Fresh from Elevate 2026, our brand new guide From AI talk to real impact: How today's leaders do more without adding headcount explores how boards can use AI responsibly to improve oversight, decision‑making and board effectiveness, without adding complexity.
And to help you turn this insight into action, don’t miss our AI action plan, a practical worksheet to identify high‑impact use cases, define guardrails and progress to the next level with confidence in 90 days.
AI‑Supported Minutes in Diligent Community are transforming one of the most time‑consuming tasks for clerks and council teams: meeting documentation. By using livestream captions and agenda timestamps, Diligent’s purpose‑built AI automatically generates a structured, agenda‑aligned draft of meeting minutes in minutes rather than hours or days. Instead of starting from a blank page, staff begin with an accurate, governance‑ready outline grounded in the official meeting record, significantly reducing manual effort while improving consistency and compliance.
Beyond time savings, AI‑Supported Minutes strengthen transparency and public trust. Once approved, minutes are published alongside the meeting video and agenda, allowing constituents to jump directly to key discussion points using timestamps. This integrated approach improves accessibility, supports public‑records requests, and helps councils move more quickly from meeting to publication, all without sacrificing control or accuracy.
It’s a practical example of how AI, when designed specifically for public governance, can enhance both operational efficiency and community engagement.
Find out more about AI-supported minutes here and contact your customer success manager for more information.
The County of Renfrew modernized its governance operations by moving away from manual, paper‑based agenda and policy processes and adopting Diligent Community, enabling a small legislative team to support a large, complex region more efficiently.
By centralizing agendas, minutes, reports and policies in one digital platform, the county accelerated council decision‑making from a monthly to a biweekly cycle, improved consistency in policy management, reduced administrative burden across teams and saved 250k a year. The shift has also unlocked greater transparency, giving the public self‑service access to meeting materials helping the County build faster, more confident decision‑making while strengthening trust in local government.
“It just saves us so much time. We were waiting over a month to execute things before - now we’re executing every two weeks. It’s made decision-making smoother and faster because everyone has the same information in front of them.” - Gwen Dombroski Manager of Legislative Services and Clerk
Download and read the full story here.
April 28, 2026
Our next webinar, “From roles to results: Align your school board for faster, stronger decisions,” takes place Tuesday, April 28. Superintendent Dr. Brad Saron, Governance Officer Dr. Steve Schroeder, and Executive Assistant Chandu Vemuri will share how they’ve built clarity, trust and accountability across their board.
Register to watch the webinar here, and don’t worry if you can’t make it, we’ll send you the recording afterward.
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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:
The latest Leading with Purpose podcast episode explores how to design successful orientation for new board members. Guests Liz Thompson of Presbyterian Senior Care Network and Chandu Vemuri of Sun Prairie School District share practical, real-world guidance on designing effective board orientation programs that help new members understand their role, responsibilities and have impact from day one.
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:
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.
