Renewal time isn’t just a checkbox; it’s a chance to realign your district’s priorities.

For public sector leaders navigating tight budgets, limited staff and rising expectations for transparency, it’s natural to ask: “Is Diligent Community still delivering the value we need?”

Diligent Community isn’t just about posting agendas or checking a compliance box. It’s about empowering your board, council or committee to govern effectively, make better decisions and stay aligned with your community’s needs, all from one secure, purpose-built platform.

As you weigh your renewal decision, it’s worth looking beyond the agenda packet to rediscover the deeper value Diligent Community brings to public boards every day.

“We are thrilled with the upgrade — Diligent Community is much more user-friendly, searchable and visually appealing. I’ve customized the homepage with links to our website and social media, and it’s been a great transition.” — Effie Ameen, Secretary of the Board, Board of Regents, University of Colorado

Building on yesterday’s knowledge to strengthen tomorrow’s board

Picture a typical Thursday for a school district board secretary or a city clerk.

A newly elected board or council member has just joined. They are eager to contribute, but unsure how to piece together years of decisions, policies and context.

Instead of shared drives, scattered PDFs and “do you still have that file?” emails, they log into Diligent Community.

There, they find a secure, centralized document library and public site, with past agendas, minutes, policies, reports and supporting documents organized and easy to search.

For staff, this becomes a living institutional memory. For new members, it dramatically shortens the learning curve. They can see how policy decisions evolved, what actions were taken and how those choices were communicated to the community — all without asking anyone to resend documents or recreate history.

When institutional knowledge is accessible instead of locked away in inboxes or personal folders, you don’t just preserve continuity; you strengthen your board’s ability to lead across election cycles, leadership changes and unexpected events.

What Diligent Community customers are saying

“Before, it wasn’t uncommon for members of the public to email me asking for bylaws, minutes, or reports, and I’d have to go searching for them. Now it’s almost the reverse — people are bringing the information back to me with questions because they’ve already found it themselves.” — Gwen Dombroski, Manager of Legislative Services / Clerk, County of Renfrew

“There is a search engine here, and I have a whole blurb I share so people can do it themselves next time.” — Amanda Irving, Corporate Officer, District of Highlands

Navigating tight budgets and growing mandates

Public sector organizations are being asked to do more with less, to deliver high-quality services, comply with open meeting and records laws, and keep the public informed, all with finite staff and shrinking budgets.

In many districts, colleges and municipalities, meeting preparation has historically meant full days of copying, collating and recreating packets whenever an agenda item changed.

Diligent Community changes that calculus.

With Agenda Builder, staff can drag and drop items, reuse templates and attach materials in a few clicks. You can build, revise and publish agendas without manual layout or repeated file conversions.

Approval workflows replace email chains and ad hoc signoffs. Agenda items can be submitted, reviewed and approved through customizable workflows, with automated notifications that keep everyone on track.

, staff set up livestreams directly from Diligent Community, rather than juggling separate platforms and manual uploads.

Time saved here isn’t just a line in the budget. It’s evenings given back to clerks and board secretaries, and hours redirected from manual prep to supporting board members, leaders and community engagement.

“Everything was being done manually through PDFs: building packages by hand, emailing them out, and repeating the same conversations across different committees. When we moved into Diligent and went to Committee of the Whole, it just saved us so much time. Everybody is seeing the same information at the same time, debating it at the same time, and we’re able to move things forward much faster. We were waiting over a month to execute things before, now we’re executing every two weeks.” — Gwen Dombroski, Manager of Legislative Services / Clerk, County of Renfrew

“Diligent Community allows community members to see the board function as a well-oiled machine. No one thinks we’ve buried something deep into the pages, and we’ve received positive feedback about the time and money we’re saving.” — Delia Smart, Board Manager, Visalia Unified School District

“We estimated that managing all of these manual tasks was approximately equivalent to one week out of a whole month. Diligent Community has given that time back.” — Dr. Chad Bledsoe, President, Montgomery Community College

Turning participation from passive to powerful

Public service is demanding. Many board and council members balance their duties with full-time careers, family responsibilities and community commitments.

If materials are hard to access or cumbersome to navigate, it’s easy for meetings to become a passive “review” exercise instead of an active forum for decision-making.

Diligent Community is designed to make participation easier and more meaningful.

Board and council members can securely access meeting packets from any device, review agenda items in context, and add private notes that stay tied to the materials they’ll be discussing.

During the meeting, digital voting captures decisions in real time, supporting multiple voting methods and automatically tying votes to the minutes. This doesn’t just save time; it creates clear, auditable records of how decisions were made.

