National Trustees Week - Guest Blog by Simon Elliott
From Monday November 2nd it’s National Trustees week – and it’s good to take some time each year to reflect on Trustees. There are about one million charity Trustees in the UK, providing governance to organisations which, by some estimates, contribute £200 Billion of economic value each year. They support, scrutinise and challenge Executives who provide the operational leadership to organisations which touch virtually every aspect of our lives – from hospices to faith communities to youth groups, from theatres to refugee support to food banks. And many of those charities employ people and/or harness the skill of volunteers to make meaningful difference to the people in society who are in most need.
Trustees are not more important than front line workers, fundraisers or managers in the sector. They play their own equally important and unique role – to fulfil the requirements of the law to ensure appropriate scrutiny of charities, to ask the necessary questions and also to bring their life experience skills, expertise or networks to help the charity progress. Their work is often not visible to the general public and indeed may not be known about in any detail by people working or volunteering in the charity, but they give hours and hours of their time on a regular basis and virtually all Trustee positions are unpaid. They do it because they believe in what they’re doing and they want to help.
They bring voices to governance from the breadth of the community to ensure that charities are truly representative of the society we live in. Progress has been made towards Trustee Boards that are more representative and more progress has to be made.
And as we all know in 2020, the need that society has for the voluntary sector is greater than ever. The devastating impact of COVID-19 hurts the poorest and most vulnerable disproportionally and Chief Executives have worked throughout the last 8 months with their Trustee Boards to reimagine and redesign their charities and together formulated plans and tactics over zoom meetings.
So in this Trustees week, I’d like to invite everyone within the voluntary sector or who benefits from the role that Trustees play (which is pretty much everyone!) to do 3 things:
First, imagine that Trustees didn’t exist. The sector simply could not function and so much of the society we depend on or take for granted would vanish. And that £200 Billion of economic value each year wouldn’t be there either.
Second, if you’re not a Trustee, please think about becoming one. It’s hard to fill Trustee positions – and we have to make more progress to ensure Boards are representative.
Third, thank a Trustee this week! They will be someone who works hard, unpaid, to help the sector help others. And they do what they do not for credit or praise or to be thanked, but everyone likes a ‘thank you’ every now and again!
To close, I want to take this opportunity to offer my thanks. It is a huge honour to be a Trustee and I am proud of the many I know who work tirelessly to make lives better.
Thank you, one and all.
Simon Elliott
Chair of Trustees of Connected Voice
Chair of Trustees of Northern Stage
