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Charity trustee recruitment can be challenging and, if you use a trustee recruitment agency, expensive. but it doesn't have to be. Here's how to find trustees for a charity - everything you need, including organisations who will help you in recruiting trustees for your charity, for free.
Ensure your trustee recruitment adverts are in clear, simple English and include the time commitment and length of appointment. For under-represented groups, think about barriers to joining as a trustee that may exist for them and be clear how you will deal with these. For example, some people may not think they will be listened to, or have the board level skills they might think they need and some may need financial support. Make clear how much their input would be valued and that support will be available, such as an induction programme, development opportunities, mentoring and paying expenses. And not everyone has a CV, so perhaps application by letter, without asking for a CV, and leave it to the applicant to attach one, or not. You can explore the detail at interview.
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The first step is to carry out a trustee skills and diversity review of your board. Really effective boards have both the professional skills needed and are diverse. However, to be effective, most boards should usually be no more than about a dozen trustees. Just recruiting whoever's available isn't usually a good idea, yet that's what very many charities still do. The fact that trusteeship is a volunteer role, doesn't remove the obligation to recruit on an equal opportunities basis, diverse boards are more effective and doing so is most likely to source the best candidate.
To engage people, use the communications channels that will reach them, talk about what is important to them and in their language. For those who may not be online, posters/flyers in your facilities, or local shops and libraries etc can work well. For those who are, you can use your social media, website and e newsletters. Trustees or other supporters may work for major companies, or belong to professional, or other networks and may be able to use these to advertise your role.
However, that's still a very limited pool, so always advertise more widely. Fortunately, there are some fantastic charities working hard to support you, by not only posting roles, but also providing great resources too, and it's free.
Or, you could post your role on Twitter, using the Trusteeship Matters account (@TrusteeshipM).
There are also other organisations that can help you to find charity trustees for specialist roles.
Login to Help Finder and search using the Support Bodies & Regulators search, or search for everyone that will help with volunteering for free, including corporates, using the Volunteering search category. It searches its 300+ providers, including using your location details.
And, don't forget that volunteer roles can be posted for free on some job boards, such as Charity Job and TPP, a charity sector recruitment agency.
Many of the charity sector recruitment agencies can help with sourcing trustee candidates. This has the benefit of engaging recruitment professionals and also in tapping into their networks, but obviously costs money. And there is no end of useful guidance, from finding new trustees, to eligibility, recruitment, induction and selection to beneficiaries and young people on boards to finding digital trustees.
Appoint the candidate who most closely fits your requirements and will be able to contribute most as a trustee, always. Being a charity trustee should be fun, but it's not a game.
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Plus, 100+downloadable funder lists, 40+ policies, 8 online health checks and the huge resource base.
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To access help and resources on anything to do with running a charity, including funding, click the AI Bunny icon in the bottom right of your screen and ask it short questions, including key words. Register, then login and the in-system AI Bunny is able to write funding bids and download 40+ charity policy templates as well.