When board members can prepare efficiently, engage deeply and see the impact of their votes reflected in the public record, serving becomes less of a chore and more of an opportunity to make a real difference.

“The community is much more engaged now… some of our YouTube meetings are getting over 100 views. Before, you had to physically come to our meeting or join Zoom, now people can watch later.” — Amanda Irving, Corporate Officer, District of Highlands

“With Diligent Community, families can join meetings live or watch recordings with captions and translations. It’s opened the door for many more people to participate who couldn’t be there in person.” — Dr R.J. Gravel, Superintendent, Glenbrook High School District 225

Many public bodies don’t have a dedicated governance or legal team.

Often, a small number of administrators and clerks shoulder the responsibility of keeping the board or council on track with evolving regulations, open meeting requirements and internal policies.

Diligent Community quietly embeds best practices into daily workflows.

Agenda and minutes templates, standard approval processes and structured meeting flows help even small teams run meetings with the rigor of much larger organizations.

Beyond individual meetings, goal tracking lets councils and boards define objectives, benchmarks and KPIs, and then update and share progress with stakeholders from a single, centralized hub. This makes it easier to connect day-to-day decisions back to long-term community priorities and strategic plans.

Instead of relying on heroics and institutional memory, boards can lean on a platform designed to support good governance, giving leaders more confidence that their processes, records and decisions will stand up to scrutiny.

“From a compliance perspective, we had a new policy, a big one on parental rights. And being able to use Diligent Community to go through reads, bring it forward, have people look at it, provide input — and then the transparency, the usability. It’s a game changer.” — Amy Allen, Superintendent, Lebanon School District

“The platform is great and it’s more user-friendly. It’s not that BoardDocs was bad, but Diligent Community has upgraded to this new day and age.” — Amanda Buchanan, Executive Assistant for Governance, Farmington R-7 School District

Embracing risk and agility in a changing world

Recent years have shown just how quickly the ground can shift under public institutions.

Strategic plans written a few years ago rarely account for global disruptions, new regulations, rapid technology changes or shifting community expectations.

Today, boards and councils need tools that help them respond to 

new risks, requirements and opportunities

Diligent Community centralizes agendas, policies, meeting records and public access so leaders can see the full picture when they need to adapt — whether that’s scheduling an emergency meeting, updating a policy or responding to a new mandate.

With capabilities like public-site search, boards can quickly see how similar organizations have approached comparable issues, surfacing relevant decisions and policies to inform their own response.

Agility in governance isn’t just about moving fast. It’s about moving fast with context — and Diligent Community is built to bring that context together.

“I decided that I was going to just push it all out at once. We sent out the subscription information in a newsletter. We also started livestreaming with recordings through Diligent Community and rolled out the Request to Speak at the same time.” — Amanda Irving, Corporate Officer, District of Highlands

“It’s just easier now. People have more information and know when meetings are happening. I’m answering more high-level questions instead of basic ones like, ‘Is there a meeting?’ It’s been a great improvement.” — Effie Ameen, Secretary of the Board, Board of Regents, University of Colorado

Clerks and board secretaries know that the real work doesn’t end when the gavel drops.

Drafting accurate, detailed minutes that capture actions, motions and context can consume hours after every meeting.

 in Diligent Community, AI becomes a trusted assistant in that process.

The system uses transcripts and timestamps from your livestreamed meetings to generate a draft of your minutes, automatically linking actions and motions back to the relevant points in the meeting.

Instead of starting from a blank page, administrators can review, refine and approve a draft, dramatically reducing manual effort while maintaining full human oversight and control.

On the public side, powerful search helps constituents quickly find the agendas, minutes, policies or even caption snippets that matter to them, without sorting through dozens of PDF files.

In both cases, AI isn’t replacing people. It’s taking on the heavy lifting so that board staff, leaders and community members can focus on judgment, context and meaningful engagement.

Real-time engagement and accountability that drives progress

Accountability in the public sector isn’t just internal, it’s visible to the entire community.

Diligent Community is built to support that accountability without creating extra work.

On the board side, features like digital voting, agenda-item workflows and audit trails provide a clear record of who did what, when, from reviewing materials to casting votes and approving minutes.

On the public side, the Diligent Community website makes it simple to publish agendas, minutes, videos and policies in a consistent, accessible format.

Community members can subscribe to receive automatic notifications about upcoming meetings or newly posted materials, and submit Request-to-Speak or public comment forms online, making participation easier and more equitable.

When everyone, from board members to residents, can see information clearly and trust it’s up to date, it becomes much easier to have productive conversations about priorities, tradeoffs and progress.

