Trustees Wanted
We’re a week on now from National Trustees’ Week which VANEL got heavily involved in and was a great success. One of the aspects that we covered during the week was the process of recruiting Trustees (and the difficulties and challenges associated with that).
So this week’s Governance article brings a few things together from that.
Firstly, recruiting Trustees – the right Trustees – for your charity doesn’t just happen by accident. It’s a process, and because of that, it’s a process that can be developed and improved until it’s working well for your charity.
Recruitment includes – preparing to recruit, marketing and promoting the position, gathering candidates and interviewing and selecting, inducting and getting them on board, supporting them in the role and developing them in the role. All of which is beneficial both to the volunteer and to the organisation/board, but all of which can take time and effort to get right.
Some charities do this naturally – role descriptions, adverts, interviews, induction and support and so on. Other’s struggle to spread the word and encourage involvement.
One useful resource to refer to is the NCVO Trustee Recruitment Toolkit. It’s goes through the whole process in easy detail with checklists, worksheets, examples and more. It’s step by step and invaluable. Get it here.
Two lessons I learned during our conversations in Trustees’ Week.
1. Be really clear what you are asking volunteers to do in their role. They may believe in you and have a passion for what you do and want to get involved, but most people need to know when and how they will need to commit and find time and what specifically they can be expected to be asked to do. The clearer you describe this, the easier it is to sell the ‘post’ to them. This might be a ‘Role Description’ or something more informal – but be really clear and transparent up front.
2. Separate Trusteeship and Governance from operational work. If you are recruiting a volunteer as a Trustee then they will have a governance role to help steer your charity. If you also expect them to do practical, operational work (as you don’t have staff or others perhaps to do that work), then you need to be really clear on the differences. Perhaps one person needs to be the Trustee and another volunteer to do the operational work? Or if that Trustee needs to commit extra time to actually do operational tasks then that will be ok if they know that up front.
Another point noted last week was that not all charities recruit in the same ways. Some have geographical restrictions in their constitutions which limit the pool of people from which they can select. Some headhunt via word of mouth. Some openly advertise and are clear in understanding how they will select and recruit. There’s no single approach – but all approaches have the potential to be improved. You will however, need to spend at least some time reflecting on and reviewing your practices and then putting in some effort to make changes happen.
A guide I used last week was called “Bridging the Gap” which was produced to provide to private sector people to help encourage them to become Trustees within the charitable sector. It’s excellent reading and the early sections on our sector are clearly defined and relevant to anyone moving into the charitable sector for the first time. Get Bridging the Gap here.
Worth also reading is “Benefits of Trusteeship”. Might be worth sharing that with prospective Trustees?
We started asking our Members if they needed Trustees. If you need Trustees then why not provide us with all the information and we’ll post it onto the VANEL website.
For now we know that these local groups need Trustees:
Harbour Place
Citizens Advice Bureau
HomeStart North East Lincolnshire
Grimsby Central Hall Trust
Age UK
More details online very soon. If you want to promote your own vacancies send them through to Karl@vanel.org.uk.
Any further questions you have around the whole area of Trustee Recruitment – please feel free to ask me: Karl Elliott, Development Manager, VANEL – karl@vanel.org.uk
A final note: I refer to charities and Trustees regularly. But most things governance and Trustee related can also relate to other non-profit groups and structures that have a board or committee and have volunteers that serve as committee members – whatever they might be called. A registered charity just has a few extra legal compliance issues that affect them (as would a registered company recruiting Directors). So please take the guidance and information given as just as relevant to any organisational structure even if not a charity.