Writing Minutes That Protect the Board
Minutes are a legal record, not a transcript. Here's how to write them so they hold up — and so future directors can rely on them.
Minutes are often treated as a clerical task. In reality, they are the official legal record of the board's decisions and the first place anyone — auditors, funders, future directors, the courts — will look to understand what the board did and why.
Good minutes capture decisions, not debate. They record who moved, who seconded, the wording of the motion, and the outcome. They note conflicts of interest declared and members who recused themselves. They do not attempt to summarize every comment, and they do not editorialize.
For Indigenous boards working across multiple communities or nations, minutes should also reflect quorum carefully, including whether decisions were made by consensus or by recorded vote. This protects the board if a decision is ever questioned.
A useful test: if every director left tomorrow, could a new board read the last twelve months of minutes and understand the organization's direction? If not, the minutes aren't doing their job.
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