“The timestamps are very helpful. If someone misses a vote or a public comment, I can send them a link, and they can click directly to the relevant part of the video. I control the timestamps, which makes it easy for everyone.” — Amber McDonnell, Director of Board Operations, University of Colorado

“This allows them to go back to hear exactly what was said — it’s a huge help for staff too.” — Amanda Irving, Corporate Officer, District of Highlands

More than software: A partnership built on understanding

So why do public organizations stay with Diligent year after year?

Diligent Community is purpose-built for public and elected boards — school districts, community colleges, cities, counties and special districts — and it’s backed by teams who deeply understand the realities of public sector governance.

From implementation and training to ongoing optimization, your Customer Success Manager is there to help you get the most from the platform. That can mean surfacing underused features like Policy Publisher, Livestream Manager or AI-supported minutes, or helping you design workflows that reflect how your organization actually operates.

Those relationships foster trust, continuity and shared commitment to serving students, residents and communities effectively.

“It was incredible. We have no words to tell you how awesome it was compared to what we were doing. It absolutely revolutionized our process… Diligent Community adoption was the best thing we’ve done.” — EmmaLee Robinson, Board Chair, White Pine Charter Schools

“I was reassured by the Diligent Community migration team who guaranteed everything could and would be pulled over correctly. When I explored the new platform and saw all my documents and information, I thought, ‘It really is all here.’” — Amanda Buchanan, Executive Assistant for Governance, Farmington R-7 School District

Enhancing trust with secure, accessible governance

For public entities, safeguarding sensitive information and ensuring equal access aren’t just best practices — they’re legal and ethical obligations.

Diligent Community is designed with that reality in mind.

It provides a secure, cloud-based environment with strong encryption, role-based access controls and detailed audit trails to protect board materials and sensitive data.

At the same time, Diligent Community’s modern public site experience helps organizations meet evolving accessibility standards, so constituents can access agendas, minutes, policies and recordings in a consistent, user-friendly way.

When your platform supports both security and accessibility by design, your team spends less time worrying about compliance gaps and more time focusing on the quality of governance itself.

“Everything can be found on the website, so I send them the link. The Public Transparency Website serves as the authoritative reference for residents, reducing misinformation and building trust.” — Amanda Irving, Corporate Officer, District of Highlands

“Diligent Community allows community members to see the board function as a well-oiled machine. No one thinks we’ve buried something deep into the pages…” — Delia Smart, Board Manager, Visalia Unified School District

When renewal approaches, it’s natural to compare costs and alternatives.

But the real question is bigger than “Which line item is lower?”

The real question is: How much time are we saving, how much risk are we reducing and how much trust are we building by running our governance on Diligent Community?

For existing customers, renewal is also an opportunity to unlock more value. That might mean enabling features like Policy Publisher, Livestream Manager, Committee Manager, digital voting or AI-supported minutes that you haven’t fully explored yet.

You’ve already chosen to invest in good governance.

By continuing your investment in Diligent Community — and by putting time saved, transparency delivered and strategic impact at the center of your decision — you give your board, council or committee the tools they need to lead with clarity and confidence.

Beyond the agenda packet: Rediscovering the full value of Diligent Community

In a year where volatility has become the norm and innovation the new baseline, one role is emerging as the quiet force shaping the future of governance: the general counsel (GC).

 survey of 200 U.S. public company board members, directors are asking for integrated risk insight, smarter strategic planning and tools that help them govern in real time, not once a quarter. The GC is uniquely positioned to deliver all of this.

What follows is a data‑backed look at the governance trends defining 2026, and why the GC is becoming the board’s most essential strategic integrator.

Why boards are leaning on the GC in a high‑velocity M&A market

40% of directors say pursuing growth through M&A or strategic partnerships is a top priority for 2026, signaling renewed appetite for bold moves despite economic uncertainty.

But with big bets come big risks. Directors want clarity, structured oversight and alignment across legal, financial and operational functions. 

No one sees those intersections better than the GC. That makes their guidance essential as companies navigate accelerated deal cycles, heightened regulatory scrutiny and AI‑driven market shifts.

AI ambition meets a skills gap the GC is expected to bridge

Boards know technology is the future, but they also know they’re not fully prepared for it.

 will be their top capital investment focus in 2026. Yet only 8% believe their board has strong AI expertise.

And only 23% say they use AI regularly in risk oversight, even as AI reshapes every corner of the enterprise.

The gap is clear: ambition is high, but capability lags. 

This is the moment for the GC to step in as translator, educator and ethical steward — connecting innovation to compliance, risk and strategy.

