Helm is working software for the person who runs the board. It helps you prepare meetings that people arrive ready for, keeps a dependable record of what the board decided and who agreed to do what, and carries all of it forward to whoever chairs the board after you.
Start a 30-day free trial See pricingYour board members never have to create accounts or remember passwords. They receive an ordinary email from you and tap a link when they need to respond. That is the entire ask of them.
When board members have not had time to read, the meeting becomes a reading session. Reports fill the agenda, and the strategic conversation the organization actually needs keeps getting postponed to a calmer month that never arrives.
A vote the organization needs has to wait a month because only four people came, and there was no easy way to find out in advance. The chair absorbs the frustration.
Decisions live in minutes files on someone's laptop. Commitments made in the room fade by the following week. A year later, the same question gets debated again because nobody can find what was decided the first time.
Each board member receives a personal link inside your ordinary emails. Through it they can say whether they are coming to the meeting, read the meeting materials, see the commitments they have taken on, and add the meeting to their calendar. There is nothing for them to sign up for and nothing to forget.
Helm shows you what needs attention this week: whether the meeting materials have gone out on schedule, who has not yet answered about attending, which commitments are overdue, and which board members have been quiet long enough that a friendly conversation is probably in order. A weekly email brings the same picture to your inbox.
Every motion, its outcome, and every commitment is recorded and searchable years later. When your term ends, you can hand the entire working state of the board to your successor, so they begin with everything you built instead of an empty folder.
"I knew by Wednesday whether Thursday's meeting would have a quorum."
"We settled that question in June. Here is the motion and the vote."
"My successor started with everything. I had started with a text message."
Build agendas where every item has a stated purpose and an allotted time, starting from a template grounded in good practice. Edit everything, reorder freely, and print a clean copy with a running clock for the meeting itself.
Your documents stay where they already live, in Google Drive or Dropbox or wherever you keep them. Helm gathers the links, drafts the email that sends them to the board, and keeps an honest count of how many days ahead of the meeting they actually went out.
Board members reply with one tap. Helm keeps the tally, tells you whether the meeting will have a quorum, and helps you remind the people who have not yet answered.
Record each motion and its outcome while it is fresh. Assign commitments to named people with dates, and let them mark the work done from a link in your email. When the meeting ends, Helm assembles a draft of the minutes for your secretary to finish.
Recording attendance takes one click, and it quietly builds a history of each board member's participation. When someone has been absent from board life for a couple of months, Helm points it out while a friendly conversation can still make the difference. New board members get a structured 90-day welcome.
A skills matrix shows what expertise your board has, what it lacks, and what it is about to lose as terms end. A succession page keeps you honest about who could hold each officer seat next, before the vacancy is urgent.
Track the essential policies every nonprofit is expected to have, with reminders when reviews come due. Once a year, run an anonymous self-assessment so the board can see itself clearly and choose what to improve.
Budget approval, the Form 990, the audit, the executive director's evaluation, officer elections: the recurring obligations arrive on a calendar built around your fiscal year, and completing one schedules next year's automatically.
Once a week, Helm sends you a short email covering what is ahead and what needs attention, so staying oriented does not depend on remembering to log in.
Helm includes a complete governance curriculum written in plain language for volunteers, not lawyers. The lessons appear where they are useful: the lesson on designing agendas sits beside the agenda builder, and the lesson on re-engaging a quiet board member appears alongside the name of the person who has gone quiet.
Covering the foundations of governance, meetings, people, money, and oversight, each about five minutes long and each ending with something concrete you can do this week. On the Organization plan there are also short tracks written for the executive director, for the treasurer, and for brand-new board members — the last two shared by personal link, no account needed.
For the recurring work of the board: approving the budget, reviewing the Form 990, evaluating the executive director, running officer elections, and preparing for an unexpected leadership vacancy. Each one explains who does what, and in what order.
Conflict of interest, whistleblower protection, document retention, and the rest. Helm explains what each policy needs to contain and why it matters, including the three the IRS asks about by name on the Form 990.
In an all-volunteer organization, the board's whole operation often lives in one person's head. Helm drafts the emails, watches the calendar, and gathers the meeting responses, so running the board well stops depending on running yourself down.
When a grant application starts asking about governance, this is what good governance looks like in practice. The curriculum supplies the understanding, the tools build the habits, and the annual self-assessment shows the progress.
Chairs typically serve two or three years; the organization goes on much longer. With Helm, the organization owns the workspace and each chair passes through it, so the board's memory and rhythm no longer have to be rebuilt with every transition.
Thirty days is enough time to prepare one real meeting and hold it: add your board, build the agenda, send the materials a week ahead, and see whether the meeting feels different. If it does not, walk away with our thanks for trying.
Start your free trial$190 per year for a single chair · $390 per year for the whole organization · pricing details