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Ellen Glasgow
General Manager, Mission Driven Organizations

Livestreaming your meetings: what publicly elected boards need to know

November 8, 2024
0 min read
Livestreaming your meetings: what publicly elected boards need to know

If your board is not livestreaming its meetings yet — whether you’re facing a mandate or just want to get ahead of potential regulatory requirements — there are many factors to consider as you get started.

Livestreaming board or council meetings allows for greater participation and engagement from the public. However, some board members and administrators may be hesitant to start livestreaming meetings.

Beginning the practice of livestreaming meetings requires careful planning and consideration of open meetings laws, security and accessibility requirements.

The benefits of livestreaming your meetings

Livestreaming board meetings brings many advantages to the board and to its community. Boards that have taken the leap have found that livestreaming has increased community engagement and enhanced transparency around decision-making and the way the board conducts its business.

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Accessibility is a key benefit of livestreaming. It opens opportunities for community members who are unable to attend meetings in-person, especially where coming to meetings in person is either awkward or not possible. For example, parents, carers, workers with out-of-hours shifts, those unable to physically travel, etc. Those who are hearing impaired can use captioning, as well. The meeting can be translated for non-English speaking attendees.

Unlike other types of broadcasts e.g. television, livestreaming is interactive. Members of the public can follow along with the meeting agenda. They also can participate during the public comment period, asking the questions live or submitting them in advance in writing.

Governance transparency increases as well, as more people are able to view meetings. Community members gain a better understanding of how the board works and makes its decisions. When community members witness deliberations, they can see the thought processes that go into policy making and other decisions.

Potential repercussions of livestreaming

The thought of livestreaming board meetings can present some issues and obstacles for boards and municipalities.

Livestreaming might make some board or council members uncomfortable. Yes, they are accustomed to meeting and speaking in public, but streaming over the internet can attract a larger and more anonymous audience. Board members may worry that they could be exposed to online harassment or other issues through livestreaming.

Discomfort with the wider audience that livestreaming can attract could be another fear among board members along with the fact that the additional scrutiny could impact their ability to make decisions.

Other considerations include your choice of platform. If you’re using a commercial platform such as Facebook or YouTube, you need to be careful about who owns the content, especially if you intend to store recorded meetings in a virtual library.

If your livestream is not secured, hackers can target your livestream, inserting malicious or inappropriate content. Participants would also be at risk if hackers use the live chat function to breach accounts, steal data, or spread malicious software.

Livestreaming that does not comply with open meetings laws or Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements can put boards in legal jeopardy. Of course, there is also risk if you don’t livestream when required by state mandate.

It also requires high-speed internet access, which can be a problem in rural or isolated areas of the country.

Livestreaming won’t be a seamless experience for participants if they encounter too many technical glitches such as poor audio or video quality or bandwidth issues that slow down or freeze the screen.

Boards that want to start livestreaming will need to find solutions to these potential issues. Finding the right technology partner can help.

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Simplify your livestreaming journey. Our free guide helps public board administrators make smart choices and streamline the livestreaming process. From choosing the right provider to planning for success, download the checklist now to make your public meeting livestreams a breeze!

More engagement through livestreaming: a real-life example

Many boards have successfully integrated livestreaming into their meetings and are happy with the results. The choice of technology partner can make all the difference between frustration and success.

The board of Illinois’ Glenbrook High School District 225 was livestreaming its meetings through Zoom and YouTube. The staff charged with setting up the livestream feed found the platforms difficult to navigate and could not easily integrate the board agenda and other materials.

Parents and community members who attended the meeting via the livestream were frustrated with the lack of captions. Without an agenda posted with the feed, meeting attendees found it hard to know what was going on.

The board turned to Diligent Community’s Livestream Manager, which offers high-quality streaming, with integration into the board’s meeting room providing multi-camera views and quality audio. Attendees can access captions, and non-English speakers can find translations.

The split screen view for livestreamed meetings provides the public with the ability to listen, watch and actively review resources that the board references during deliberations.

“Some of our family members like not only to watch and see what’s going on, but they also like to follow the guide, they like to see the agenda and understand what were the conversations that took place as we’re making decisions” - Dr. R.J. Gravel, Deputy Superintendent Glenbrook High School District 225.

Diligent Community can streamline your livestreaming process and increase transparency

Diligent Community, the next-generation governance solution for publicly elected boards, has partnered with dedicated streaming platform BoxCast to provide Livestream Manager service, tailored specifically to the needs of public meetings.

Diligent Community allows you to set up and schedule the livestream directly from within the platform, allowing for simple and efficient set-up and reducing the multiple steps often required with platforms like YouTube or Facebook Live. It also allows you to stream to multiple platforms (in Community, YouTube and Facebook) all at once.

For added accessibility, automated live closed captioning can be enabled. It offers up to a 90% accuracy rate and provides administrators with the ability to submit key terms and phrases before the meeting, review and edit captions after the meeting, and even add a profanity filter.

If you need to take a break during a meeting or go into closed session mode, then instead of fully ending your broadcast or leaving a video up with no people in it, use the "Go to intermission" feature to automatically put up an overlay of your choice and mute your audio. The stream can continue until you’re ready to resume, when you can click "Reenable public broadcast" and the overlay is removed and the audio is unmuted. All done with one click of a button each time.

To learn more about what Diligent Community can do for your school or local government board, request a demo today.

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