A new era of risk: Integration, speed and guidance

Risk oversight is undergoing a structural shift.

84% of directors say their scenario planning has changed in the last five years to account for new risks. 94% believe there is room for improvement in how their board oversees risk.

And AI and technology-related regulation tops both the compliance priority list (50%) and the most underestimated risk list (41%).

Boards are calling for deeper integration across data, functions and decision‑making.

The GC is naturally positioned to lead this evolution, bringing together regulatory foresight, enterprise visibility and cross-functional coordination.

In the words of one director’s insight from the research: boards don’t just want more information. They want the right information, contextualized, connected and strategically relevant. That is the GC’s superpower.

The GC as the board’s strategic integrator: Conducting the symphony

Boards agree: their biggest bottleneck isn’t a lack of data, it’s a lack of synthesis.

58% want more time dedicated to strategic planning.

40% want access to AI‑powered tools to help them oversee strategy, risk and performance.

What they’re really asking for is someone to orchestrate the noise.

Someone who sees across the full business, understands the regulatory currents beneath every decision and can bring the right experts to the right conversations at exactly the right moments. 

That someone is the general counsel — the leader who integrates risk, strategy, compliance and organizational insight into a forward‑looking governance model.

Boards are confronting a widening skills gap, not just in the workforce but at the leadership level.

51% say executive turnover and succession planning is the top talent priority.

45% cite reskilling for emerging technologies like AI as a 2026 focus.

As companies reorganize around AI and automation, the GC becomes a crucial advisor on governance structures, workforce implications and ethical guidelines. They help boards anticipate not only what skills leaders need today, but what capabilities the organization will require tomorrow.

Forward-looking governance: The shift boards are asking for

Boards want to spend less time revisiting what already happened and more time anticipating what comes next.

Yet only 12% of directors say their meetings are mostly forward‑looking. Half say they rarely receive real‑time or near‑real‑time data.

The desire is clear: boards want a continuous governance model — one that is dynamic, data‑driven and integrated into day‑to‑day operations.

This is where the GC plays a defining role: curating, contextualizing and coordinating the information that helps directors move from retrospective oversight to strategic guidance.

A new governance era with the GC at the center

The 2026 research couldn’t be clearer: 

Boards want deeper insight, better risk integration, more strategic time and tools that accelerate decision‑making.

The general counsel is the connective tissue that makes that possible.

As businesses navigate AI transformation, volatile markets, regulatory shifts and rapid‑fire risks, the GC isn’t just a legal leader — they’re becoming the architect of a more integrated, future‑focused model of governance.

To explore the data behind this shift and what it means for your board, read the full 

The general counsel as conductor: The quiet force orchestrating governance  

This article originally appeared in our January 29th edition of the Diligent Minute Newsletter. For more insights like these, delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe 

AI is top of mind for directors this year, the connective tissue linking growth, risk, human capital and compliance. That’s what we found in our 

 report, an annual survey of U.S. public company directors produced in partnership with Diligent Institute and Corporate Board Member. More than 200 directors shared how they’re navigating strategy, risk, talent and governance in an environment defined by volatility and technological change. The result is a rich window into what’s really on board agendas in 2026 — and what may be missing.

One in four boards view technological disruption, including AI, as among the greatest opportunities for their companies, yet only a small minority cite it as a top risk — highlighting an optimism that may not fully account for how quickly AI‑native competitors can upend business models.

Some headline AI‑related stats from the survey:

 of directors say pursuing growth through M\&A and strategic partnerships is a top priority for 2026, while 

 cite deploying AI technology across the business and 

 point to growth through new products or new markets.

 say technology adoption and integration will be a primary focus of capital investment in 2026, outpacing M&A and market expansion.

 of boards report that AI is fully embedded in risk oversight and decision‑making; 

 of directors expect AI and technology‑related regulation to demand the greatest compliance‑related board attention in 2026, and 

 say AI and technology regulation is the most underestimated area of compliance oversight today.

When asked how to strengthen risk oversight, 

 want enhanced use of AI‑powered data and technology tools, and 

 say access to AI‑powered technology for board work and oversight would help optimize governance processes overall.

Behind these figures is a widening governance gap

While AI dominates strategic conversations and investment plans, only 

 of directors say their board has strong AI expertise, and 

 rank technological developments, including AI, among the most challenging issues to oversee. 

 through composition, increasingly looking for directors who can pair traditional governance experience with practical, credible AI fluency.

