Day 5: Adaptability and Continuous Learning

On the final day of Trustees’ Week, we are looking to the future. Resilience in governance is about more than just safeguarding against threats – it’s about embracing change, innovating, and learning continuously. Governance structures need to foster a culture of adaptability and learning throughout the organisation.

How can we achieve this?

Continuous Improvement

• Whether through program evaluations, stakeholder feedback, or staying up to date with industry or sector trends, resilient charities are always looking for opportunities to learn and improve.
• Charities should look to receive feedback from its beneficiaries and stakeholders and review the positive (and negative) effects their work is having.
• Trustees should always keep in mind the mission, vision and values (see our Day 2 insight) of the charity to ensure it doesn’t become stagnant, and the work remains focused.

Innovative Thinking

• Trustees should be encouraging each other and senior staff to be forward-thinking, open to new ideas, and willing to take calculated risks.
• Charities should remain vigilant of the environment it is operating in and incorporate emerging trends and developments into its planning.

This is another area in which we really see how important diversity is to an organisation. The charity sector is evolving rapidly, and resilience means being willing to experiment, fail, and try again.

Collaborations and Partnerships

Resilience can be enhanced through collaboration. Forming partnerships with other organisations can expand beneficiary reach, share risks, and open new funding streams to the charity. Not only this, but outsourcing functions such finance, IT systems can help to improve and streamline the governance of your charity.

A lot of charities are put off by collaborating or merging with another charity because they think there are too many legal barriers, or it would be too expensive; but this is not always the case. The costs of exploring the possibility of a merger or collaboration are an acceptable use of charitable funds.

A detailed discussion on the benefits of collaborations and partnerships is one for another day, however there are some key points that charity trustees should be aware of. In particular trustees, should satisfy themselves that any collaboration is in the best interests of the charity and will provide benefits to their beneficiaries. Such benefits might include cost benefits, improvements to the quality of service and the charity’s reach. For now, the Charity Commission has guidance on these areas.

The resilience of your charity can be enhanced by a culture of continuous adaptability and improvement. If this is a new concept for your charity, here are a few ideas to get you started:

• identify training needs and set up learning programs for your board and staff;
• attend sector conferences and share your learning with fellow trustees;
• regularly review your projects for areas of growth or improvement;
• host a workshop or focus group with key stakeholders to receive feedback in areas where you can make changes.

We have reached the end of Trustees’ Week 2024 and we hope it’s been a positive one for you.

Charities continue to face pressures: rising demand on their services, increased costs, and the risk of declining donations. Trustees are often our biggest unsung heroes but here at Geldards we see your hard-work, passion and commitment.

If you would like to discuss any of this week’s insights, please contact the Charities Team.