Case Study: Mallory Creek Achieves a Majority Quorum with the Help of GetQuorum

The Challenge

Like many other communities across North Carolina, Mallory Creek conducts an Annual Meeting to update owners on key matters, hold elections, and perform various other activities that are crucial to the overall success of the community's operations. However, for a large community consisting of roughly 1400 lots and a majority quorum requirement, Mallory Creek had regularly struggled to achieve quorum at their Annual Meeting, prohibiting the community from executing elections and other essential activities as a result.

Aware of the negative impact this can have on the community, and consistently seeing less than 20% participation at their meetings, the Mallory Creek team knew they had to do something different if they were going to achieve a majority quorum at future meetings and began exploring ways they could increase participation and achieve a quorum at their next Annual Meeting.

During their review of current meeting procedures, the team recognized that their difficulty in achieving quorum stemmed from poor in-meeting attendance and a low proxy vote submission rate. Many owners wanted to avoid taking time out of their busy day to attend a long-drawn-out meeting and found the process of filling out and mailing paper proxies inconvenient. As a result, many would opt not to submit a proxy ballot or attend the meeting altogether.

The Mallory Creek team also wanted to take this as an opportunity to improve efficiency and streamline meeting operations. Executing an in-person meeting and corresponding task such as distributing, collecting and tabulating paper ballots were not only inefficient and time-consuming for the team but also susceptible to errors, especially for a large community consisting of three sub-associations like Mallory Creek.

Aware of the pain points and after some internal discussions, the Mallory Creek Board of Directors determined that adopting electronic voting and transitioning to a virtual meeting format would be the best course of action to increase owner participation and streamline the Annual Meeting.

So, with a clear understanding of what they required and determined to achieve quorum at their future Annual Meetings, the group began their search for a virtual meeting and electronic voting solution.

The Solution

Shortly after beginning their search, Mallory Creek's property manager, Rob Dunham of Premier Management Company, came across GetQuorum.

Intrigued by what he saw, Rob decided to reach out and learn more about their full-service, Hosted Virtual Meeting solution and see if it was a suitable solution for the community's upcoming meeting. And after conducting the initial platform walkthrough and discovery call with GetQuorum, he knew that working with GetQuorum could be instrumental in achieving a quorum at their upcoming meeting.

The platform was precisely what they needed; a secure, user-friendly platform that would provide owners with a seamless voting and meeting experience that was dynamic enough to accommodate their community's unique requirements.

And while impressed with the platforms capabilities, what truly stood out to Rob and the team was GetQuorum's full-service approach and the level of support that would be provided throughout the process.

Throughout their encounters, the GetQuorum team was supportive and professional. They took the time to truly understand the community's needs and challenges to ensure they would provide a solution that would help the team run a successful meeting and happily address any questions or concerns the Mallory Creek Board of Directors had along the way.

Their full-service approach also meant that in addition to moderation and ongoing technical support throughout the meeting, the GetQuorum team would also provide ongoing support throughout the meeting campaign. From increasing the frequency or altering the delivery times of pre-meeting communications and notices to changing the wording of Call-to-Action buttons, the GetQuorum team actively worked with the Mallory Creek Board of Directors to customize the solution to meet their community’s needs and achieve their goal of reaching quorum for their upcoming meeting.

The Result

The Annual Meeting was executed according to plan seamlessly from start to finish. The ongoing support, user-friendly platform, and streamlined procedures provided through GetQuorum's Hosted Virtual Meeting solution made conducting a virtual Annual Meeting effortless for all those involved.

Owners appreciated the improved convenience, efficiency, and accessibility that comes with conducting an Annual Meeting and voting electronically. As a result, Mallory Creek saw a significant increase in proxy ballot submissions and meeting attendance, resulting in a quorum being achieved for the first time in the community's history with 756 unit in attendance.

The GetQuorum platform's capabilities and ongoing support, provided through its full-service solution, also streamlined vital processes such as pre-meeting communications, proxy and live, in-meeting voting, meeting attendance, and ballot tabulation, relieving the Mallory Creek team of many time-consuming tasks, allowing them to focus on more strategic components of the meeting.  

"Planning and executing a successful membership meeting for a large-scale neighborhood can be both a tedious and stressful process. GetQuorum was able to turn this process into something that I actually look forward to doing." Said Rob Dunham, Senior Association Manager, Premier Management Company. "The adaptability of the software and team make a world of a difference, and the residents seem to have taken well to the software as evidenced by the 300%+ increase in participation since the community started using the product just two years ago. The more I get to know the team and see what the software is capable of, the better we can work together to ensure the membership meeting process runs smoothly to allow for effortless participation of the community members”

Looking ahead, Mallory Creek plans on utilizing electronic voting and virtual meetings for future Annual Meetings indefinitely.

If you'd like to learn how using our Hosted Virtual Meeting solution and Electronic Voting service can benefit your community, click here.