You walk into your HOA meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but all you hear is crickets. Nobody from the community has shown up - again.
HOAs often rely on one-third or 51% of their voting members to attend meetings to make essential HOA decisions (e.g., electing a new board member), but many HOAs can't make these choices because they haven't been able to achieve these percentages for years.
Not having homeowners attend your HOA meetings can be frustrating when you value your community homeowners' input. Greater homeowner attendance can lead to more productive meetings, as you're more likely to address topics that matter to your neighborhood residents (e.g., plans for maintaining common areas).
There are several easy ways you can have more productive HOA board meetings. Let's explore how association management can get more homeowners to attend their meetings.
Create Interesting Agendas For HOA Meetings
A top way to get homeowners to attend meetings with their homeowners associations is to create exciting meeting agendas. HOA meetings are business meetings, but intriguing agendas may make them more appealing to participate in.
The top of each agenda should highlight topics that may change the community's direction, such as changes in HOA due amounts. These agenda items should be in bold for your audience.
List less appealing business matters beneath the bold items. These may include a basic policy change or negotiations with landscape vendors.
Bring Refreshments
Providing finger foods, snacks, and drinks is an easy way to motivate more homeowners to attend your HOA meetings. Ordering catering and making fresh-squeezed lemonade are two excellent ways to make community members look forward to your meetings.
Providing homemade cooking can also be helpful. Offering free food is a simple, fun, and cheap way to make even a seemingly dull meeting worth attending.
Keep Your HOA Meetings Short
You may have several agenda items you'd like to cover at your HOA's meeting, but avoid the temptation to make the meeting long. Long meetings may be okay if you have meetings only once annually or need to host a special session. Regular meetings should be kept to two hours or less.
Community members who see that your meeting will run from five to eight o'clock at night may decide this is too long and not go. This is especially true if they've already worked eight-hour workdays. They'd rather go home and relax, particularly if they don't believe the meeting agenda items will directly affect them.
Compress meetings by splitting up HOA meetings if you have a long list of agenda items to discuss. Property owners might be more willing to attend two shorter meetings versus one long one. Stay on topic during each meeting to ensure it progresses at a proper pace and wraps up on time.
How We Can Help Your HOA
You can entice homeowners to attend your HOA meetings in several ways. Make your meeting agendas as captivating as possible for your community members, and bring refreshments to each meeting. Keeping your meetings brief may also make them more appealing for homeowners to attend.
The Burgh Property Management can help you facilitate your HOA board meetings. We can also help manage your finances and enforce your board's rules. Book a free consultation to discuss how we can help your board run smoothly today!
