I have a great suggestion for surviving your next nonprofit meeting.

Dump your doodles and download this app: The Harvard Business Review Meeting Cost Calculator

I shudder each time I think of the amount of time that’s spent discussing and measuring the inane minutiae that is the stuff of all too many meetings.

Eyes glaze over and minds wander as staff and consultants fill hour after hour pouring over spreadsheets, droning on and on about list recommendations and endlessly discussing how to close the ‘income gap’ — usually the same’ gap’ that was under discussion in a similar meeting a year ago.

Time is money. But in most nonprofits the cost of time is largely ignored. And most certainly — given the phone calls, instant messages, emails, teleconferences and meetings that eat up hours in everyone’s day — time is definitely unmanaged. So, why not use the HBR Meeting Cost Calculator as you look around the table to see how much money is going down the drain.

A quick calculation on this little app shows, for example that if 4 folks, paid an average of $60,000 a year plus benefits, spend 90 minutes critiquing copy and debating whether to use a teaser or not, this will cost the organization $252. Throw in a VP earning $110,000 to add gravitas and the cost rises to $368 or $4 a minute.

Of course far more useful than pulling out the calculator and launching the app would be to open up a discussion on ‘the purpose of this meeting’ … ‘what could we do to make our meetings more productive’ … or exploring alternative and more effective means of communication.

I suspect that’s unlikely to happen. Of course that won’t stop The Agitator from wondering out loud: “Why is the nonprofit sector so plagued by so many meetings?”

We’re not alone in our condemnation of too many meetings with too little content.

In our post Down with Fundraising Nonsense we quoted George Smith, the late and great UK copywriter and curmudgeon who brilliantly summed up the ‘meeting problem’ …

“I always used to say that meetings were what you were doing when you weren’t working. They remain the regular ceremonial of the client/supplier relationship and a terrifying abuse of everyone’s precious time. The average fundraiser now spends most of his/her time in meetings. Everyone knows there are too many meetings; no one does anything about it. This is why commuter trains are now full of people working – they have been in meetings all day.”

So, stop doodling, take out the Meeting Cost Calculator, tell the folks in the meeting what you’re doing. Announce the cost at the meeting’s end.

Then thank heaven there are no donors watching.

Roger

P.S. As if you need any more incentive to tackle the ‘meeting problem’ take a look at this hilarious Trip & Tyler Video. You’ll love it.

And read Vu Le’s take on How to Schedule Nonprofit Meetings by Vu Le over at Blue Avocado