Your board presentation can make or break your association’s ability to achieve its mission-oriented goals. Leveraging your association data can help make a powerful impression on the board and prove the success of your teams’ efforts. With the right data, you can drive home your points and create an engaging presentation that will leave your board members feeling informed, inspired, and ready to make decisions that will move your association forward.
What will resonate with the board?
Using data to make an impact in board presentations requires a strategic approach. Start by understanding the needs of your board members and what data will resonate the best. This will help you focus your research and ensure that you are presenting the most relevant data.
You should also think about how you can use the data to make a powerful argument for your organization. This could include highlighting the successes and challenges of your industry, demonstrating the value of your association’s work, or making a case for a particular decision or action.
Finally, make sure to use visuals to make your points and to engage your board members. Charts, graphs, and other visuals can help your board members understand the data better and make it easier for them to remember your key points.
Understanding your data
The data your association probably has in-house is a valuable resource for your organization, as it represents members of your industry, and it can provide vital insights into the trends, challenges, and opportunities in the sector. Whether it’s industry trends, member preferences, economic conditions, or something else, this data can be used to inform board presentations and help leaders make decisions.
Outside of industry and economic trends, your association should have data on the activities of members that can showcase membership growth, advocacy activities, spending efforts, and more. With this type of data, your board will have a better understanding of the current state of affairs within your association and industry.
You can even compare yourself to a look-alike association to show how well you’re accomplishing your goals to put it into perspective for your board. Does your competitor have more members or registrants at the conference? Showcase the numbers and strategies to get ahead of your competition.
Once you have gathered the data you need, you should organize it in a way that makes it easy to understand and present.
Organizing and presenting your data
Organizing and presenting data for board presentations can be a challenge, as it must be presented in a way that is easy to understand and engage with. This means using visuals and storytelling to make your points and create an engaging presentation.
Charts, graphs, and other visuals – like below – can be used to make the data easier to understand and to show the trends and relationships between different data points. You should also make sure to use storytelling to bring the data to life and to make your points more relatable to your board members.
Example:
Leveraging data can be a powerful tool for association leaders, as it can help you create a compelling narrative that will engage your board members and make them more likely to take action. With the right data, you can create an informed, inspiring presentation that will leave your board members feeling empowered to make the best decisions for your organization.