"Board of Governors" is an archaic term that is rarely used today. It was sometimes used in early common interest developments when they were often unincorporated. As the CID industry evolved, the California Department of Real Estate required that developers incorporate all new associations adding bylaws. Boards were then defined as "boards of directors" instead of boards of governors.

The number of directors elected to a board is established in an association's articles of incorporation and repeated in the bylaws. The number should be an odd number so as to avoid dead-locked boards. The number of directors is usually five. Small associations sometimes call for three directors and large associations may have seven or nine.