Trustees are not like staff in several important ways. Trusteeship is more than just about being a volunteer leader, too. So here is the second part of my list of ways that trustee boards’ work is different (find the first part here).
7. Differences in demographics and outlook
Chairs (and probably trustees) are not like the population of the UK as a whole. Chairs are typically older, more often retired, predominantly white, less frequently disabled, and more likely to hold master’s degrees or PhDs.
This is not good. There is no inherent reason why trustees should be different from the population as a whole.
Each and every board needs to work hard to make sure it represents those it exists to serve, and those who can add to its working. It’s all too relatively easy to get trustees who are older, whiter, and highly educated. A board needs to work hard to take the harder route of finding a diversity of trustees in demographics and outlook.
8. A deficit of meritocracy
The recruitment process for a charity CEO should lead to the best candidate getting the job. Most recruitment process for charity CEOs are now open and transparent.
Many recruitment processes for trustees, and in turn Chairs, don’t get the same outcome of the best possible candidate. This is for two reasons. Firstly because many charities still don’t use a transparent and open recruitment process to recruit their trustees. And second, the best candidates may not be able to apply because of constraints on their time, or their ability to do a job for several days a month, without any pay.
9. A surplus of orthodoxy and a resulting lack of diversity
In my experience the charity sector can apply an orthodoxy, a belief there is a way to do things, to its governance: Trustees do strategy, staff do operations. You must have a finance committee. A board needs a lawyer. This orthodoxy has resulted in lawyers and accountants getting very involved in charity governance – treating a charity board as if it were a set of accounts or a legal contract.
Having only one way of doing things can mean less diversity of thinking and approach and trustees.
10. The inverse trustee relationship between skills and time
A CEO said to me a few years ago: ‘I have two types of trustee: the ones who have the skills, don’t have the time; the ones who have the time, don’t have the skills.’ Those with the time turned up to meetings, made decisions, even if they didn’t have the skills or insight to make the right decisions. This imbalance can lead to boards being dominated by enthusiastic volunteers, rather than those with detailed knowledge. Boards need to manage this balance – trustees should bring real diversity – not become homogeneous or led by those who just have time or just have expert knowledge.
11. A role defined by numbers
Most trustee boards say they have a fixed number of members. But while a football team has a fixed number of members too, the players all have a clear role. A charity board might have 12 members, but it’s far from clear what all of their roles are. This means that one person on a charity board can put in ten times the hours of another and nobody seems to mind. There are good reasons why a board has a defined number of people – it’s part of the role of the Chair, CEO and colleagues to make sure that all of that any number of trustees are put to good use.
12. Nobody’s paid
Well, this is the feature of trustee boards that I started with. It’s also one of the more easily identifiable reasons why trustees are not like staff.
Some regard the failure to pay trustees as a hallmark of what makes charities special, and others see it as an anachronism – an example of how charities are failing to modernise or compete with other non-profit boards like NHS trusts or public bodies.
Either way, the lack of payment is important, because it makes it harder to force people to come to meetings or to take up their responsibilities. Payment means a clear agreement, and ability to take sanctions on poor performers. The challenge of unpaid trustees is how to have the sanction without the payment.
Part 1 of this blog can be read here.
