A simple explanation of the Charity Commission CC3 essential guidance on trustee roles and responsibilities. Your chair and trustee board ultimately make all the key decisions, but may not be around very often, so this guide also includes how to increase charity trustee board engagement and participation.
Charity Trustee Roles And Responsibilities. Charity Commission CC3 (The Essential Trustee: What's Involved) is key guidance that all charity trustees must be aware of - their role and duties. Trustee chairs and boards have 6 main responsibilities:
What Do Trustees Need To Know?
How Do We Do All That? No one would reasonably expect a charity trustee to have the specialist expertise of a finance professional or lawyer (unless you are one), but anyone can (and should) ask, is the budget on track, what are the key risks or are we confident we're meeting our legal obligations and keeping people safe? If the answer is no, or we're not sure, then ask, what is the Board going to do about that?
Charity Excellence enables trustee boards to ask all the question they need to, including the ones you don't yet know about, and connects you to the relevant guidance, resources and people to help you.
All charities are required to comply with variety specific law and regulations, including the Charities Act, Trustee Act and the Charities (Protection & Social Investment) Act. Accounting requirements are detailed in the Statement Of Recommended Accounting Practice (SORP). Additionally, they are also subject to the same laws as other organisations, and regulation by regulators, in addition to the Charity Commission, including the HSE (health and safety), ICO (data protection) and, for some, a regulator specific to their role.
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Many charities are in serious financial difficulties, yet only 50% of trustees actively support fundraising.
Charity Commission guidance (CC20) makes clear that fundraising is a board responsibility. It lays out 6 key principles – a very good starting point.
Many also feel uncomfortable about ‘asking for money’ or may not be able to donate a substantive amount themselves. However, there are so many ways in which trustees can support fundraising, that there’s something for everyone. The key is to find out which ones work for them and then help them do so.
This CEF resource gives you 20+ ways to enagage trustees in fundraising.
Some charity trustees see their role as turning up to 4 meetings a year, but engaged trustees do a lot more than that, so ensure you recruit good ones. It's a challenge, so here’s a CEF resource on how to do it well, with links to resources and organisations who will help you.
Make expectations clear in your adverts and during the recruitment process. That's not about being demanding, but being open and honest with people about what you're asking them to do. When interviewing, always ask how he/she feels they could best contribute, so you can make sure that how you engage with them, works for them and you.
Include in your trustee application form, space to complete details of their networks and also how to join your social media platforms.
They should meet not only the chair/CEO, but should also be introduced to others on the team to build a relationship from the outset. If they bring expertise in a particular area, such as finance or marketing, ensure they meet those who lead on these activities.
And, that they receive your events/activities diary, so they can come along, if they wish to.
Why not create a simple trustee board engagement plan/diary? Some ideas:
• Include an events/activities diary in the board pack and, better still, include it as an agenda item.
• Or send them invites to events.
• Make a point of thanking those who attend these and explain how their doing so has helped you.
• E Mail your social media links to the Board once or twice a year, asking them to join you, like and share.
• Like and share their own posts about your work.
• At New Year resolution time, send out a list of ideas for them.
• And, when the board carry out a skills audit (annually), include in this an audit of their networks.
Whatever you do, to make it work well, it’s important that the Chair leads by example and encourages other trustees to be engaged and paricipate.
Some reasons to give them:
• Their contribution has a direct impact in helping you to achieve more.
• It helps motivate staff/volunteers and builds trust and confidence in the trustee Board.
• It helps trustees gain a better understanding of your charity, to help them in their role.
• It enables them to keep up-to-date on what’s happening, rather than taking up time at infrequent board meetings.
• It’s fun!
Charity Trustee Boards usually meet 3 or 4 times a year for about 2 hours. That’s about 12 hours a year to do everything, yet too often trustees are given large paper pack-ups, sometimes with little notice and that not everyone can necessarily understand.
Write your reports like a funding bid. Succinct, understandable, focus on the key issues and action being taken, be emotionally engaging and issue these in good time to give busy people the opportunity to read and consider them properly. Here’s a guide on how to make your reports impactful and less work.
As part of this, when someone achieves something above and beyond, make sure the Board hear about it and record their thanks in the minutes, so you can tell the individual(s) involved. We don’t say thank you nearly often enough, and it helps them appreciate the work of staff/volunteers and see them as individuals. And, thank the Board too, when they help you.
Better still, invite more junior staff to present to the board. It’s good experience for them and their knowledge, passion and commitment usually has real impact in bringing your work to life for trustees.
Social media has exploded, but only in the last 5 years, so many trustees still make relatively little use of it. Any board that doesn't 'get' social media, doesn't have the skills it needs.
Making them aware of your platforms on joining and from time-to-time is a good first step, but often people don’t know how to use them. Holding a fun training event for trustees with staff/volunteers, showing them your work and how to download the apps onto their phones can work really well and also helps them to engage more with the staff/volunteers.
Alternatively, having reverse mentors, where younger staff/volunteers are paired with trustees, to help them learn can also work really well.
And having a trustee digital champion, or communications lead, would give you an ally on the Board, to help you to continue to grow that engagement.
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