Trustee Recruitment for Small Organisations

This resource has been designed to help you find, recruit, induct and keep trustees. It has been developed with small voluntary and community organisations (VCO’s) in mind.  We recognise that trustee recruitment can be challenging for small organisations that have limited resources. 

For the purposes of this resource 'trustee recrutment' also refers to the recruitment of management commitee members, members of the committee, council members, and executive committee menbers.  No matter what title your organisation gives them, this resource is intended to help you recruit new members of the governing body. 

How this resource works

The resource is split into six sections. These sections can be used independently but work well as a whole process.

1. Are you ready to recruit?
2. Who are you looking for?
3. Attracting new trustees
4. Selection and appointment of new trustees
5. How to welcome your new trustees
6. What next?

 How to use this resource?

We recommend that you read through the whole resource before getting started and tailor this to suit your needs. We have included a range of activities to provide practical help.  These range from plans to model policy documents.  These are easy to use and editable, you simply download and save them.  Not all of the activities may be necessary for your organisation. Pick and choose the approach which best suits your organisation.

Help and Support

At the end of each section we signpost you to other help and support related to that topic specifically.

As an on-line resource, we hope that the tool will evolve and develop over time. If you have any feedback, comments or would like to be a case study featured in this material please email us at governanceandleadership@ncvo-vol.org.uk

Acknowledgements

This resource forms part of the work of the Leadership and Governance National Support Service funded by Capacitybuilders and led by NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations). It has been developed in partnership with National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA), Community Matters and the Community Sector Coalition (CSC) and we would like to thank them for their involvement. We would also like to thank the people who attended focus groups and provided feedback, and the Charity Team at Russell-Cooke, solicitors for their legal input.