Step 1: Getting Started
Are you ready to recruit?
Finding and keeping trustees is a vital but demanding task for voluntary and community organisations. Some of your trustees may have left or are intending to leave soon. Or maybe you feel your board needs reinvigorating? This should be seen as an opportunity to bring in new skills, experiences and perspectives to your board.
Are you ready to recruit? Ask yourselves the following questions:
• Are we ready and willing to involve new people?
• Are we working well together? Do we need to deal with any issues or tensions before someone new joins the board?
• Would we be willing to change where and when we meet?
• Are we open to different ideas and fresh perspectives?
It can also be a worthwhile exercise to review the roles of your current trustees, especially if one person is taking on a lot of the work and other people would like to take on more responsibility. As a trustee of a small organisation, it is likely that you carry out several ‘roles’- you may volunteer to do things for the organisation in addition to you trustee responsibilities. Are the activities best carried out by a new trustee or could they be done by a volunteer? Is the amount of work reasonable for one person?
Before you get started there are a few things you need to consider:
Check the legals
Your governing document is the rulebook for the way your charity is governed. This should be the first place to look for terms of office, eligibility, procedures for election and so on. Consider how your trustees must be appointed. Do new trustees have to be members of your organisation? Do you have elections? Or are trustees appointed or co-opted?
You should also consider the various checks and safeguards that are required for charities working with young people and other vulnerable adults, where this applies.
Planning the process
It’s a good idea to plan and schedule the whole process from the outset, as recruiting a new trustee usually takes several weeks, and involves a range of people. Think about the steps, timescales and costs involved in the whole process.
Planning pointers:
• You need to decide what steps you are, or are not, going to include. Reading through the whole resource will help you prioritise what is necessary and what you may already have in place.
• You should be clear about who is responsible for what, and what information you will need to have prepared and by when.
• You may find it helpful to ask one person to oversee and co-ordinate the process.
• It is useful to have a date in mind of when you want to have recruited by and work backwards. For example if you will be electing at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) when do you need to start the process?
Work through Activity 1: Trustee Recruitment Plan(.doc 4.19 MB) to help your board complete a recruitment process action plan.
Help and support
• NCVO Trustee and Governance Information Centre, including more information on governing documents www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/governanceandleadership
• Charity Commission – The Essential Trustee explains who is eligible to be a trustee http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publications/cc3.asp
• Charity Commission- CC30 Finding new trustees: What charities need to know http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/cc30.asp
Step - 2: Who are you looking for?
Back to - Introduction to Trustee Recruitment for Small Organisations