Boards’ own use of AI also lags their ambitions

Despite the surge in digital tools like board portals, secure messaging and AI‑assisted briefings, only about one in five boards use AI‑powered technology regularly to 

support risk oversight and strategic decision‑making

, and very few have fully embedded AI into their processes. Directors themselves point to AI‑enabled analytics and dashboards as one of the most powerful levers to enhance both risk and compliance oversight, suggesting many recognize the gap and are actively looking for practical ways to close it.

Workforce implications are real and rising

Finally, the survey underscores that AI is fundamentally a people and skills story. Directors expect skills development and reskilling for emerging technologies such as AI and broader workforce strategy to consume substantial board time in 2026, even as workforce investment overall remains relatively underprioritized. They also anticipate that productivity monitoring, job redesign and redeployment, and the ethical use of AI in workforce management will require ongoing, deeper board attention.

Taken together, the findings paint a clear mandate for boards: treat AI not as a discrete project, but as a 

 that touches strategy, risk, compliance and talent. The boards that will lead in this next chapter are those that pair bold bets on AI with equally rigorous oversight — building the expertise, data and governance structures to ensure AI becomes a durable source of advantage, not an underappreciated source of risk.

Get the insights: Download your copy of What Directors Think 2026 

AI adoption rivals M&A as a 2026 priority

This article originally appeared in our January 15th edition of the Diligent Minute Newsletter. For more insights like these, delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe

After three quarters of near-record low confidence levels

, America’s boardrooms ended 2025 on a surprisingly hopeful note, even as directors brace for another demanding year. The latest 

, our quarterly survey of U.S. public company directors conducted with Corporate Board Member, shows sentiment rebounding sharply after three consecutive quarters at a five-year low throughout much of last year.

Why U.S. board confidence rebounded at the end of 2025

Confidence rose 23% in the final month of the year, climbing from 4.9 to 6.0 on a 10-point scale and finally nudging back into what respondents consider “good” territory. As a key driver behind the shift, directors point to:

In other words, after a year of policy whiplash, boards feel they at least understand the playing field a bit better - even if they don’t like it.

That late-year rally, however, shouldn’t be mistaken for a victory lap. For 2025 overall, average confidence registered just 5.0, well below 2024’s 6.2 and far short of the 6.9 directors had forecast a year ago.

Three quarters of respondents say tariffs were a primary reason conditions fell short of expectations, far outpacing any other factor. Their comments underscore how hard it is for boards to plan when rules change midgame; familiar playbooks don’t work when trade policy and enforcement shift repeatedly.

Tariffs, uncertainty and a new risk landscape

Directors in sectors long considered resilient

, like life sciences, describe this period as unlike anything they’ve seen in decades. Many point to deferred capital spending and elongated decision cycles as companies try to model scenarios that are, frankly, impossible to model with precision. That reality is reshaping how boards think about risk, resilience and the very nature of their oversight role.

Their outlook for business conditions by late 2026 is 6.0, essentially flat from today’s reading. CEOs, by contrast, are modestly more upbeat: in a parallel survey by Chief Executive, they project a 6% improvement to 6.4, and 44% say they expect conditions to improve, compared with 32% of directors. That gap is telling. CEOs are closest to near-term operations; boards are increasingly focused on longer-horizons, compounding risks.

Those directors who are optimistic tend to anchor their confidence in 

 seeing opportunities to transform productivity and reimagine business models. Among those who expect deterioration, concerns skew heavily toward macro and geopolitical risk, with uncertainty emerging as a dominant theme -— on par with inflation for many neutral respondents.

How boards can strengthen oversight and learning in 2026

directors emphasize adaptability, deeper engagement and faster learning, recognizing that they must connect dots across 

5 years of the Director Confidence Index: Tracking a more demanding role

This quarter also marks five years of fielding the Director Confidence Index, and we asked respondents how their roles have evolved since 2020.

Board members say they are spending far more time on risk in a “more complex and faster moving” environment, with cybersecurity, AI, geopolitical shocks, supply-chain integrity and policy volatility now standard agenda items. Many describe a shift from “managing the present” toward future-oriented scenario planning and strategic resilience, alongside heightened scrutiny from investors and activists that expands the mandate beyond financial performance to culture, human capital and corporate character.

Taken together, the picture is clear: being a director today is more time-intensive, strategically demanding and consequential than it was in 2020 and perhaps than it has ever been. One director distilled the 2026 playbook to three words: “Defend and survive.” I would add a fourth: learn. Boards that invest in learning about AI technology, geopolitics, regulation and stakeholder expectations will be best positioned not just to endure whatever comes next, but to help their organizations emerge stronger on the other side.

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Beyond the agenda packet: Rediscovering the full value of Diligent Community

The general counsel as conductor: The quiet force orchestrating governance

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