Trustees’ Week 2025 Day 2 - Recruiting Trustees & Board Considerations

Welcome to day 2! Today we are looking at trustee recruitment.

A diverse board with a wide range of skills, experience and perspectives bolsters a charity’s resilience and governance and gives it the best chance of fulfilling its purposes into the future.

Considerations for new trustees

Regularly exploring what your charity needs from its trustee board (called a “skills audit”) can help you to identify the skills, experience and knowledge that you already have and identify any gaps that you need to recruit for.

The audit may reveal a lack knowledge or experience of your charity’s field of work, or a need for particular skills. The charity may benefit from more knowledge or experience of the people, communities or local areas that your charity serves, or personal or first-hand experience of the cause your charity works on. The focus should be on creating a balanced trustee board who, together, can run your charity effectively.

So, what does board diversity look like? Well, we see this as having trustees from a variety of backgrounds, bringing different experiences, perspectives, and demographics.

• Demographic Diversity: differences in age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability status.
• Professional and Expertise Diversity: having a wide range of professional backgrounds and expertise to the table, such as legal, financial, marketing, healthcare, or technology expertise.
• Geographic Diversity: this is especially important for charities that serve a broad area. Trustees from different locations may have a better understanding of regional needs and challenges.
• Socioeconomic Diversity: where a board has trustees that are predominantly from higher income households, they may benefit from the views of someone from a different socioeconomic background.
• Cultural and Religious Diversity: this can aid in understanding and respecting the different values, beliefs, and practices of the communities served by the charity.

How to Recruit

Your charity may be looking for one or more new trustees because you have:

• vacancies now, or expect to have vacancies soon
• decided to increase trustee numbers to help run your charity
• decided that your trustee board needs some specific skills or experience
• recently set up as a charity

The first step should be reviewing your charity’s governing document to understand the process for appointing new trustees, and also provisions around trustee terms of office and decision-making. You must follow what your governing document says about who can appoint trustees and the process for doing so. Failure to comply could lead to trustee disputes and invalid decisions. Please take advice if you need.

When advertising for a trustee vacancy, it is a good idea to cast a wide net. This will widen the pool of potential applicants. Try not to rely too much on word of mouth or personal connections when considering potential applicants. Instead, consider using local or specialist publications or social media. Why not consult specialist volunteer recruitment organisations, such as the charity, Reach? Remember, you are looking for the candidate most suited to the role, not the quickest and most convenient appointment.

A role description for trustees will help with the recruitment and ensure that applicants fully understand what will be expected of the successful candidate. It will also assist you in assessing the suitability of a potential candidate for the role. The role description should set out trustee responsibilities and any specific skills, experience and qualities that the successful candidate should have. Also make clear your expectations of the trustee. For example, how much time they will need to dedicate to the charity and the length of term they will be expected to serve.

Post-appointment considerations

A suitable induction process for new trustees will ensure that they have the information and support they need to help run your charity effectively and confidently.

You should prepare an information pack for new trustees, which includes (as a minimum):

• your charity’s governing document
• its latest annual report and accounts
• its latest management accounts and budgets
• minutes of recent trustee meetings
• key policies e.g. safeguarding, expenses, conflicts of interest, social media and internal financial controls
• any current business plan or strategy
• links to the Commission’s guidance about the key responsibilities of a charity trustee e.g. CC3 The Essential Trustee
• anything else that the governing document mentions in relation to trustee induction

Reassure your trustees that they can request further information and provide specific training if necessary. Our trustee training session is a great for new trustees and is also a useful refresher session for seasoned trustees!