The board's year: a month-by-month calendar

A nonprofit board's year has about a dozen fixed jobs: approve a budget, review the Form 990, evaluate the executive director, collect conflict-of-interest disclosures, elect officers and directors, and check the policies and filings that keep the organization in good standing. This calendar spreads them over twelve months for an organization whose fiscal year is the calendar year. Shift it if yours isn't. It assumes a board that meets monthly or every other month, and a quarterly board can group the months.

Every meeting

• Approve the last meeting's minutes
• Review the financial statements
• Go through open action items

January

• Collect annual conflict-of-interest disclosures
• Confirm committee members and chairs
• Send the year's meeting dates

February

• Review the year-end financial results
• Start the audit or financial review, if you have one

March

• Agree on the executive director's goals for the year
• Check which directors' terms end this year

April

• Review the draft Form 990. The form asks whether every board member was given a copy before it was filed. Smaller organizations file Form 990-EZ or the 990-N e-Postcard instead, with the same due date.

May

• Form 990 is due on May 15 for a calendar-year filer, unless you file for an extension
• Check your state's annual report and charitable registration dates, which vary by state

June

• Mid-year budget check: actual against plan, and a forecast for the rest of the year
• A short mid-year conversation with the executive director about the goals set in March

July and August

• Start recruiting for seats that open at year end
• Review the board's own performance. A short survey is enough.
• Plan the fall strategy discussion

September

• Strategy session: what changes next year
• Staff begin the budget from what the board decided

October

• First look at next year's budget
• Start the executive director's evaluation
• Check insurance renewal dates, including directors and officers coverage

November

• Approve the budget
• The nominating committee presents its slate

December

• Elect directors and officers, if your bylaws put the annual meeting here
• Finish the executive director's evaluation and set pay, with the decision recorded in the minutes
• Look at the policies Form 990 asks about: conflict of interest, whistleblower, and document retention

Things with their own dates

Your bylaws set when the annual meeting happens and when terms begin. Funders set report deadlines. Write all of them onto one calendar the whole board can see.

How Karma Compass helps

A nonprofit leader told us that nonprofits often don't know what they don't know. That is what our playbooks are for. On the Pro plan, Karma Compass runs checks on a schedule and flags things like board terms about to end, missing conflict-of-interest forms and minutes still waiting for approval.

Goals are on every plan. Set a target in a sentence, log the numbers through the year, and the board sees actual against pace as a chart.

See what each plan includes

Source

• Instructions for Form 990: the IRS on the due date and on the governance questions in Part VI. Read 12 November 2026.