In Support of Strategy

The big benefit of board portals is that they can help credit union directors clear minutia out of the way so they can spend more time on strategy.

“Our board packets are posted about a week in advance of each of our monthly board meetings,” says CUES Director member Katie Larson, chair of $1.5 billion Elevations Credit Union, Denver, whose board is a member of the Center for Credit Union Board Excellence. “And then we can both vote online for the required monthly review items, and also have dialogue back and forth with management.”

Larson says using the portal prepares board members to think strategically during meetings, rather than get bogged down in details. eVision, as the CU calls its portal, was developed internally in partnership with Catapult Systems, Austin, Texas, using Microsoft SharePoint.

“The value of a board portal is that in real time, a CEO or board chair can share relevant information as issues or strategies or business environments change,” adds Les Wallace, Ph.D., president of Signature Resources, Inc., Aurora, Colo. “I have seen it make the board more literate and up to date on what’s going on with the credit union and the field of credit unions.

“More and more, the board agenda is getting filled up with greater detail, greater complexity, requiring more study and communication during the month between meetings rather than just right up to the meeting,” Wallace notes. The right portal gives the board instant access to past and current materials, helping them make informed decisions without wading through reams of paper. Many portals allow users to make bookmarks and annotations in files, for easier future navigation. Simply put, easy, constant access to essential information allows a board to think more deeply about credit union issues.

Efficient for Staff, Too

CUES member Ken Landis, CEO of $102 million Pasadena Service Federal Credit Union, Pasadena, Calif., says his CU’s portal, BoardPaq, St. Charles, Mo., gives board members access to such basic information as the credit union’s policies and procedures. Having these essentials available on demand at any time can make board meetings more productive and efficient.

Board portals aren’t just more efficient for boards, though. They’re also helpful for executives and administrators. Before using BoardPaq, Landis says he’d have to take his administrative person off of her normal jobs, “and she probably took a couple of hours just to sit there and collate [board packets] and bind them.” Then, she’d spend time FedExing the packets to several board members, and hand-delivering to others.

Now Landis combines the various documents for the board packet into a single PDF and uploads. The portal automatically sends an alert email to the board members, who can read the packet at their leisure.

Alan Groh, chief technology officer of BoardPaq, notes that the solution allows last-minute updates, too. “You just go in and you replace that one document, and immediately all the users have access.”

This kind of functionality means huge time savings for staff. Plus, it makes the board packet a flexible, dynamic document that stays up to date until the minute the board meeting begins.

If “… you are still sending everything to the admin, and the admin is compiling it and sharing it, [you’re basically] back to paperwork,” adds Paroon Chadha, CEO and co-founder of Passageways, creators of the OnBoard (www.passageways.com/board_portal.php) portal. Instead, you should be uploading needed files directly to the portal, quickly and easily.

Security is Key

In an age of high-profile hacking scandals, CUs are more concerned than ever about security. When it comes to board portals, they need to evaluate end-user security, how safely data that’s accessed by the portal is housed, and how information shared through the portal is protected.

For end-user security, ensure that the portal is at least password-protected, Chadha advises. If directors can download and store the board packet locally, it’s a good idea to have that downloaded document password-protected, as well.

Chadha recommends iPads, in particular, for their additional end-user security features: lack of port access, fingerprint identification, and the ability to wipe information remotely if needed.

App-based solutions typically offer cloud storage, which is convenient and cheap. Ideally, any confidential information stored in the cloud will be encrypted and backed up properly, Chadha adds.

Most CUs account for end-user and information storage security. But the security of communications that take place among users of the board portal is a little more complicated, as it may be subject to legal discovery.

“Check with your attorney first because it can all be discoverable, and sometimes the attorney would like to restrict the kind of things that a board discusses on a board portal,” Wallace says.

Robin Hoag, shareholder and practice leader of Doeren Mayhew CPAs and Advisors (www.doeren.com), Troy, Mich., agrees. “I don’t see a lot of credit unions getting into massive litigation,” he says, “but the bottom line is it never matters until it’s too late, and then it matters.”

This concern is why OnBoard is moving carefully into in-app messaging functions, and Passageways is researching a Snapchat-like option for encrypted messages that would be destroyed after a certain amount of time.

Implementation

As you might expect, introducing new technology can be tough. “I have run into some boards where some members were not as Internet or technology savvy, and sometimes had problems navigating portals,” says Les Wallace.

However, even technophobic board members may have a smartphone, and touch screens are intuitive for many people. “I think some of the older board members are more comfortable operating paperlessly with an electronic tablet,” says BoardPaq’s Groh.

Each executive interviewed for this article also cited the importance of having a plan for this transition. For some CUs, this meant offering one-on-one IT support for board members getting used to the new tech. For CUES member Denice Town, corporate secretary for $1 billion School Employees Credit Union of Washington, Seattle, it meant offering both paper and tablet versions (through Passageways’ OnBoard) of the board packet for the first few months after implementation, and then slowly transitioning away from paper.

The Bottom Line

The base cost of board portals is all over the map—anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per year. Very inexpensive options exist, but may lack the functionality of the more costly options.

CUES member Terri Thomas, VP/administrative services for $495 million 121 Financial Credit Union, Jacksonville, Fla., uses My Board Packet (www.myboardpacket.net), Arroyo Grande, Calif., which she found had many features common to most board portal options. “Comparatively,” she says, “it is considerably less expensive than the other modules that are out there for this.”

CUES member Michael Daugherty, president/manager of $20 million Community Plus Federal Credit Union in Rantoul, Ill., and a director for Alloya Corporate Federal Credit Union, Warrenville, Ill., regularly uses two different board portals.

“[Alloya has] a fairly high-end board portal ... , so I get to use that from the perspective of a director,” he says. “For [Community Plus], it’s much, much simpler.”

At Community Plus FCU, Daugherty uses SpiderOak, a Drop box-like service that encrypts uploaded documents. He uploads the PDF board packet to SpiderOak, and then emails board members the link. “This is cheap, and that’s the reason why we do it,” he says.

As a board member, Daugherty uses Diligent, New York. The difference, he says, is “night and day.” Diligent has a calendar, a contacts lists for the senior executives and directors, current meeting documents, and an archive of past meeting documents.

As soon as he gets the budget and board buy-in, Daugherty would love to switch Community Plus FCU to a techier solution.

Many CUs find a portal saves money. For instance, a case study on $720 million Interra Credit Union, Goshen, Ind., showed an estimated cost savings of $8,000 a year after it moved from paper to OnBoard.

Hoag says his clients often hit breakeven just a few months after implementing a portal. Of course, the breakeven point varies from one CU to the next. 

Menlo Park, Calif.-based Reach Federal Credit Union, uses a board packet solution from Simplify IT, which also runs the organization’s intranet. President/CEO Christine Petro says the $100 million CU is still working out some kinks after the launch late last year. However, “[it’s] definitely the way to go,” says the CUES member. “At some point, the regulators are going to require this sort of setup.”

Abby Hayes is a freelance writer based in Indianapolis.