A huge congratulations to our Diligent Elevate award winner Amber McDonnell, Director of Board Operations & Interim Secretary of the Board of Regents, University of Colorado who was named Community Trust Builder: For public-sector leaders strengthening trust and delivering mission-driven results.
Amber says, “Building trust in public institutions starts with transparency, consistency, and a deep commitment to serving others. I’m honored to do this work alongside colleagues who care deeply about strengthening our communities.”
Strong boards don’t happen by chance. They’re built through intentional development, shared expectations and continuous learning.
This month, we’re focusing on practical approaches to these steps:
Our Board development guide takes a deeper look at building board capability over time, from onboarding and training to feedback and culture
The Board development cheat sheet offers quick, peer-informed tips boards can put to use immediately.
Policy Publisher for Diligent Community brings the full policy lifecycle into one clear workflow, from first draft through board readings, adoption and publication. Teams draft in Word, route approvals, manage version history, and publish directly to a searchable, ADA‑aligned public site, without switching systems or re‑uploading files. The result is clear ownership, defensible version control and a single source of truth.
Districts are seeing faster policy turnarounds, stronger compliance and fewer public record requests. Real‑time collaboration, structured readings and direct publishing help leaders keep pace with legislative change while making policies easier for the community to find and understand. Policy Publisher turns static PDFs into living, searchable records tied to board decisions.
Vigo County School Corporation (VCSC) turned to Diligent Community to solve a familiar governance challenge: keeping busy board members actively engaged while managing complex meeting preparation and information sharing. With board members balancing demanding professional and personal schedules, VCSC needed a more efficient way to organise agendas, distribute materials, and maintain transparency for leaders, stakeholders, and the wider community.
Since rolling out Diligent Community, VCSC has seen a clear shift in how board members engage. Board trustees now have faster access to documents and agendas, receive more timely updates, and can communicate more effectively with district administrators. Features that make it easy to track meeting schedules, review topics, and stay up to date between meetings have helped board members feel better prepared and more involved overall.
“The features that we have seen to be crucial in keeping board members and community stakeholders actively involved include the ability to easily access information and keep up to date on meeting schedules and topics.” – Catherine Hill, Executive Secretary to the Superintendent of Schools and the Vigo County Board of School Trustees
Download and read the full story here.
Catch our last webinar, “From roles to results: Align your school board for faster, stronger decisions” on-demand here if you missed it. Dr. Brad Saron, Governance Officer Dr. Steve Schroeder, and Executive Assistant Chandu Vemuri shared how they’ve built clarity, trust and accountability across their board.
Managing budget risk with smart oversight
Build future-proof boards for K-12 & local governments
More professional events for your calendar here.
Seasonal events aren't just for the calendar, they help foster community engagement, build trust, educate the community and raise morale.
We’ve compiled a handy list of special events to make it easy to plan ahead and keep your board aligned with key moments throughout the year. Download your free 2026 calendar today to start planning.
Here are some events next month to celebrate with your board and take action on:
June is National Safety Month. Here are 3 ideas to help raise awareness and promote safety practices within your community during the month.
Why not use World Productivity Day (20 June) as a board-level “work smarter” reset: take one agenda slot to identify the decisions that matter most in the next quarter, then streamline how the board gets there — tighten priorities, improve the quality/timing of materials and agree one small process change that will make meetings more effective for everyone (for example, clearer owners, fewer low-value updates or a sharper committee-to-board handoff).
Listen to our latest Leading with Purpose episode on how to run efficient meetings with parliamentary rules. Our guest Sarah E. Merkle, attorney and certified professional parliamentarian, demystifies parliamentary procedure and explains how it can be used as a practical tool for fairness, efficiency and trust in mission-driven board meetings.
Sarah shares clear, real-world guidance on designing strong agendas, encouraging productive participation and right-sizing parliamentary rules so they support rather than slow down decision-making.
Find links to all our episodes here (and wherever you find your podcasts) and thanks for taking the time to rate the podcast!
Our pick of the newest and most popular items on our blog this month:
We love to hear what leaders think about issues and key topics that affect mission-driven organizations. Please take a moment to fill out our latest quick survey on getting the board on the same page for the chance to win a $50 gift card!
Give your feedback for the 2026 Governance Outlook for Mission‑Driven Organizations, new research being led by Diligent Institute. Leaders are invited to share how they’re setting priorities, navigating risk and strengthening governance. Take the survey here.
