Adding Emergency Provisions to Your Bylaws

In 2020, the United States experienced a pandemic that shut down the country and limited physical gatherings. These lockdowns prohibited in-person meetings, including religious organization’s board and committee meetings. Churches with congregational governance could not conduct an in-person business meeting. Suddenly, the religious organization could not follow its usual governance model.

Farsighted religious organizations planned for this pandemic by including the following in their governing documents: 1) they authorized “electronic meetings”; 2) assuming the state nonprofit corporation law allows for electronic meetings, the bylaws included conference calls, video conferencing, electronic message boards, and electronic voting via the internet.

Two key emergency provisions

Churches that have not already done so would be wise to add the following two provisions to their ...