Charities working together to strengthen trustee boards

Developing a coherent and effective Trustee board is an ever evolving challenge. It goes hand in glove with the need for leaders to constantly challenge their standards. After all a Trustee board is only as strong as its component parts. Effective boards have a mature understanding of the skills and experience of their members and seek to fill gaps as soon as they are identified. However, in my experience some charities have difficulty in recruiting from outside their personal pool of contacts and therefore often end up with an ever narrower view of themselves and the outside world. If the charity is located outside the capital this problem is even greater.


A strategy to minimise trustee clones would be for charities in the same geographical area to work together in establishing a “Trustee Recruitment and Retention Committee”, I’m sure that there is a snappier title! The committee could;

• Create a pool of available trustees to fill vacancies promptly as they arise;
• Develop links with local business, professional bodies, community groups and other partners to promote charity trusteeship;
• Present awareness sessions for local people or companies who are interested in serving as trustees;
• Develop and share best practise templates;
• Provide briefings to potential trustees candidates whilst their application is being processed;
• Provide a local induction programme for new trustees;
• Facilitate a forum for trustees to meet and collectively discuss issues that are relevant to all trustees.

As this would be done as a collective of charities, approaches to potential trustees would be seen to be none charity specific and focused on the benefits offered to both the individual and company. For example; local accountancy firms could be approached outlining the professional personal development opportunities for staff and the corporate social responsibility achievements for the company. This would also have the benefit of cutting down repeat requests from multiple charities.

Once a firm, group or individual decides to become a charity trustee they would be able to select the charities that most interest them and be matched to the charities needs. An example of this could be an accountant who is interested in working for a health charity being able to choose between a number of health charities that need a Treasurer.

Recently I was reminded of a maxim that "as a leader your lowest standard is the highest others will aspire to".