying that it is not prepared to make a decision at this time, and would like to have a small break-out group do a study and report back sometime in the future. When postponing a motion to a certain time, which could be later in the meeting or at the next meeting, the assembly is saying that it is not prepared to make a decision at this time, but that it will try again later at a specific pre-scheduled time, without anything special being done in the meantime. And when laying a motion on the table, the assembly is saying that something else urgent has come up that needs to be addressed before the motion can be considered, but that it will return to considering the motion sometime in the current or next meeting, whenever it gets a chance. These three motions, when properly used, can greatly improve the quality of the decisions made by your non-profit association, avoiding the need to make decisions for which the decision-makers are not yet fully ready.

Third, your association can resolve to improve the quality of its minutes, both for board meetings and for general membership meetings. All too often, minutes contain lots of unnecessary content, and exclude essential content. Common things that are included when they shouldn’t be are: attendance records, summaries of officer reports, questions asked and answered, summaries of the content of debate or special presentations, suggestions that were never expressed as motions, secondary motions without continuing effect, and the names of the seconders of motions. On the other hand, some common things that are excluded when they shouldn’t be are: the full numerical results of secret ballot and/or counted votes, and all points of order and appeals, including the reasons for the chair’s rulings. By including the things that should be included, and excluding the things that should be excluded, your non-profit association can greatly improve the quality of its minutes in 2009.

Fourth, your association can resolve to purchase copies of your parliamentary authority for every officer, or at least one copy for the president or chairman. It is a sad reality that many non-profits’ by-laws prescribe that a particular book governs when the by-laws are silent, such as Robert’s Rules of Order or Wainberg’s Society Meetings, but no copy of the book is available when the stuff hits the fan. This book is practically a part of your by-laws, so ideally, everyone who has access to a copy of the by-laws should have access to the book as well—and sadly, very few public libraries can be relied upon to have the correct edition.

Fifth, your association can resolve to seek outside help on questions of parliamentary procedure. For private individuals, and associations with limited financial resources, the official Robert’s Rules of Order message board is a God-send. You can post any question about Robert’s Rules of Order, and it will almost always be answered within minutes, usually by one or more professional parliamentarians volunteering their time and expertise. There are only two draw-backs to this service: it is not actually guaranteed to be accurate (although this is rarely a problem), and it does not go into questions requiring interpretations of your association’s own by-laws and rules. To get around the latter two problems, your association would need to hire a professional parliamentarian.

These five suggested New Year’s resolutions for your non-profit association will help to improve its deliberative process, but, like always, only if they are duly adopted and actually followed throughout the year. And, the responsibility for following a non-profit association’s New Year’s resolutions rests with the members, officers, staff, and consultants like you, who actually care enough about the association and want to see it succeed.