{"id":4029,"date":"2014-11-21T14:56:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T14:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/?p=4029"},"modified":"2014-11-21T14:56:45","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T14:56:45","slug":"trustees-wanted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/2014\/11\/trustees-wanted\/","title":{"rendered":"Trustees Wanted"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re a week on now from National Trustees\u2019 Week<\/a> which VANEL got heavily involved in<\/a> and was a great success.\u00a0 One of the aspects that we covered during the week was the process of recruiting Trustees (and the difficulties and challenges associated with that).<\/p>\n

So this week\u2019s Governance article brings a few things together from that.<\/p>\n

Firstly, recruiting Trustees \u2013 the right Trustees \u2013 for your charity doesn\u2019t just happen by accident. It\u2019s a process, and because of that, it\u2019s a process that can be developed and improved until it\u2019s working well for your charity.<\/p>\n

Recruitment includes \u2013 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Some charities do this naturally \u2013 role descriptions, adverts, interviews, induction and support and so on.\u00a0 Other\u2019s struggle to spread the word and encourage involvement.<\/p>\n

One useful resource to refer to is the NCVO Trustee Recruitment Toolkit. It\u2019s goes through the whole process in easy detail with checklists, worksheets, examples and more.\u00a0 It\u2019s step by step and invaluable. \u00a0Get it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two lessons I learned during our conversations in Trustees\u2019 Week.
\n1. Be really clear what you are asking volunteers to do in their role.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The clearer you describe this, the easier it is to sell the \u2018post\u2019 to them.\u00a0 This might be a \u2018Role Description\u2019 or something more informal \u2013 but be really clear and transparent up front.
\n2. 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Another point noted last week was that not all charities recruit in the same ways.\u00a0 Some have geographical restrictions in their constitutions which limit the pool of people from which they can select. Some headhunt via word of mouth.\u00a0 Some openly advertise and are clear in understanding how they will select and recruit.\u00a0 There\u2019s no single approach \u2013 but all approaches have the potential to be improved.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

A guide I used last week was called \u201cBridging the Gap\u201d which was produced to provide to private sector people to help encourage them to become Trustees within the charitable sector.\u00a0 It\u2019s 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. \u00a0Get Bridging the Gap here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Worth also reading is \u201cBenefits of Trusteeship<\/a>\u201d.\u00a0 Might be worth sharing that with prospective Trustees?<\/p>\n

We started asking our Members if they needed Trustees.\u00a0 If you need Trustees then why not provide us with all the information and we\u2019ll post it onto the VANEL website.<\/p>\n

For now we know that these local groups need Trustees:<\/p>\n

Harbour Place<\/strong>
\n Citizens Advice Bureau<\/strong>
\n HomeStart North East Lincolnshire<\/strong>
\n Grimsby Central Hall Trust<\/strong>
\n Age UK<\/strong><\/p>\n

More details online very soon.\u00a0 If you want to promote your own vacancies send them through to Karl@vanel.org.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Any further questions you have around the whole area of Trustee Recruitment \u2013 please feel free to ask me:\u00a0 Karl Elliott, Development Manager, VANEL \u2013 karl@vanel.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

A final note: \u00a0\u00a0I 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 \u2013 whatever they might be called.\u00a0 A registered charity just has a few extra legal compliance issues that affect them (as would a registered company recruiting Directors).\u00a0 So please take the guidance and information given as just as relevant to any organisational structure even if not a charity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One aspect of Governance we covered during last weeks Trustees’ Week was recruitment of Trustees. In this article I’ve shared some resources, tips and thoughts on improving recruitment of the right Trustees to your board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"xn-wppe-expiration":[],"xn-wppe-expiration-action":[],"xn-wppe-expiration-prefix":[],"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[5,11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3cThd-12Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4033,"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions\/4033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanel.org.uk\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}