BBBSA has approximately 245 agencies around the country and serves young people from age five through young adulthood in one-to-one mentoring friendships. Bigs and Littles hang out 2-3 times a month for a few hours doing normal, everyday activities, like seeing a movie, doing homework, playing games, going out to eat, or just hanging out!
History
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America started in 1904 when a New York City court clerk started seeing more and more young boys come through his courtroom. The court clerk recognized that adults could help many of these kids stay out of trouble, and with that, he went out to find volunteers. 100+ years later there are approximately 245 agencies around the country serving the youth through mentorship.
Daleska Siroki joined the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America team in August 2017. Her role at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) is to serve as the Executive Assistant to CFO, Tim Midkiff. It can be a daunting job running board operations for the nation’s largest volunteer-supported mentoring network. As Executive Assistant to not only the CFO but also the CDO, Daleska Siroki has managed the execution and operation of the organization’s board meetings.
Challenge
With 18 full-time board members – many of whom are CEOs and leaders of some of the country’s largest organizations – organizing and executing in-person board meetings was challenging at times. The committees and the entire board meet three times a year, typically in February, June, and October. While their February and October meetings were in Tampa, the June meeting is held during the national conference which travels every year.
BBBSA was ready to make the shift to virtual board meetings after trying to always coordinate travel schedules. It wasn’t long after a few virtual board meetings that had a time-consuming process, the BBBSA CFO, CTO, and a few others started looking for a digital platform to make the process easier.
Solution
The team was looking for a budget-appropriate option that provided them with the solutions they needed – namely an efficient way to create and share board books with the team. Then, BBBSA’s CFO was recommended Boardable by a nonprofit partner out west.
We knew there had to be an easier way to do things, so we decided to do a free trial of Boardable in October 2019. We put together a small committee of board members to do a test run in December of that year, and we decided to put it to use for our February meeting.
– Daleska Siroki, Executive Assistant, BBBSA
Today’s Operations
Along with most industries, BBBSA had to shift to a virtual world because of the pandemic. By implementing Boardable in early 2020, BBBSA was ahead of the curve. They have quickly adapted to the Boardable-driven board meeting process, and it made the switch to fully virtual board meetings effortless. With Boardable in place, we were able to have a single source of truth and information for all board-related content, including board books.
So, instead of spending 2+ weeks gathering information, printing, editing, binding, and mailing board books, we were able to upload all relevant reports into Boardable in just under one week.
– Daleska Siroki, Executive Assistant, BBBSA
Additional benefits of Boardable that the BBBSA board has seen include:
- A cost-savings from not needing to print, bind, and ship board books
- Time savings from not having to manually QA and go back and edit reports if necessary
- The ability to change things in real-time in Boardable
- Having access to all documentation and contents in a single place
The agenda builder is a feature that has been very helpful, says Siroki. Previously, we were sending out agendas in a Word document. The slightest change meant revising and resending, often multiple times. Boardable is much more flexible. We found a template we liked and can input the agenda items directly. The times are included as well so everyone knows exactly how many minutes they have for each item.
From the first meeting in February, the BBBSA board realized how Boardable increased the efficiency, ease, and cost-effectiveness of board meetings. Siroki says Boardable has been incredibly user-friendly, easy to use, and great for our time. We are very appreciative of the support team and how responsive they’ve been.
I would definitely recommend Boardable to anyone who is looking to increase efficiency and to cut back on manual processes before board meetings.
– Daleska Siroki, Executive Assistant, BBBSA
Boardable Features Used In This Case Study
Smart Meetings
Schedule your most productive mission-critical meetings ever, wherever you are.
Board Packet
Consolidate all meeting materials your board needs to be prepared and ready to participate.
Discussions
Centralize and track important conversations, share files, and minimize back-and-forth emails.
Take Board Meetings from Friction to Focus
Our intuitive operating system brings boards together — wherever they are — so they can prepare, engage, and take action on what matters most.
